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THE LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL

PEOPLE AT SCHOOL ^^

H, FIELDING HALL

ilontion
MAC MILL AN AND CO., Limited

NKW YORK: THI MACMILLAN COMPANY
I 906

All rights rcstrvtd

PREFACE

Some }'ears ago I wrote 77/r So/t/ of a People. It
was an attempt to understand the Burmese, to see
them as they do themselves, to describe their religion
and its effect on them.

This book is also concerned with the Burmese.
But it is from another point of view. That was of
feelings and emotions and ideals, of the inner life as
they understand it. It was individual, of man and
woman. This is of the outer life, of success and
failure, of progress and retrogression judged as nations
judge each other. It is of the Burmese as a race, or
nation. Both arc, I think, true points of view. And
although in this book it may seem that there is much
that is not in accord with the former one, that is not I
think really so. For life is complex. It has many
sides, it must have many ideals. And though one
ideal be oppciscd to another, they may yet both bo
good and both hi- true. \Vc can never get far enough
away, get hi'^^h enough up to sec life whole. If we
could do so, all these lesser truths, all these lesser
ideals wouKl blend into the great Truth. Meanwhile

vi A PEOPLE Al' SCHOOL

we but see what wc can. I hope, therefore, that
this book ma)' be found no less true than the other,
that it may be accepted as in a way its complement
and companion. It may read, I fear, somewhat
disconnectedly, without due rhythm and sequence.
But if that is so, I can only urj;e in apolo^^y that it
was written bit by bit. A chapter was begun one
day, and finished may be two months later. For a
busy life leaves but short times of leisure with long
spaces in between.

CONTENTS

P .A R T

CMAI

HACiE

1 .

THE TRUK BURMA

TWENTY YLAKS ACQ

1 1

IN IHfc; NURSKRY

SUSPENSE

THK GREAT klVKR

MAN DA LAY

\VAK ? .

WUNTHO

ON A FRONTIER

lO.

A HAPPY MONTH

104

I I.

ANOTHKk hkONllKK

I 17

I 2.

PEACK Al LASr

1 3 2

1' A R T

13. OUR RUI.i: IN INDIA

14. GOVERNOR AND GOVERNED

15. THK ORIF.NIAI MIND

vii

'13

170

viii A PKOPLK AT SCHOOL

CHAr. I-ACK

1 6. THK Vll,l.A(;h. COMMIMIN I 82

17. MATKRIAI. I'ROSPFRITY I 95

18. Ckl.MINAl. l.AW 205

19. COURTS AN1> PKOFl.h 2 1^^

20. Civil, ijvw 225

2 1. HONESTY ANU TRITM 236

2 2. BUDDHISM 247

23. WOMKN ... 260

24. BURMESE ANU I.M.MIGKANTS 269

25. CONCLUSION ... 2S0

PART 1

CHAPTER I

THE TRUE BURMA

The people of whom this book is written arc the
Burmese people, and their land is that which formed
the kingdom of the last kings, and which was annexed
in 1885.

It is true that British Burma, or, as it is now called,
Lower Burma, was annexed in 1825 and 1852, but
these districts are not really Burma at all.

The home of the Burman is in the dry zone that
lies about the old capitals of Pagan, Sagaing, Shwebo,
Ava, Amarapura, and Mandalay. It was the people
of these districts who founded the various kingdoms
of Burma, and who alone arc rightly called Burmese.
The people of the delta and Tenasserim districts were
Karens, and Peguans or Talaings. They are races
very closely allied to the Burmese, but they are
distinct. They differ in their dialect, in their appear-
ance, and in their capacity. When the Burmese kings
extended their empire to the sea and overran Lower
Burma they did not recognise the people they found
as of their own race or their equals. They conquered

4 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

them, and ruled them, and despised them, and at the
same time some emigration occurred from the con-
gested districts above to the lower country. When we
invaded the delta in 1825 the natives arose in revolt
against their Burmese conquerors and assisted us.

After 1825, when we returned these provinces to
the King of Burma, the immigration of Burmese from
Burma proper to the delta increased. The dry districts
of Upper Burma were practically full, and the surplus
population drifted down to Lower Burma to the vast
swamps which their energy made into rice fields. The
administration also became Burmanised, so that when
war again broke out in 1852 we found Lower Burma
more Burmese than before. The local institutions had
been broken up by the Burmese Government, and the
villages invaded by immigrants from the Upper
province. But nothing stable had been established,
and the Lower ]kirma we annexed in 1852 was really
a chaos. It was in a state of transition. It bore to
Upper Burma much the same relation as the western
States of America did to the eastern States fifty
years ago.

After our annexation of the delta the tide again
turned ; the Burmese cultivators, who, following their
armies, had come to Lower Burma to settle, returned.
They did not like our rule, and they went back to
Upper Burma in large numbers. Many parts of the
delta were left without population, and the want was
very thinly supplied by an increase in the immigration
from India, which had been going on for centuries.

