CHAPTER VI
CIVIL AND MILITARY WORKS
Nothing has been said as yet about roads and communications, the most powerful of all aids in pacifying a disturbed country. The plains of India in most provinces lend themselves to military operations, and for the greater part of the year an army can move about at will. In Burma the long and heavy rains, the numerous streams, and the extensive and dense forests and jungles, make campaigning very difficult. The country, in Sir George White's words, quoted before, "is one huge military obstacle."
Sir Charles Bernard had not lost sight of this part of his work. With the aid of Mr. Richard, of the Public Works Department, a most able superintending engineer, as much as possible had been done. No time had been lost.
In Mandalay itself, in 1886, fifteen miles of road had been re-formed, the bridges renewed and metal consolidated, and in the country generally more than two hundred miles of roads had been taken in hand and partially finished. Tracks one hundred feet in width had been cleared of forest and jungle between many of the military posts, a work in which the military officers took a large part. As our occupation of the country became closer, more roads and more tracks were called for. These forest tracks can hardly be called engineering works, but they were of first importance for the free movement of troops. The time during which road-making can be carried on is short in Burma, owing to the great rainfall. The dry zone in the centre of the province, where the climate is no impediment, is precisely the country where roads are least necessary.
Eastern Governments as a rule trouble themselves very little about roads and public buildings of a useful kind. In Burma there were pagodas and monasteries innumerable. But roads and prosaic buildings, such as court-houses and jails, received little attention. Such a thing as a trunk road did not exist.
Controlling the engineering establishment in Lower Burma there was a chief engineer, who was also Public Works secretary. His hands were full. To ask him to supervise the work in the new province as well was to lay on him an impossible task and to ensure the waste of much money. A chief engineer for Upper Burma was appointed at my request, and Major Gracey, R.E., who was selected for the post, had arrived in Burma. I have met with few men who had more power of work and of getting their subordinates to work, or who took greater care of the public money, than Major Gracey.
On his arrival, in consultation with Colonel Cumming, the expenditure was examined and the whole situation discussed in Rangoon, and afterwards both officers met me in Mandalay. There was much difficulty in obtaining a sufficient number of engineers and a competent engineering establishment. The Indian Public Works service in the higher grades is recruited in England, and the subordinates are appointed in India. Service in Burma was for many reasons unpopular with men trained in India. The other provinces were not anxious to part with their best men. Hence the men who came to Burma were frequently unwilling and sometimes not very efficient.
The difficulty was to apportion the existing establishment as fairly as possible between the two provinces, so as to give Major Gracey a fair number of men with Burman experience.
With Major Gracey's help everything went on well, and as fast as possible. A list of the work done in 1887 would fill a page. The grant for military works in that year was £317,500. Permanent barracks at Mandalay and Bhamo, and a great number of temporary buildings to accommodate troops, were erected all over Burma in the first year of Major Gracey's tenure. Many of the temporary buildings were put up by military and civil officers; but after a time, all military buildings were carried out by the Public Works Department.