I was then for a short time the Governor of the biggest gaol in the world, that in Rangoon. It was crowded with prisoners under sentence for many different forms of crime, from murder or "dacoity"—that is gang robbery—to petty theft.
The numbers were abnormal, and they were so not only here, but in all the gaols of both the Upper and Lower Provinces. The average of crime had greatly risen.
Why was this?
The reason was obvious. The annexation of the Upper Province six years before had caused a wave of unrest, not only there, but in the delta districts as well, that found its expression in many forms of crime. There was no doubt about the cause. But this cause was a general cause, not individual. The individual criminals there in the gaol did not declare the war. That was the consequence of acts by the King of Burma and the Government of India controlled by the English Cabinet, and was consequent on acts of the French Government. Therefore half of these individuals had become criminals because of the disagreements of three Governments, two of which were six thousand miles away from Rangoon.
There is no getting out of that. In normal times the average of convicts would have been only half what it was. The abnormality was not due to the convicts themselves.
Thus if A and B and C were suffering punishment in the gaol the fault is primarily not theirs. A special strain was set up from without which they could not stand and they fell.
But if this is true of half the prisoners, why not of the other half? There was no dividing line between the two classes. Political offences apart, you could not walk into the gaol and, dividing the convicts into two parts, say: "The crimes of this half being due to external causes, they must be pardoned; the crimes of the other half being due to their own evil disposition, they must continue to suffer." There was no demarcation.
Therefore, general causes are occasionally the cause of crime. Here was a long step in advance.
Again, four years later I was on famine duty in the Upper Province, and the same phenomenon occurred. There was an increase in certain forms of crime. Thefts doubled. Other crimes such as cheating and fraudulent dealings with money decreased. Here was again a general cause. Half of those thieves would have remained honest men all their lives, been respected by their fellow-men, and, according to religions, have gone to heaven when they died, but for the famine.
The causes of the famine were want of rain acting on the economic weakness of the people reared by the inability of government. Thus, had rain fallen as usual, had the people been able to cultivate other resources, had government been more advanced and experienced, half these thieves would not have been in gaol; and no one knew which half, for thefts of food did not increase. There was, in fact, no reason they should, as Government provided on the famine camps a subsistence wage for everyone who came.