Burmah and the Burmese

by Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie

“The celebrated petroleum wells afford, as I ascertained at Ava, a revenue to the king or his officers. The wells are private property, and belong hereditarily to about thirty-two individuals. A duty of five parts in a hundred is levied on the petroleum as it comes from the wells, and the amount realized upon it is said to be twenty-five thousand ticals per annum. No less than twenty thousand of this goes to contractors, collectors, or public officers; and the share of the state, or five thousand, was assigned during our visits as a pension of one of the queens.”

Truly, this does not look like rapacity on the part of the king! Who can tell what portion is legitimately the share of the officers of the Crown?

The revenue of the Burman empire is a duty of ten per cent. upon all merchandise coming from abroad; of the produce of some of the mines in the Burman dominions; export duties; a family tax, and an excise on salt, fisheries, fruit-trees, rice, and, as before seen, on petroleum. Besides this, there is a supply of money continually coming in by the presents which the officers receive for the attainment of various favours. The latter, though of course wavering, forms a by no means inconsiderable portion of the royal income. The taxes are principally taken in kind, with the exception of the tax on families, which is usually demanded in specie.

But even these form a very inconsiderable portion of the income of the Crown. Sangermano tells us very quaintly, “as he considers the property of his subjects as in reality belonging to himself, he therefore exacts from them anything he pleases; so that it may be said with truth, that the unfortunate Burmese labour in acquiring riches, not for themselves or their children, but merely to gratify the avarice of the emperor; as their possessions almost invariably find their way, sooner or later, into the royal treasury.”[57] We shall in the course of a few pages see in what manner this took place.

It is, however, somewhat remarkable, as Crawfurd observes,[58] that “a direct tax on the land, according either to its extent or fertility, is not known to the Burmese.” This, though forming a source of much emolument in other Oriental countries, appears to be wholly unknown here. Its place is supplied by the family tax, above mentioned. This family, or more correctly property-tax, is confined to the Burmese, Talains (Peguers), and a few naturalized foreigners. An extract from Alves’s Report will show its operation.[59] “The arbitrary assessments for various purposes, which were levied upon the Burmese and Talains, amounted annually, I am informed, to about 50,000 ticals[60] on ordinary occasions, for the two townships of Bassein and Pantano. Bassein, the chief town of the province, was exempt from regular assessment, being subject to calls for the support of messengers or other public authorities from the capital, and for their travelling expenses. Pantano, and another district of the province, were exempt, as being assignments for the maintenance of their respective Myo-thugyis.[61] I might probably have obtained information regarding the amount of these arbitrary cesses in the other townships; but the subject of inquiry was rather a delicate one, and might have led to the belief that its continuance was contemplated under British sway. Besides, the tax was an ever-fluctuating one; information regarding it not very readily given; and the purpose for which the money was often required, I was told, was too ludicrous to bear repetition to an Englishman. The amount for the other township may be inferred from the above, and was probably about 127,000 ticals. On extraordinary occasions there was no limit to exactions of both men and money. It does not appear that assessments could have been properly ordered for other than public purposes, or under instructions from court; although the amount might not always find its way into the treasury of the State, it ought to have been expended in the service of the State. The principle of this tax seems to be that of a property-tax. A town or village having to pay a certain sum, the heads of wards, or principal people of the village, were called together by the Myo-thu-gyi or Thu-gyi, and informed of their quota in men and money to be furnished, and they assessed the householders agreeably to their means, or supposed means,—some having to pay, say fifty ticals, others one, or even less. I have been informed that there are tolerably correct accounts of the means of each householder; but on such occasions poverty is often pleaded, and it too frequently happens that confinement and torture are resorted to before the collection is completed. The system is obviously open to the greatest abuses, and although it is not against these abuses that the people generally exclaim, it is evident this is the most vexatious of all parts of the Burmese administration; and its abolition or modification would have been most desirable, had the country been retained. All persons in public employ were exempt from this tax—also artificers, as they had to work without pay, when required for public purposes, or for the business of the local officers.[62] Also the Mussulman and Chinese inhabitants at Bassein: the former, when required, being made to work as tailors; the latter, to manufacture gunpowder and fireworks. Both these classes, however, were compelled to make gunpowder, from the breaking out of the war until the arrival of the British armament at Bassein. There ought to have been no expense of collection, although it appears to have been perfectly understood, that the overplus exacted by the Thu-gyis on such occasions was their chief source of emolument.”

The amount charged upon each family is in English money about twenty shillings and tenpence; and a family consisting of six persons, the taxation per head is about three shillings and fivepence. Besides this, however, there is much to be paid, which varies very considerably, and is applied to extraordinary uses.

In some portions of Burmah a tax is levied upon fruit-trees, and a fixed price is set upon each species of tree. The tax, as usual, was exorbitant, though, as the envoy remarks, “it may be stated generally that the unsettled habits of the people, and the ignorance and unskilfulness of the tax-gatherer, contribute in practice to counterbalance, in some degree, the arbitrary and oppressive character of the government in theory.”[63] In Lower Pegu, a mango, a jack,[64] a cocoa-nut, and a mariam tree (a small kind of mango), paid each one-eighth of a tical (threepence three farthings) per annum. An areca and Palmyra palm paid a quarter of a tical, and a betel-vine one sixteenth. A tithe was levied in other places. Mr. Crawfurd was unable to ascertain what the total produce of the tax was. Indeed it is difficult to arrive at any determination in any of these cases, for they are all equally wanting in point of data.

The import duties, as already stated, are one-tenth of the value of the articles imported, but the custom-house has the option of levying them in money or in kind. An instance of the vexation attending the latter system was related to Mr. Crawfurd. It seems that on board some European vessel there was a small cable or hawser which was imported. The inspector was, I suppose, “entirely bothered;” for he knew not how to manage the matter. At last he settled it by cutting off a tithe, remarking, at the same time, that if it were not long enough for any other purpose, it would do to light the king’s cigar! The import duties on the land frontier of China amounted to 40,000 ticals (about £5,000).

The whole amount of royal revenue, from various sources, owing probably to the cheating system of the officers, is not more than £25,000 per annum, “an income,” as Crawfurd concludes, “far exceeded by that of many native subjects of the British possessions in India.”[65]

But the inhabitants of the land are subjected to many other grievances in the way of extortion, and, taking Sangermano for a guide, I shall enumerate some of these. The funds for building the public edifices and palaces, bridges, convents, and pagodas, are raised by extraordinary levies. Even if that were all, it might be sufferable; but when anything of this nature is required, the government officers extort three or four times as much as would suffice for the purpose. And just as the king acts in Ava, so do the governors of the other towns. The whole system of practical government in Ava is one gigantic mass of corruption and iniquity, and nothing but the total overthrow of the present government, and establishment of British supremacy, can rescue the unhappy people of Burmah. In Rangoon, however, as it is at the greatest distance from the government, these exactions are carried to the greatest excess. It is at that place that those enormities are committed, of which I have already mentioned a few instances. However, the dignitaries meet their reward; “for,” says the good Father Sangermano,[66] “sooner or later the news of their conduct reaches the court, they are stripped of their dignity, and sometimes, if their crimes be great, are put to death, and their property is confiscated for the use of the emperor. Generally, however, they save themselves at the expense of their riches, which are entirely consumed in presents to the wives, sons, and chief ministers of the emperor; and then they are frequently sent back to the same governments where they had practised their extortions, to heap up new treasures for new confiscations. Hence it may justly be inferred, that the rapacity of the emperor is not less than that of his mandarins; and that he does not care for the spoliation of his subjects, but rather encourages it, that he may thus always have means in his power to replenish his treasury.”