The Passing of Empire

by H. Fielding

I believe that a much sounder way would be to appoint sons of officers who have served in India. They have Indian traditions, and, what is more, having as children learned the language it soon returns to them.

I know this as a fact. Some twenty-five years ago in Upper Burma a young police-officer was sent to the same station with me in Burma. He came direct from India, but had been born and brought up in Burma till he was seven, when he went to England to school. From England, at eighteen or nineteen, he went to India—the Punjab, I think—and was appointed to the Police there. When Upper Burma was in need of officers he was sent to Burma on promotion. On arrival he did not remember a word of Burmese, but it came rapidly back to him. When sitting with me when I was talking to the Burmese he would continually say to me, "Didn't you say so-and-so?" and "Didn't he answer so-and-so?" Without learning it, his memory recalled the language to him, and in a month or two he was talking it well and with a good accent.

There remain the Subordinate Civil Service and the Lower Grades of the Police, all or nearly all of whom are native to the Province.

In another book, writing on this subject, I said: "I read and hear continually that many of our native magistrates and judges and police are corrupt. I am told they take bribes, that they falsify cases, that they make right into wrong. I wish to say that I have no belief in such charges. Exceptions there may be, but that the mass of our Burman fellow-officers are honest I have no doubt." All my experience has tended to support that view.

Everyone in the world requires looking after, requires check and supervision, requires that protection between himself and harm that only a watching eye can give, and in Burma, for the Burmese officials, these safeguards hardly exist.

It must be remembered that official Burma has no Press to criticise it, no native society to give it tone, no organised community to help the individual in the right path. He has many temptations, and a fall is easy.

I do not believe in the general charge that Burmese are corrupt. That occasional cases of undue influence should occur is natural if you consider the circumstances under which they serve. They are not, like the English officers, independent of their surroundings in social matters. They have, for company's sake, to associate with the pleaders, the merchants, the headmen, and others within their charge. Their families are with them, and they are interested in the happenings of the town or village, and are concerned in it. They are inevitably influenced in many ways, which we do not appreciate. They know things which we do not. In cases that come before them they often know of events behind the scenes which lead up to the final happening which comes into Court. It is useless to say that they should not be influenced by anything but the evidence on the record; they cannot help being influenced. They have, for instance, known of A being a trouble to his parents long before the charge which they have to try, and that is in their minds; or they know B to be a good character, and that his accusers are doubtful people. It has happened to me, not once but many times, that on appeal I have read a judgment of a Burmese Subordinate Magistrate which puzzled me, because, though not contrary to the evidence, there has evidently been in the writer's mind something more than the evidence. In such cases I have usually inquired personally from the magistrate what it was he knew before passing orders on appeal, and I have sometimes taken further evidence on that point so as to get the record straight. It is easy to say that magistrates should not be affected by anything but the recorded evidence, just as it is easy to say that a magistrate should be blind. Magistrates are human beings—fortunately.

But, of course, the standard might be higher. This raising of the standard can, however, only be attained by raising the standard of independence in the people, and our rule tends to decrease this. Under self-government it will rise. It is self-government and its consequent publicity which have purified Courts in England. Look at Judge Jeffreys and his time. We are not people to adopt too Pharisaic an attitude.

Elsewhere I have commented on the failure of the "educated" native to make a good official, and I need not repeat myself. The education we give is not good for them, but until a national system of education is instituted I don't see what we can do. The subordinate service, as long as it is subordinate, cannot attract the best men, because the prospects are poor.

As to the rank and file of the police I have this to say—they are unsatisfactory, and the Police Commission did not get at the real causes. Do Commissions ever get at real causes? Are they not merely excuses to give "face" to Government? What is the use of examining innumerable witnesses none of whom have probed the subject? Answers to difficult questions are not got by asking, but by personal experience: by a man or men capable of understanding what they see and finding out the causes.