FOOTNOTE:

[25] "Long notorious for the ill-repute of its inhabitants." See Burma Gazetteer, vol. i., p. 258.

CHAPTER X
MILITARY REPLACED BY POLICE

The beginning of 1888 saw the civil administration in a position to wage a systematic campaign against all disturbers of the peace.

Lower Burma had been reduced almost to its normal condition. The late Mr. Todd Naylor in the Tharrawaddy district had thoroughly extirpated the gangs which had troubled it and brought it to a state of quiet which it had not enjoyed for a very long time.

The disarmament of the whole province had been systematically taken in hand; the Village Regulation had become law, the military police had been organized and now numbered 17,880 men. The whole conditions had been changed. At the beginning of the year (1887) the troops had held one hundred and forty-two posts and the police fifty posts. At the end of the year the police held one hundred and seventy-five, and the troops eighty-four. The concentration of the troops in a few principal stations, left the work of destroying the remaining gangs to the military police, who were frequently engaged in action with dacoits. There were a few petty disasters at first. Nothing else was or could have been expected of partially trained men scattered about in small posts. There were only three serious cases in 1888. In one case, in distinct contravention of my orders, a small picket of ten men had been put out on the edge of a forest in a small house or shed without even a bamboo stockade. The picket was two miles from a military police post. The Burmans set fire to a cooking shed and volleyed the police by the aid of the firelight. Seven men fell to the first two volleys and only two were unwounded. These men behaved gallantly and kept the dacoits at bay until aid came from the post.

In another case and in another district a patrol of one jemadar and eleven sepoys was ambushed. The jemadar and nine of the men were killed and one man badly wounded and left for dead. The remaining man with the aid of two Burmans reached the nearest post. A party was sent out and the wounded man picked up.

The third disaster was in the Magwè district, where thirty men under an English Inspector met a large body of dacoits and were forced to retreat losing seven killed and two wounded. Six Snider rifles and two ponies were captured by the dacoits. This was an unfortunate affair for which the men were not responsible. It gave the Magwè dacoits fresh spirit.

To the responsible head of the administration the year 1888 was one of much anxiety. The troops were vacating numerous outposts held by them and they were being replaced by police fresh from India, and most of them imperfectly trained. The dacoits had learned to fear the soldiers, and the presence of a large body of men with numerous outlying detachments under military discipline and keeping touch with each other, kept districts which had all the elements of disorder and were perhaps in fact dominated by dacoit leaders in apparent tranquillity. Sagaing was a notable instance of this. The district was covered with posts, but the soldiers hardly saw a dacoit, and consequently no progress was made in breaking up what was a strongly organized combination against our rule.

The troops, moreover, had learned their work; they were led by trained and zealous officers, who had acquired in many cases a minute knowledge of localities which was lost with them. The military police, on the other hand, were new to the country and the work, and seldom had the advantage of being led by trained British officers. The effect of the change began to be felt towards the end of 1887, and the beginning of 1888—that is to say, in the season of the year when life in the forest is dry and pleasant, the favourite time for the pastime of dacoity. Hence there was no doubt a revival of disorder in some places, and the petty disasters which befell the military police were magnified and made much of by some correspondents who found it profitable to misrepresent everything connected with the administration of Burma.

The transition stage did not last long. The Indian police picked up their work with rapidity. No men could have learnt it quicker. They were constantly engaged with dacoits; they frequently followed up and inflicted punishment on them and recovered property without loss to themselves. The few mistakes were seized upon and magnified while the successes vastly greater in number were not noticed.

In the first orders regarding the military police the minimum garrison of a post was fixed at twenty-five men. This was found to be too weak and was raised to forty, and the minimum strength of a patrol was fixed at ten. I found it necessary to forbid any new post to be established without my sanction and to lay down the strength of the movable column to be maintained in each district. The local officers seemed unable to refrain from putting out posts until there was not a man left at headquarters.

In April, 1888, the Viceroy asked me if I saw any sensible signs of the reduction of our troops and the substitution of the police encouraging the dacoits or loosening our hold on the country. After explaining that the districts where the dacoits were most active and organized there had been no reduction of troops, but, on the contrary, constant military activity under keen commanders, I wrote:—

"I have carefully watched events and thought over the matter, and my conclusion is that the dacoits know that the troops have retired and that the police move in small numbers and have taken advantage of the occasion. If this is allowed to go on they will get bolder and will give trouble.... I am inclined to sit tight and wait until the men have learnt their work. The native officers will learn the language and the country.... The commissioners and district officers like to cover their districts with a perfect network of posts at short distances from each other. If they were allowed their own way there would not be a man left to move about. Last August (1887) this was foreseen, and the strength of the movable column to be kept for active operations in each district was laid down, and orders have been given and have been enforced forbidding the formation of new posts without my sanction."

