The strength of the military police in Upper Burma now is, I understand, fifteen thousand men in round numbers. The strength in 1889 was eighteen thousand. The reduction, therefore, has not been so very great. The fact is that no sooner had the interior of the province been reduced to order, than fresh territory began to come under administration. Vast tracts of hill country on the east, on the north, and on the west, which were left to themselves in 1890, are now held by the military police. From the frontier of French Indo-China on the east to the Bengal boundary on the west, and northwards along the Chinese boundary wherever it may be, the military police keep the marches of Burma. In the mountains inhabited by Kachin tribes on the north and east of the Myitkyina district, the whole of this troublesome borderland is held by the police. Sixteen hundred and twelve rifles, with forty-one native officers and nine British officers, more than a tenth of the whole strength, are stationed in this district, which in 1887 was outside the pale. The Shan States and the Chin country are similarly garrisoned.[32]
I have always felt that our failure to train the Burmans to be soldiers is a blot on our escutcheon. I have mentioned an experiment to enlist Karens. This succeeded for a time. The men learnt their drill quickly, and as trackers and for forest work they were very useful. It was decided in 1891 to raise a Karen battalion, with which, and an Indian battalion, it was proposed to form a military police force for Lower Burma. The Karens were placed on the same footing as the Indians, and British officers were appointed to command them. In drill, endurance in the field, and courage, the Karen showed himself a good man. But from some cause he failed in discipline, and in 1899 it was found advisable, owing to insubordinate conduct, to disband the battalion and distribute the companies among the Indian battalions. There has been more success, I am told, with the Kachins, who are showing themselves trustworthy. They are certainly a strong race, probably the strongest we have in Burma.
Another direction in which the change from the sword to the plough and the pen was showing itself was in the prominence given to the administration of the civil police. It is very easy to get up a cry against the police in Burma or in India, but they will not be improved by constant abuse, frequent prosecutions, censures, and condemnations by High Court judges, or still less competent critics, or by other methods of giving a service a bad name.
One of the hardest tasks connected with the administration of a country by foreign rulers is the creation of a good police force. When the people from whom the force has to be recruited have lived for years under a despotic and altogether corrupt government, the task becomes doubly hard. And when the foreigners appointed to officer and train the force have for the most part no knowledge of police work and no acquaintance with the vernacular of the people, the task would have made Hercules drown himself in the nearest ditch.
It had to be done, however, and it was undertaken. The work had not gone far in 1890, but it was started, and two good and experienced police officers of high standing had been appointed to go round Upper Burma, district by district, and instruct the English officers. It was not possible at that time to find Burmans fit to take charge of the police of a district. I do not know whether such men are yet forthcoming.[33] We are well advanced in the second century of our rule in India, yet I believe there are few Indian gentlemen who are willing to take an appointment in the police and fewer still who are well fitted for it.
The question of the civil police in Lower Burma was taken up systematically in 1888. A committee was appointed by me to diagnose the ailment from which the police were suffering, and to prescribe remedies. On their report in 1889 a scheme was drawn up, the main features of which were the division of the Lower Burma force into military and civil, the former, as in Upper Burma, to be recruited from India and partly, it was then hoped, from the Karen people, the latter to be natives of the country. To the latter was to be entrusted all police work of detection and prevention. They were to be subjected to drill and discipline and accustomed to stand alone, and they were to be schooled and trained to police duties. The military police force was to be organized as one regiment under a military officer. Their headquarters were to be in Rangoon, and they were to furnish such detachments for outdistricts as might be wanted from time to time. This scheme, with little alteration, was carried out in 1891, and I believe is still in force.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] This is well brought out by Lieut-Colonel S. C. F. Peile in his "History of the Burma Military Police" (Rangoon, 1906), p. 12.