BOOKS.
BURMA.*
'THE early history of the British connexion with Burma presents all the features uniformly to be found in the growth cf British Imperialism. These are, first, reluctance to move, coupled with fear of the results of expansion, ending finally with a cession to the irresistible tendency to expand ; secondly, vagueness of purpose as to what should be done with a new and somewhat unwelcome acquisition ; thirdly, a tardy recog- nition of its value, with the result that what was first an inclination to make the best of a bad job only gradually transforms itself into a feeling of satisfaction and congratula- tion that, after all, the unconscious founders of the British Empire, here as elsewhere, blundered more or less unawares into the adoption of a sound and far-seeing Imperial policy.
In 1825, Lord Aniherst, in one of those "fits of absence" which the dictum of Sir John Seeley has rendered famous, took possession of some of the maritime provinces of Burma, and in doing so lost three thousand one hundred and fifteen men, of whom only a hundred and fifty were killed in action. `then the customary fit of doubt and despondency supervened. It was not until four years after the conclusion of peace that a British Resident was sent to the Court of Ava in the vain hope that he would be able to negotiate the retro- cession of the province of Tenasserim, as " the Directors of the East India Company looked upon this territory as of no value to them." For a quarter of a century peace was pre- served, for there ruled at Ava a prince " who was too clear- sighted to attempt again to measure arms with the British troops." Anon he was succeeded by a new king—the Pagan rriuce—" who cared for nothing but mains of cocks, games, and other infantile amusements," and who, after the manner of Oriental despots, inaugurated his reign by putting to death his two brothers and all their households. " There were several hundreds of them." It is nut surprising that under a ruler addicted to such practices the British sailors who frequented the Burmese ports should have been subjected to maltreatment. Their complaints reached the ears of the iron- fisted and acquisitive Lord Dalhousie, who himself went to Rangoon in 1852, and forthwith " decided on the immediate ,attack of Prome and Pegu." M. Dautremer speaks in flatter- ing terms of "the tenacity and persistence of purpose which make the strength and glory of British policy." He might truthfully have added another characteristic feature which that policy at times displays, to wit, sluggishness. It was not until sixteen years after Lord Dalhousie's annexation of Lower Burma that the English bethought themselves of 'improving their newly-acquired province by the construction .of a railway, and it was not till 1877 that the first line from Rangoon to Prome—a distance of only one hundred and sixty-one miles—was opened. During all this time Xing Mindon ruled in native Burma. He " gave abundant ;aims to monks," and, moreover, which was perhaps more to the purpose, he was wise enough to maintain relations
• Burma under British Rule. By Joseph Dautremer. London: T. Fisher Ithrprim. [Ms.] . •
with Great Britain which were "quite cordial." Eventually the-Nemesis which appears to attend on all semi-civilized and moribund States when they are brought in contact with a vigorous and aggressive civilization appeared in the person of the " Sapaya-lat," the " middle princess," who induced her feeble husband, King Thibaw, to carry out massacres on a scale which, even in Burma, had been heretofore unprece- dented. Then the British on the other side of the frontier began to murmur and "to consider whether it was possible to endure a neighbour who was so cruel and so unpopular." All doubts as to whether the limits of endurance had or had not been reached were removed when the impecunious and spendthrift king not only imposed a very unjust fine of some £150,000 on the Bombay-Burma Trading Corporation, but also had the extreme folly to "throw himself into the arms of Prance "—a scheme which was at once communicated by M. Jules Ferry to Lord Lyons, the British Ambassador in Paris; Then war with Burma was declared, and after some tedious operations, which involved the sacrifice of many valuable lives, and which extended over three years, the country was "completely pacified" by 1889, and Lord Dufferin added the title of " Ava " to the Marquisate which was conferred on him.
In 1852, when Lord Dalhousie annexed Lower Burma, Rangoon was " merely a fishing village." It is now a flourishing commercial town of some 300,000 inhabitants. In.1910-11 the imports into Burmese ports, including coast trade, amounted to £13,600,000. The exports, in spite of a duty on rice which is of a nature rather to shock orthodox economists, were nearly £23,000,000 in value. The revenue in 1910 was about £7,391,000, of which about £2,590,000 was on Imperial and the balance on local account. Burma is in the happy position of being in a normal state of surplus, and is thus able to contribute annually a sum of about £2,500,000 to the Indian exchequer, a sum which those who are specially interested in Burmese prosperity regard as excessive, whilst it is apparently regarded as inadequate by some of those who look only to the interests of the Indian taxpayers.
The account which M. Dautremer, who was for long French Consul at Rangoon, has given of the present condition of Burma is preceded by an introduction from the pen of Sir George Scott, who can speak with unquestionable authority on Burmese affairs. It is clear that neither author has allowed himself in any way to be biassed by national proclivities, for whilst the Frenchman compares British and French admini- strative methods in a manner which is very much to the detri- ment of the latter, the Englishman, on the other hand, launches the most fiery denunciations against those of his countrymen who are responsible for Indian policy. Their want of enter- prise is characterized by the appalling polysyllabic adjective " hebetudinous," which it is perhaps as well to explain means obtuse or dull, and they are told that they "are infected with the Babn spirit, and cannot see beyond their immediate horizon."
