Burma

“ The Indian Government is disposed to make the rich province of Burma an outlet for the congested populations of some of the provinces of India, and the great steamer companies are accomplishing this by conveying many hundreds of natives every week from the Indian ports to Rangoon, thereby enriching themselves, enriching Burma, and giving to these people a sphere and a chance in life, where their humble energies may receive their due reward. It is in manifold ways like this that civilisation and a firm and enlightened rule bestow such blessings on these teeming Oriental populations. ”

“ The conviction that a tour through Burma must leave in the minds of most Europeans is that the country is to be congratulated on its people and that the people are to be equally congratulated on their country. That Burma itself is one of the fairest of lands, every traveller can see for himself; and so far as I could judge from my333 own short experience and from what was told me by sympathetic British residents, the Burmese are perhaps the most cheerful, generous and hospitable, and on the whole the most attractive people in Asia. ”

“ Burma is, as I have endeavoured to show, one of the most valuable possessions of the British Crown, and as time goes on it will become more and more valuable. As it is it pays its own way, and costs us nothing to retain, and is, for this reason alone, a source of strength to the Empire, and not of weakness. ”

“ As you will see, Burma lies on the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal, just north of the Malay Peninsula, joining Siam and China on the one side and the Indian provinces of Assam and Manipur on the other, while from an unknown source in the heart of Thibet its great river, the Irrawaddy, flows throughout the entire length of the country, and through Rangoon, the seaport at its mouth, forming the great highway for commerce and communication between the world at large and its little-known interior. ”

“ The conquest of Upper Burma reunited the severed fragments. Once more Burma became a solid country, the Burmese a nation under one undivided control; and as such it began a career of almost unexampled prosperity. Although there are differences and distinctions between the two sections, due to the varied course of their past history, Burma now forms one Province, and every part shares in the fortunes of [Pg 143] the whole. The annexation did far more than this. It restored peace and order to a distracted people, and secured to every man the free enjoyment of the fruits of his labours. ”

“ We must remember that the civilisation of Burma is older than that of England, and should not be angry when the people there smile at those of us who are simple enough to suppose ourselves anything better than an expensive nuisance. ”

“ I have endeavoured to draw as faithful and accurate a picture as possible of the country and people, and I have tried to show, from the standpoint of a sympathetic but impartial witness, what the annexation of an Oriental country like Burma really means, what are its immediate results, and what are the many strong points and the few weak points in our rule. ”

“ The versatile traveller who "does Burma" in the course of his round-the-world tour, and fills a notebook with comments on the character of the Burmese as a result of what he hears at the dinner-tables of Rangoon, would do well to exercise caution before he gives his notebook to the world. Do not some of us in China well know how prone the tourist is to echo the too-often ignorant and one-sided views about the Chinese that he may have heard expressed in the clubs and drawing-rooms of Hongkong and Shanghai? It seems that the situation in Burma is not dissimilar. ”

“ Nowhere else in Burma can the people be better studied than here, all classes being represented, and it may be interesting if I describe them more closely. Like their neighbours of Siam and China, the Burmese are Mongolian in type, but, without so pronounced a cheekbone and slanting eye as the Chinese, are more pleasing in appearance. Indeed, the men are often handsome, and among the women and young girls I have seen many of extreme beauty. While the men are often sallow, the women are generally more ruddy in complexion, and all have hair of an almost purple blackness. ”

“ Apart from the value to the Empire of a province possessing the resources and natural wealth of Burma, it may be confidently asserted that British rule in Burma has been of the greatest advantage to the province. We found anarchy, and we have established order. The country has been brought under settled administration, the happiness and contentment of the people have been secured, and the country has been opened out and developed with great rapidity. ”

“ The vastness of these heathen populations, their appalling needs, together with their infinite possibilities, have dawned upon me as never before. Burma has sixty millions of people. It is a most fruitful land, never visited by the famines which ravage India proper, the land west of the Bay of Bengal. It enshrines a religion which, with all its ignorance and superstition, is more free from gross immorality than that which prevails on the other side of the bay. Its people are the most heterogeneous of any upon earth. ”

“ Not only is there a need for more knowledge of the countries and races we govern, there is also a demand for it. The events of recent years, especially those resulting from the annexation of King Theebaw’s country, have drawn Burma into much closer touch with England; and many people, by no means ignorant of Burma before, now feel a much deeper interest than formerly in all that pertains to that interesting country, whose destinies are henceforth so intimately bound up with our own. ”

“ Of the forty or more different races and tribes dwelling in Burma and on its frontiers, the Burmans are the leading race: first, in point of numbers, for they far exceed any of the others; also as regards position and advantages, for they naturally, as the leading race, have come to occupy all the best and most fertile soil, all the tracts of country lying between the great mountain ranges, the valleys of the Irrawaddy and the Chindwin rivers ”

“ People who speak and write of Burma as a rule get their impressions from the most highly developed, and therefore most easily accessible, deltaic region and Irrawaddy valley. But the land of plains and swamps is but a fraction of Burma which is mainly a country of rugged hills and mountains. ”

“ It is undoubtedly a blessing for Burma that such a rule, so hopelessly corrupt and demoralising to the nation, so incompetent to keep order, and so determinedly Oriental, conservative and out of date, has become a thing of the past. ”

“ The Burman’s robust bullocks, nourished on their mothers’ milk, contrast pleasingly with the lean kine of the Indian. You will even see a pious Burman save a deadly snake from destruction, and set it loose in a place of security. ”

“ It ought to be the aim of every Christian amongst us to purge it of everything detrimental, and to make it all it should be. The responsibilities laid upon us as a people in this respect are very great.
That Burma is destined to play an important part in the development and civilisation of the far East, there can be little doubt, now that our frontier is brought up to the confines of China, and that a railway is to be constructed from Mandalay through the northern Shan States, that will bring us within measurable distance of the great “Celestial Empire.” ”

