The Pacification of Burma

by C. H. T. Crosthwaite

I pointed out to them that they, the Shan chiefs, had duties and obligations on their side: primarily the good government of their peoples, the impartial administration of justice, the development of their territories by roads, and the improvement of agriculture and trade. "I do not want you," I said, "to imitate or adopt the forms or methods of British government; but I think you can do much by a careful choice of your subordinates, by the judicious curtailment of the right to carry arms, by suppressing the extravagant and public gambling which, experience shows, invariably leads first to ruin and then to crime."

Lastly, I explained to them that they could not be excused from paying tribute, the amount of which would be adjusted to their ability. The British Government was maintaining garrisons for their benefit, and had undertaken costly expeditions for their defence. It was necessary to ask them to remember their obligations.

The first assessment of the Shan States to tribute was made in 1887-8, on the basis of the sums paid to the King of Burma, so far as they could be ascertained. The country had, however, suffered very greatly from the prevailing anarchy, and many of the States were depopulated and the land was lying waste. Much of the nominal demand had to be remitted. Even now (in 1911) the tribute received by the Government (which may be taken to be at most not more than one-third of the revenue collected from the people by their chiefs) hardly covers the expense of administration, including the garrison of fifteen hundred military police who maintain internal order and guard the frontiers. The vast sums expended on the Mandalay-Lashio railway in the Northern States and on the road connecting the Southern States with the Toungoo-Mandalay railway have not been repaid, except by the increased prosperity of the country.

The Shan population may be taken at about one million two hundred thousand persons. It would be a high estimate of the incidence of the tribute received by the Government if it were reckoned at sixpence per head. As a source of revenue, therefore, the Shan States are not of much account. The country, however, has improved—slowly, it is true, but without interruption. The railway from Mandalay to Lashio has done much for the Northern States. That now under construction from the Toungoo-Mandalay line to the headquarters of the Southern States will have greater and more rapid effect on that fertile country. I fully anticipate rapid progress in the near future. It is something to be able to say that since my visit to Fort Stedman in March, 1890, the peace of the Shan States has not been broken, except by a few small local risings of the wilder tribes (not Shans) in the mountains on the north and on the east.

To the student of the science of politics the Shan States will prove, perhaps, the most interesting field of observation in the province under the Lieutenant-Governor of Burma. There is nothing quite of the same character in India. When we occupied the country, the condition of the Shan chiefs had more resemblance to that of the petty chiefs and Rajas in the central provinces of India before Sir Richard Temple dealt with them, than to any other Indian example. But Temple gave to the larger States the character of feudatory rulers of foreign territory outside of British India, whereas, as I have mentioned below, in the chapter on the Shan Expedition of 1887-8, the Shan States one and all were made part of British India by the proclamation annexing Burma.

There is nothing in India similar to this case; where a great territory of sixty thousand square miles, being by law an integral part of British India, is administered not through the regular officials and courts, but directly by many quasi-independent chiefs, each supreme in his own territory, but guided and controlled by British officers, whose advice they are bound by their engagements to follow.

It results from these conflicting conditions that everything has to be done by or under some legal enactment. If the ordinary laws of British India (for example, the codes of criminal law and procedure) do not apply, it is because under the Shan States Act or some other enactment the local Government has suspended their operation and has substituted other rules to which the force of law has been given.

In the Feudatory States of India, on the other hand, any interference which becomes necessary is exercised not by virtue of an enactment of the legislature, but by the use of the sovereign executive power.

That this difference is vital there can be little doubt. At present it is the policy, and no doubt the wise policy, of the Government of India to avoid interfering with the native States, as much as may be, even by way of advice.

An Indian ruler can do as he likes, and it is only in gross cases of misrule which are clearly injurious to the people, and the consequences of which extend, or are likely to extend, beyond the boundaries of the State, that the sovereign Government feels compelled to intervene.