M. Dautremer thinks that it is somewhat narrow-minded of the Englishman to inflict on himself the torture of wearing cloth or flannel clothes in order that he may not be taken for a chi-chi or half-caste, who very wisely dresses in white. He expostulates against the social tyranny which obliges him to pay visits between twelve and two "in such a climate and with such a temperature," and he gently satirizes the isolation of the different layers of English society—civilian, military, and subordinate services—in words which call to mind the striking account given by the immortal Mr. Jingle of the dockyard society of Chatham and Rochester. It is, however, consolatory to learn that all classes combined in giving a hearty welcome to the genial and sympathetic Frenchman who was living in their midst. Save on these minor points, M. Dautremer has, for the most part, nothing but praise to accord. He thinks that "all the British administrative officers in Burma are well-educated and capable men, who know the country of which they are put in charge, and are fluent in the language." He writhes under the highly centralized and bureaucratic system adopted by his own countrymen. He commends the English practice under which "the Home Government never interferes in the management of internal affairs," and it is earnestly to be hoped that the, commendation is deserved, albeit of late years there have occasionally been some ominous signs of a
tendency to govern India rather too much in detail from London. Speaking of the rapid development of Burmese trade, M. Dautremer says, in words which are manifestly intended to convey a criticism of his own Government, " This is an -example of the use of colonies to a nation which knows how 'jo put a proper value on them and to profit by them."
The warm appreciation which M. Dautremer displays of the test parts of the English administrative system enhances his claims for respectful attention whenever he indulges in criticism. He finds two rather weak points in the administration. In the first place, he attributes the large falling-off in the export of teak, inter alia, to " the increase in Government duties and the much more rigid rules for -extraction," and he adds that the Government, which is itself a -large dealer in timber, has "by its action created a monopoly which has raised prices to the highest possible limit." The subject is one which would appear to require attention. The primary business of any Government is not to trade but to administer, and, as invariably happens, the violation of a sound economic principle of this sort is certain sooner or later to carry its own punishment with it. In the second place, the Forest Department, which is of very special importance in Burma, is a good deal crippled by the " want of energy and want of industry which are unfortunately common L:t the subordinate grades. The reason for this state of things is to be found in the fact that the pay and prospects are not good enough to attract really capable men." In many quarters, +notably in Central Africa, British Treasury officials have yet to learn that, from every point of view, it is quite as great a mistake to employ underpaid administrative agents as it would Le for an employer of labour to proceed on the principle that low wages necessarily connote cheap production.
Sir George Scott in his introduction strikes a very different mote from that sounded by M. Dautremer. He alleges that the 'wealthy province of Burma, which M. Dautremer tells us is mot unseldom called "the milch-cow of India," is starved, that its financial policy has been directed by "cautious, nothing-venture, mole-horizon people," who have bid their
• talent in a napkin ; that " everything seems expressly designed to drive out the capital " of which the country stands so much in need; that not nearly enough has been done in the way of expenditure on public works, notably on roads and railways, and that when these latter have been constructed, they have sometimes been in the wrong directions. He cavils at M. Dautremer's description of Burma as "a model possession," and holds that " as a matter of bitter fact, the administrative view is that of the parish beadle, and the enterprise that of the country-carrier with a light cart instead of a motor-van."
It would require greater local knowledge than any possessed Ly the writer of the present article either to endorse or to ..reject these formidable accusations, although it may be said -that the violence of Sir George Scott's invective is not very .convincing, but rather raises a strong suspicion that he has .overstated his case. Nothing is more difficult, either for a private individual or for a State financier, than to decide the -question of when to be bold and when cautious in the matter of capital outlay. It is quite possible to push to an extreme the commonplace, albeit attractive, argument that large .expenditure will be amply remunerative, or even if not directly remunerative, highly beneficial "in the long run." Although this plea is often—indeed, perhaps generally—valid, it is none the less true that the run which is foreshadowed is at times so long as to make the taxpayer, who has to bear the present cost, gasp for breath before the promised goal is reached. Pericles, by laying out huge sums on the public buildings of Athens, earned the undying gratitude .of artistic posterity. Whether his action was in the true interests of his Athenian contemporaries is perhaps rather more doubtful. The recent history of Argentina is an instance of a country in which, as subsequent events have ;proved, the plea for lavish capital expenditure was perfectly ,justifiable, but in which, nevertheless, the over-haste shown in incurring heavy liabilities led to much temporary incon- venience and even disaster. But on the whole it may be said that where all the general conditions are favourable, and point .conclusively to the possibility and probability of fairly rapid 'economic development, a bold financial policy may and should be adopted, even although it may not be easy to prove beforehand by very exact calculations that any special project under consideration will be directly remunerative. Egyptian finance is a case in point. At a time when the country was in the throes of bankruptcy, a fresh loan of £1,000,000 was, to the dismay of the conventional financiers, contracted, the proceeds of which were spent on irrigation works. So also the construction of the Assouan dam, which cost nearly double the sum originally estimated, was taken in hand at a moment when a liability of a wholly unknown amount on account of the war in the Soudan was hanging over the bead of the Egyptian Treasury. In both of these cases subsequent events amply justified the financial audacity which had been shown. In the case of Burma there appears to be no doubt as to the wealth of the province or its capacity for further development. In view of all the circumstances of the case the amount of twelve millions, which is apparently all that has been spent on railway construction since 1869, would certainly appear to be rather a niggardly sum. In spite, therefore, of the very unnecessary warmth with which Sir George Scott has urged his views, it is to be hoped that his plea for the adoption of a somewhat bolder financial policy in the direction of expenditure on railways, and still more on feeder roads, will receive from the India Office, with whom the matter really rests, the attention which it would certainly appear to deserve. The case of public buildings, of which Burma apparently stands much in need, is different. They cannot strictly speaking, be said to he remunerative, and should almost, if not quite, invariably he paid for out of revenue.
CROMER.
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