“ Taxes and land revenue are light; markets for the disposal of produce are constant and prices good; while fresh land is still available in most districts. Compared with the congested districts in the other provinces of India, with the exception of Assam, the lot of the Burman is decidedly enviable.
Forests.—-The forests of Burma are the finest in British India and one of the chief assets of the wealth of the country; it is from Burma that the world draws its main supply of teak for shipbuilding, and indeed it was the demand for teak that largely led to the annexation of Burma. ”

“ Much depends on the comfort in which one lives. The very bad name which Burma no doubt has acquired is due to a great extent to the rapid succession of the three Burmese Wars. After each of these wars, troops, military and civil officers, and police suffered many hardships and privations, bivouacking under the stars, and often irregularly fed. In these conditions sickness ensued, and much mortality and invaliding. For people properly housed and assured of a square meal at the right time, Burma is healthy enough. ”

“ Only five years before, the Burmese king reigned in the palace. Suddenly all Mandalay was in a ferment of dread. English war boats had touched the strand, and British soldiers were marching through the streets, to take the city and capture King Theebaw. Only last year the crack of our rifles was heard in many parts of the country, and even as I write British troops are marching out of the city to take part in fresh expeditions on the frontiers. Burma is not the settled country it will be ten years hence, nor has there yet been time for the people of the conquered land to trust us implicitly. ”

“ The reason of it lies in his past history, his environment and education.
When we took Upper Burma it was hardly an organised nation at all. It was only a mass of villagers which acknowledged a king over all. There was no national army—because no need for one—and no large industries. The Burman has been a free man and he has the religion—or want of religion—of a free man. He has never had priests to rule him, to force on him reverence and obedience as virtues, to destroy his individuality. ”

“ We depend very much upon Indians for the supplying of our wants in Burma. The butcher, the baker, the washerman, the cook, the railway porter, the writer, the messenger, the soldier, the cabman, the postman, the farrier, the sweetmeat vendor, the sweeper, are in almost all instances natives of India, for the easy-going Burman lets all these employments slip past him. ”

“ British rule would have nothing to justify its presence in such a country as Burma if it did not evidently make for the well-being of the people. In this chapter we have to consider the initiation of those measures that have been adopted with this view, and to ascertain how far they are likely to secure it. Five years is not a period of time from which much can be expected by way of results, but it is long enough for us to form an estimate of the kind of beginning that has been made. ”

“ INTOXICANTS IN BURMA—THE LIQUOR QUESTION.
We have seen how much there is to admire and to be proud of in the capacity and skill of our nation as the great ruling power in India. One cannot have dwelt in Upper Burma during the last few years without observing how sincerely our rulers have sought the welfare of the people, and how ably they have secured it. ”

“ Burma forms the western part of a great peninsula, and stretching out southward from it is a long arm, the shape of an Indian club, narrower in the neck and broadening out, to run up finally to a point. Alongside of the broadest part is the great island of Sumatra, belonging to the Dutch, who are our principal rivals in this region of the world. ”

“ In many European houses—perhaps in Lower Burma the great majority—there is not a single Burman servant, all the duties of cook, coolie, table-servant and valet being discharged by suave, noiseless and obedient natives of India. ”

“ Most of the other indigenous races of Burma, as we have seen, are demon worshippers, uncivilised, without a written language, and with many and wide diversities from the Burmans. The Burmans, however, have an ancient civilisation, an elaborate religious system, a philosophy and a literature, and with regard to the arts, handicrafts and conveniences of ordinary life, are quite on a par with the Hindus. ”

“ The gain to civilization by our occupation of Burma is something that we may justly take credit for, and we may confidently assert that our conquest of Burma has not been wholly selfish. We were certainly actuated in some measure by a desire to introduce order and good government in a country adjacent to our own each time that we declared war against Burma, and we have certainly attained that result. ”

“ But the greater part of this country is a mass of rugged hills cut deep with narrow gorges, within which even the biggest rivers are confined. The second tract is that known as the dry zone of Burma, and includes the whole of the lowlands lying between the Arakan Yomas and the western fringe of the Southern Shan States. It stretches along both sides of the Irrawaddy from the north of Mandalay to Thayetmyo, and embraces the Lower Chindwin, Shwebo, Sagaing, Mandalay, Kyauksè, Meiktila, Yamèthin, Myingyan, Magwe, Pakôkku and Minbu districts. ”

“ The Burman is always delightfully natural, and seems to live in the open daylight. At the doorstep of one house are mother and daughter, busy sewing up cloth, their red lacquer box of sewing materials between them. At another a dainty housewife entertains her guests at tea, for tea is now largely drunk in Burma. ”

“ Instead of doing so I will content myself with recommending the reader who is interested in Burma but cannot visit it to read and read again the books that have been written by such well-informed and sympathetic writers as Sir George Scott, Mr Fielding Hall and Mr Scott O'Connor. It is satisfactory to know from one of these writers that the Burmese are by no means likely to be crowded out of their own country by such vigorous workers as the Madrasis and Chinese. The immigration of these people enriches the Burman instead of impoverishing him. ”

“ The Shan States occupy the whole of the eastern side of Upper Burma, and border on French Indo-China, China, and Siam. It is sometimes erroneously supposed that they are independent or semi-independent States, on the same footing as native States in India. From Theinni in the north to Mobye in the south, from the Myelat in the west to Kyaingtôn in the far east, these States were an integral part of the Burmese kingdom, over which the Burmese assertion of sovereignty was never abandoned or successfully resisted. ”