It is impossible to read this brief account without doing homage to the well-considered audacity of Mr. Scott's action, which ended once for all any inclination on the part of Kengtung to resist the British Government.
During the next few days the terms of the Sawbwa's patent of investiture were finally arranged. In his leisure time a wealth of information regarding the province and its wonderful variety of races was acquired by Mr. Scott, which it is regretted for the reader's sake cannot be given here.
On the 29th of March, three days before the time fixed for leaving Kengtung, a Durbar was held for the purpose of formally presenting the chief with his patent of appointment. It was attended by all the officials connected with the Kengtung State. The only foreigners present were the princely wooer from Keng Hkam and the brother-in-law of the Möngnai Sawbwa. But so large is the area of the State that the assemblage was as numerous as if it had been a general Durbar of the Shan States at Fort Stedman. Mr. Scott improved the occasion by impressing on them that British supremacy meant peace and trade.
"As is usual with a speech in the Shan States, a running comment was kept up in different parts of the audience on the various points enumerated, and on the whole it seemed that their comprehension was satisfactory and their resolution praiseworthy. The ministers promised by the Sawbwa complete obedience to the Chief Commissioner in all matters connected with the State; and the Sawbwa himself was divided between admiration for the repeating carbine which he received as a present and a laudable desire to be amiable."
The party left Kengtung on their return journey on the 1st of April, and marched back by a southerly route through the four small States belonging to Möngpan, where some disputes had arisen which required Mr. Scott's orders. These questions were finally settled for the time at least at Möngpan, and Mr. Scott then returned to Fort Stedman, which he reached after an absence of six months, on the 6th of June, 1890. He had been away on this distant work all the open season of 1889-90. Although the Shan States in his immediate charge had not been visited by the Superintendent, there had been no trouble. The Sawbwas as well as the British administrators were putting aside warlike things, and devoting their energies to the things of peace. The Lawksawk chief had done us good service in 1899 by capturing the Setkya Mintha, a pretender who had been a nuisance since the annexation. In 1890 he broke up and captured most of the gang that followed a noted leader Kyaw Zaw. The growth of wheat and other crops occupied the minds of other Sawbwas, while the Chief Commissioner was devising a procedure code to guide the Shan rulers in administering the law. It was necessary to frame rules which should secure substantial justice and at the same time should not be beyond the powers of the Shan judges to comprehend. Communications between the States and Burma were vigorously pushed on, although not quite as fast as the Superintendent wished and in his enthusiasm thought possible.
The work done in 1889-90 was good and lasting. Although, owing to the failure of the Siamese Government to take part in the inquiry, a further Commission had to be appointed to settle and demarcate the boundary, the decisions arrived at by Mr. Ney Elias were practically confirmed, when the final demarcation was made in 1892-3 to some extent by Mr. Hildebrand, but for the most part by Mr. H. G. A. Leveson, of the Indian Civil Service and of the Burman Commission. The only difference of importance was that the minor State of Chieng Kong, which bestrode the Mekong and was supposed to be more or less tributary to Kengtung, was, as regards the eastern or Trans-Mekong portion, of which Möng Hsing was the chief town, assigned to Siam.
But before the Government at Bangkok had had time to receive the homage of the Möng Hsing chief, the French crossed the Menam and obtained the treaty of Chantabun from Siam, by which everything east of the Mekong passed to France and Möng Hsing became French.
As to Kang Hung, in arranging matters with China we transferred all the rights in this State on both sides the Mekong—the whole, in fact, of the Sibsong Panna (or twelve provinces)—to China, on the condition that she should never cede any part of it to another power. With an almost indecent haste, China gave up a portion of the Kang Hung country to France. As a protest, we refused to pay the decennial tribute of gold flowers, which had been conceded to save the face of China after the annexation, and demanded a revision of the eastern frontier of Burma agreed with China in 1894. A new agreement was made in 1897 which gave Burma a better boundary. It is not likely that new difficulties will arise on this side, although the boundary has not been demarcated. Trouble is more probable on the north, where no openings should be left. China does not forget her claim to Burma.
Kengtung showed a proper sense of his duties after Mr. Scott's lesson to him. The present Sawbwa, who was at the Delhi Durbar in 1903, is reported to have said to one of the officers from Burma, "We thought we were great men, but now we see that we are only monkeys from the jungle." So Durbars, like other forms of adversity, may have their uses, and quite as sweet.