CHAPTER VI.
BRITISH INFLUENCE IN THE SHAN STATES.
The previous chapter dealt with the pacification of Upper Burma proper, that tract of country which England has annexed, and in which we have assumed the full responsibility of government. In this chapter we have to consider our relations with certain states and tribes on our frontiers, which are not British territory, but for whose well-being and good behaviour we hold ourselves to some extent responsible, in proportion as our influence among them is more or less direct.
As soon as our first difficulties in the pacification and administration of Upper Burma were to some extent overcome, our Government had to turn its attention to the doings of the many barbarous and semi-barbarous tribes and races in the regions immediately adjacent to Burma.
To the east of Upper Burma, and situated between that country and the great empire of China, are the Shan States tributary to Burma, with an area about four-fifths that of England, but with a population no larger than that of Worcestershire, not one-fourth, it is said, of what it was fifty years ago. This country is a very fine one, consisting of a great plateau with a diversified climate and great natural resources, of which coal is one, though it has not yet been worked, and with every capacity for development. The Shan States are likely to play no unimportant part in the commercial development of the next few years, for it is by that route that the railway will go from Burma to China at no distant date.
At present these states are in a most backward and uncivilised condition, and as they afford such an interesting illustration of the true frontier policy of England in the East, and the kind of influence our country is so well able to exert, in the discharge of her duty as the great suzerain power amongst many little races and peoples, I make no apology for describing it with some degree of detail. Such work as England is attempting to do, and will in the end undoubtedly succeed in doing there, is so beneficent and meritorious as to be beyond the possibility of objection; and it would excite remark and applause if it were not so common—if England were not doing much the same all over her Eastern dominions.
The relation of the Shan States to the British rule is a feudatory relation. They paid tribute to the King of Burma, and were supposed to be subject to him, but although receiving tribute, Burma conferred no benefits upon them. In fact, the idea that something in the shape of government was due to the Shans, in return for the tribute they paid, probably never entered the head of King Theebaw. These states have not been annexed to British territory, and are not likely to be, unless it should be found quite impossible to get their chiefs to learn to rule properly. At present the policy is entirely in the direction of setting these native rulers on their feet, and strengthening their power as much as possible. When the English commenced to rule at Mandalay that feudatory relation to the defunct Burmese Government passed over to the English.
Politically the Shan States are divided amongst some eighteen chiefs, each ruling a greater or less extent of territory. In the early part of 1888 two British expeditions were sent to the Northern and Southern Shan States respectively, and the first steps were taken toward adjusting our relations with them.
The condition in which the States were found by the British forces was a very sad one. For want of a controlling power over them there was a state of disorder amounting almost to anarchy. Might was right, and in the struggle for mastery the Shans were fast exterminating each other. Each petty chieftain with his followers was on the look-out to extend the sphere of his rule by aggression, and dacoit raids and incessant civil war were the result.