Lord Dufferin accepted my views, saying that he would not go into the various considerations which I had placed before him, "except to say that I fully appreciate the calmness and good sense with which you have discussed the matter. A more excitable man might have gone off at a tangent and have been frightened into measures which would certainly have been very expensive and might not have been necessary. I have taken the Commander-in-Chief into counsel, and after going fully and very carefully into the whole matter we are content to accept your views."

There was in point of fact no reason for anxiety. Week by week the police improved. The first combined movement attempted with military police was in the difficult Popa country where four small columns under Captain Hastings, Commandant of the Myingyan battalion, succeeded in running Ya Nyun's gang hard, but did not capture him. And in various encounters in this district alone the dacoit gangs loss amounted to: killed, 105; wounded and captured, 29; captured, 486. Eighteen ponies were taken, 316 firearms, and many dahs and spears.

The casualties of the military police in Upper Burma, during 1888, were 46 killed and 76 wounded, whilst the dacoits lost 312 killed (actually counted after action), and 721 captured. The casualties in the Army in Upper Burma between the 1st of May, 1887, and the 31st of March, 1889, were: killed or died of wounds 60, and wounded 142. (Par. 26 of the Despatch of Major-General Sir George White, K.C.B., V.C., late Commanding the Upper Burma Force. Dated Simla, July 6, 1889.) The police could not have been more active than the soldiers had been. They probably suffered more in proportion to their numbers owing to their inferior training. During the year 1888 the military police were in the field constantly in almost every district in the province.

It became evident that we had not a sufficient number of British officers; if a man fell sick or was wounded, there was no one to take his place. Sixteen additional officers were sanctioned for the police, but they did not arrive until after the close of the year. They added much to the strength and efficiency of the force.

On the whole, it became evident before the middle of 1888 that the police were getting a hold of the province and that no danger had been incurred by reducing the military garrison and bringing the troops into quarters. We had still to rely on the assistance of the soldiers in work that belonged more properly to the police.

Hence in Sagaing, Magwè, the Chindwin district, and some other places where the insurgents showed special activity, I was compelled in some cases to ask for aid. If it was sought unwillingly, it was given most readily by the Major-General commanding, and was invaluable. The civil administration was not yet able to stand alone. It was not so much the rank and file but the many British officers, keen and experienced, whose withdrawal was felt; for it will be remembered each police battalion had at the most two British officers, while very few districts had an area of less than three thousand square miles.

As an example of the invaluable aid rendered by the soldiers, two of the most noted leaders on the Ava side, Shwè Yan and Bo Tok, who had been the scourge of the country since the annexation, fell to parties of British Infantry. Bo Tok was killed by Mounted Infantry of the Rifle Brigade led by Major Sir Bartle Frere, and a few months later, Lieutenant Minogue, with some Mounted Infantry of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, ran down Shwè Yan. The deaths of these two men, who kept the borders of Ava, Myingyan, and Kyauksè in a ferment, enabled the civil power to bring this country into order in a short time.

The military police, however, took their full share of work. A man who had given endless trouble to the troops since the annexation and made his lair on the east side of the Kyauksè district was the Setkya leader. He was attacked by the Kyauksè military police under Captain Gastrell, Commandant of the Mandalay battalion, and his band dispersed. The Setkya escaped, but he was caught and delivered up by the Shan Sawbwa of Lawksawk. After his defeats on former occasions he had found a safe refuge in the Shan hills. The Shan leaders were now our loyal subjects, and the Setkya's career came to an end.

CHAPTER XI
BURMA BECOMES A FRONTIER PROVINCE

In another direction there was a still greater change than the substitution of police for troops. From being an isolated administration hardly able to look up from our own affairs, and obliged to work in detail, district by district, to establish a beginning of order, Burma was rapidly becoming a frontier province, with daily extending boundaries. I was occupied in this year with framing the administration of the Shan States, which had been visited by Mr. Hildebrand and Mr. Hugh Daly,[26] with our relations to Eastern Karenni, with the Trans-Salween States and the Siamese claims on that border. The distant region to the north of Bhamo had been occupied for the first time, and it was becoming evident that we should have to reckon with the Kachins in the north and north-east; while the eastern frontier of Upper Burma resting up against the great mass of mountains which stretch down from Manipur to the Bay of Bengal, was beginning to demand attention.

There had been hitherto no leisure and no need to give much thought to the tribes of Chins and others inhabiting these hills. It had been suggested at an early period that Burma should send a party through the Chin country to meet another from the Bengal side, with the design of opening up communication from east to west and making a through road.

