Four years in Upper Burma

by W. R. Winston

With the mention of so many different nationalities of foreigners in the place, it will at once occur to the reader that the carrying on of all kinds of work and business depends very largely upon the foreigners and very little upon the Burmans. That is true. Somehow the Burmans, though they are in Mandalay considerably over 100,000 strong, and multitudes of them are very poor, fail to take up very many of the duties of life and the needs of society, and allow themselves to be ousted in many employments by immigrants from other countries where the conditions of life have taught them to bestir themselves. The Burman is easy-going, casual and satisfied with a little. When a great increase of the population of Burma has rendered the struggle for existence much more urgent than it is now, the Burman will either have to bestir himself or go to the wall.

CHAPTER V.
THE PACIFICATION OF UPPER BURMA.

It has already been stated that Upper Burma, at the time of the annexation, and for some time after, was politically and socially in a state of serious disturbance and disorder. It may be well to inquire a little more closely into this matter, that we may the better understand the circumstances of the country as we found it, and the better appreciate what has been done by way of remedy.

A state of disturbance was, under the circumstances, inevitable. An invasion, followed by an annexation, is seldom a very quiet and peaceable process, and this was no exception. But in this case there were features that greatly complicated the matter, and made the task of pacifying and governing much harder. When the expedition under General Prendergast went up the Irrawaddy at the close of 1885 it was an easy victory, and there was no resistance worth mentioning. Mandalay, the capital, yielded without a blow. This easy conquest proved the inefficiency of the Burmans as a Government, and led to the belief that very little trouble would be experienced in governing the country. But this proved to be by no means the case. For four years it has been one constant and strenuous battle with the forces of disorder; and whatever has been done in the way of pacification and improvement of the country has been done in the teeth of difficulties of no ordinary character.

If the question be asked how it was that the country was so easy to conquer yet so difficult to pacify and restore to order, the answer is not far to seek. In the first place, the weaker a Government is the stronger are the elements of crime and disorder lurking about, and having overthrown the one you still have to reckon with the other. King Theebaw’s was a weak Government, and crime and disorder had increased so much that their reduction had become a formidable task.

The territory over which King Theebaw ruled, or professed to rule, was of immense extent, and very sparsely populated, and the vast tracts of jungle with hilly, broken country afforded ample cover for the numerous bands of dacoits. Dacoity is the word used in India for gang robbery, and it is usually accompanied with murder and various forms of cruelty. It had always flourished in Upper Burma, and was unfortunately regarded not as a cruel, brutal and detestable crime, to be put down by the united efforts of the government and the people, but more as an acknowledged and unavoidable institution.

We may find some parallels to this in brigandage in Southern Europe, in the Border warfare so well described by Sir Walter Scott, and in the state of things prevailing formerly in the West of England, as set forth in Lorna Doone. The dacoit leaders were a kind of privileged freebooters, who spared those who paid blackmail, and wreaked their vengeance on others, and there was, in the opinion of the people, some air of romance about the life. No Burmese Government had ever been strong enough or resolute enough effectually to stamp out this plague. When the English took the reins of government at the annexation, this naturally gave a fresh impulse to dacoity under the notion of patriotism; and for some time the leaders who had large gangs occasionally tried conclusions with the small columns of police and military sent out to patrol the country.

The Government official report of affairs in Upper Burma gives the following summary of the first year’s work of pacification, viz., up to the end of 1886.