I was opposed to this project, and besought the Viceroy to disallow it. I looked upon it as a certain way of rousing the Chins before we were ready to deal with them. A few days before the end of 1887 Lord Dufferin telegraphed his agreement with my view. In a letter which followed, he wrote: "When the idea was originally proposed, I allowed the matter to be taken in hand with some hesitation, as I felt that it would probably prove a premature endeavour, and I saw no special reason for embarking on luxurious enterprises of the kind while the main work on which we are engaged is still incomplete. For God's sake let us get Burma proper quiet before we stir up fresh chances of trouble and collision in outlying districts."

Of the wisdom of this doctrine there was no doubt. And no one could have been more anxious to avoid new difficulties than I was. The Chins, however, forced our hands, and before the rains of 1888 it was clear that it would be impossible to ignore them. It was foreseen from the first that the occupation of Upper Burma must bring us into conflict with half-savage or altogether savage tribes who occupied the mountains on three sides of the province; and no doubt when it was decided to annex the kingdom the responsible authorities had this matter in their minds.

From the first occupation of Mogaung the isolation of that post and the difficulty of reinforcing it, especially in the rains, was a source of disquiet. I had lost no time in asking that some mountain guns should be attached to the Mogaung battalion of military police, and that a survey for an extension of the railway to the north of the province should be undertaken. The guns were readily granted. To give life to the railway project several departments in India had to be persuaded, notably Finance and Public Works. When their consent had been obtained the Government of India had to move the Secretary of State to sanction the work and to grant the money for it. The survey was started in 1890, and some progress, which may be characterized without injustice as deliberate, had been made before I surrendered Burma to my successor in December of that year. The line to Myitkyina, three hundred and thirty-one miles, was opened in 1895.

These frontier matters have been dealt with in separate chapters of this book. They are referred to here to show the change which had come over the province. The area of administration was extending rapidly—more rapidly than our resources in men.

Before the end of 1888 the interior of the province ceased to give much cause for anxiety, although it cannot be described as altogether restful. Daylight had appeared in the districts of the Northern and Central Divisions, where the outlook had been darkest. And in some of the southern districts, Minbu and Myingyan (in which was now included Pagan), and in Pakokku, as well as in the whole of the Eastern Division, the disturbances had ceased or were confined to difficult forest tracks in which the remaining gangs had taken refuge.

The Magwè district, as it was now called (the township on the left bank of the river, which had before belonged to Minbu, had been transferred to the Taungdwingyi district, and the headquarters moved to the river town of Magwè), was a source of trouble and sorrow. Nothing seemed to succeed there. Sir Robert Low's warning that this would be the last stronghold of dacoity or organized resistance was justified by events.

The British public were becoming very weary of Burma and even of the abuse heaped upon the local government of the province. Tormented by the questions in Parliament, the Secretary of State would order us every now and then to report how we were getting on, like a child that has planted a flower and pulls it up occasionally to make sure that it is alive. Nevertheless those on the spot were not disheartened. The work had to be done, and all were determined to do it. Personally I had encouragement from every one in the province, civilian or soldier, for whose opinion I cared. Lord Dufferin's kindness and support were never wanting. He understood well the nature of the task. He was satisfied with the work done, and his confidence in our success was firm.

Writing to me on April 2, 1888, he expressed his satisfaction with our work and with what had been done, in terms which are too flattering to be repeated by me.

The constant recurrence of small encounters, small successes, and occasionally small disasters, was very wearisome at the time to all of us, and would be as fatiguing to the reader as to me to relate. I will give the history of some cases, which will be enough to explain how the province settled down. It will be remembered that the Village Regulation became law in October, 1887. It took some time to get the district officers, magistrates as well as police, to make themselves acquainted with it, and still longer to induce some of them to make use of its provisions.

In the summer of 1888 the country generally had improved much. Few of the big Bos, or leaders of gangs, were left. But in some districts there was not merely a system of brigandage; it was a system, a long-established system, of government by brigands. The attacks on villages, the murder and torture of headmen and their families, were not so much the symptoms of rebellion against our Government as of the efforts made by the brigands to crush the growing revolt against their tyranny.

Hence it came about that in districts where there was little activity on the part of British officers, and where the chief civil officer failed to get information, very little was heard of the dacoits, simply because the people were paying their tribute to the leaders, who did not need to use coercion.

Sagaing was one of the worst districts in this respect. It had been under the domination of brigands for years before Thebaw was dethroned. It was held by a score of dacoit leaders, who had a thousand men armed with guns at their call. Each had his own division, in and on which he and his men lived, leaving the villagers alone so long as they paid their dues, and punishing default or defection with a ruthless and savage cruelty that might have made a North American Indian in his worst time weep for human nature. It was brought home to us by hard facts that the question was whether the British Government, or what may be called the Bo Government, were to be masters. The people were, everything considered, wonderfully well off. They found our officers ready to accept their excuses and to remit taxation, or, at the worst, to enforce a mild process of distraint or detention against defaulters. On the other side were the Bos, with fire and sword, and worse if their demands were refused or if aid in any form was given to the foreigners. If the people would have given us information, the dacoit system could have been broken up in a very short time. As they would not, the only course open was to make them fear us more than the dacoits.

In Sagaing no measures hitherto taken had made any visible improvement. Persuasion had been tried. The display of a strong military force occupying the country in numerous posts had no effect. The soldiers seldom saw or heard of a dacoit. The experiment was made of allowing influential local Burman officials to raise a force of armed Burman police on whom they could depend. This succeeded in some cases. But on the whole it failed. The Burmans gave up their guns to the first gang that came for them, or allowed them to be stolen. We could not afford to arm the enemy. I came to the conclusion that the Deputy Commissioner would never get his district into order.

Colonel Symons, working with Mr. Carter, had done very good service in reducing the troublesome country of Pagyi in the Lower Chindwin into order (see p. 85). I asked Sir George White to let me have Colonel Symons's help again. He readily agreed. I sent him, with Mr. Carter, to put Sagaing in order, giving Mr. Carter full powers under the Village Regulation and ample magisterial powers, but reserving the ordinary administrative work to the Deputy Commissioner. At the same time, Mr. Herbert Browning, Assistant Commissioner, was posted to the Ava subdivision to work with Captain Knox, of the 4th Hyderabad Cavalry.

The Sagaing military police battalion was placed under Colonel Symons's orders, and thus unity of command was assured.

Captain Raikes was at this time acting as Commissioner of the Central Division, in the absence of Mr. Fryer, who had taken leave. Captain Raikes was a man who knew Burma well, and was keen and energetic in his work. He came to the conclusion, and Colonel Symons agreed with him, that the severest pressure must be put on the villagers.

A great obstacle in our way was, as has been said, the refusal of the villagers to assist us. But an equal obstacle was their zeal in giving assistance and information to the brigands. The powers of the Village Regulation had been used elsewhere, under my instructions, to remove persons who gave assistance in any way to the dacoits, and with excellent effect. The proposals now made to me by Colonel Symons and Captain Raikes went beyond anything hitherto done. They represented that so long as the relatives and sympathisers of the brigands remained in their villages, no progress was possible. The gangs would be fed and furnished with immediate news of the movements of police or troops, while no assistance would be given to us. The people themselves told our officers that they could not help us. If they did, the dacoits' relatives informed against them and their lives were taken. Hardly a day passed without some murder of this kind.

It was proposed, therefore, to issue a proclamation to all villages believed to be in league with the dacoits, informing them that unless the men belonging to the village who were out dacoiting surrendered within a fixed time, all their relations and sympathisers would be ordered to leave the village and would be removed to some distant place out of reach of communication. At first the people thought this was a mere threat, and little notice was taken of it. When they found that it was to be enforced, and that the relations and friends were actually being deported, the effect was magical. Concurrently with this action the dacoit gangs were hunted incessantly from jungle to jungle and village to village, and severe fines were imposed on villages which harboured the outlaws or withheld information regarding their movements.

The results were better than I had dared to hope. Many dacoits surrendered in order to save their people from being removed. The villagers came forward with information, and put police and soldiers on to the tracks of the gangs. Small parties of dacoits could no longer move about without danger of being attacked and captured by the people they had preyed upon so long. Whole bodies of men came in and surrendered with their arms. At the end of 1888 few members of the Sagaing gangs were at large, and the district was reduced to order. In Ava the success was similar; and the districts of Yeu Shwèbo and the Lower Chindwin had likewise benefited from Colonel Symons's labours.

The credit of devising this system is due to Colonel Raikes. I hesitated at first to go as far as he advised. There were obvious reasons against moving people in this manner; but, if it was easy to see objections to it, it was very difficult to devise a milder measure that would be successful. It proved the most effective weapon in our battery for the restoration of peace and order. The people, of course, felt the pressure of these coercive measures. It was intended that they should feel it. One of the most notorious leaders in the Sagaing Division, Min O, after his capture, declared the fining under the Village Regulation had ruined him, because the villagers, finding themselves unable to meet both the Government demands and his, and finding that the Government could enforce payment while he no longer could, turned upon him and refused to give him asylum. The moving and grouping of villages made it difficult for the gangs to get food, and compelled them to disband or surrender.

The Gazetteer of Burma, in the article on Sagaing (vol. ii., p. 188), published in 1908, records that "the strict observance of the Village Regulation ... gradually led to the pacification of the country. By the end of 1888 no less than twenty-six dacoit leaders, including Shwè Yan, had been killed and twenty-six captured, and most of their followers had come in and were disarmed. Since that time the district has given no trouble."