CH. I THE TRUE BURMA 5

This state of affairs, however, did not last very lonfj.
The Upper kingdom was not fertile enough to support
all its people, and the immigrants returned. But
the process was slow, and it was not till after 1885
that it became fast. Since then the movement has
been very large, and Lower Burma is now become
entirely Burmese. The Talaing has disappeared, ab-
sorbed in the stronger race. Even the Karens in the
west are now calling themselves Burmese. The Indian
immigration is mostly of coolies to the mills and is but
temporary, and in any case trifling compared to that of
the Burmese. Every day new Lower Burma becomes
more of a unit with Upper Burma. There is a strong
tendency to cohesion and assimilation. But although
in wealth and population the Lower districts now sur-
pass the old kingdom, the essential differences remain.
Lower Burma when annexed was simply a large tract
of country thinly populated with differing races, with no
central authority, no recognised customs, no cohesion.
But Upper Burma was a nation with the traditions,
the customs, and authority of many centuries. In
annexing Upper Burma we took over a nation which,
though primitive perhaps, was nevertheless a complete
organism with an old-established system of government,
both local and central, and an organised religious
church.

Upper Burma was a nation in a way that neither
Lower Burma nor any part of India was. It contained
a compact nationality differing from its neighbours all
round, with an individuality, a universal religion, an

6 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

identity, and a history which had lasted already for
many centuries. It had never been seriously invaded,
never conquered, never received any large number of
aliens. The kings may have often changed, the
governments been at times weak and evanescent, but
with all this the nation always remained as a nation.
You can write a history of Burma for eight hundred
years, and by Burma you will mean always Upper
Burma. In Lower Burma there was never any unity,
never any solidarity. Little local kingdoms formed,
and broke, and reformed again in different shape. The
great bulk of the country was waste land occupied
thinly by many differing races, and for a hundred years
it had been held by the Burmese kings as a conquered
country.

If these facts are borne in mind, they will furnish
the clue to the following pages. It is because they
are usually either unknown or ignored by writers on
the subject that so many fallacies are current on the
subject of Burma and the Burmese.

Burma in this book means Upper Burma, the
kingdom we annexed in 1885.

The Burmese people mean the people who inhabit
that area.

And therefore when I speak of Burmese customs,
Burmese beliefs, Burmese traditions, I mean the customs,
beliefs, and traditions of the people of Upper Burma.

In Lower Burma the immigrants, like all immigrants,
as they came down, to a considerable extent forgot
these traditions. Mixed up with other races, far from

CH. I THE TRUE BURMA 7

their home influences, they became freer, both in a
good and bad sense. The village communities have
less coherence, the religion less influence, the restraints
of tradition and customs less authority than in the
old country. Before the annexation the Burman in
Lower Burma, even if settled there for two or three
generations, always considered the Mandalay king to
be his king, the Mandalay archmonk to be the head
of his religion. He took his fashions and his customs
from above.

In Upper Burma you can study the Burman as an
individual and as part of an old and organised com-
munity, which in ways still exists in full strength and
vigour. In Lower Burma the community is yet to
make, and the individual still somewhat dcpayse. But
of course Lower Burma cannot be passed over : the
existence of such a large area of rich land near to the
home of the Burmese has inevitably greatly influenced
even those who have not emigrated. It attracted
them in the past. It attracts their surplus people in
the present. In the future, by its wealth and its greater
susceptibility to outside influence, it will probably
become in some ways the more important of the two.

But whatever happens, Burma proper can only be
Upper Burma, and the real Burman people can only
be the inhabitants of that country.

America may or may not be a greater country than
England, and an American may or may not be superior
to an Englishman. But however this be, America is
not Encrland, nor is a New Enelander or Californian

8 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

an Englishman, though he be of English descent. And
although you may study Englishmen and the de-
scendants of Englishmen in America and Australia,
you cannot study the English people anywhere out of
England.

I do not know if this will seem a self-evident
proposition unnecessary to have explained. It seems
perhaps of the very essence of the self-evident. But
if so, it is evidence that is quite commonly disregarded
out here. Because when the provinces of Pegu and
Tenasserim were annexed they were officially called
Burma, and because the people now all call themselves
Burmese, everything else is assumed. The Burman of
the delta is supposed to be the natural Burman, and
the circumstances under which he lives now, to be his
natural and traditional environment.

It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the most
astonishing theories are currently received as true.

I hope that this book may dissipate some of them.

I have divided the book into two parts. In the
first part I have tried to show what Burma was like
before the war, what was the nature of its people and
institutions, and the course the war took. I think it
is necessary to the understanding of the second part
to know by what methods the Burmese people were
conquered and the country pacified. It explains much,
both of them and their temperament and of us and our
ways, that would be otherwise difficult to convey.

In the second part I have tried to indicate what

CH. I THE TRUE BURMA 9

our rule is, how it affects them, and the changes that
have come upon them in consequence.

There is nothing that England is prouder of than
her empire, her ability to rule eastern nations, and she
is dad to think that they benefit by that rule. She
knows the Pax Britannica that she has made and the
trade she has created. These are things that leap to
the eye. But, after all, in themselves they mean but
little. Peace may be good but only as a means to
greater ends. The dry rot of peace may be worse
than the friction of war. A peace that is only a
diminution of vitality, a submission to a weight above,
is no desirable thing. We have made a peace, what
are the forces that are at work in this peace? If we
have banished war, that is often the cleanser and
corrector of peoples, what have we put to take its
place ?

Trade is good, wealth is good if it be not too
concentrated, if all share in it, if it be not accompanied
by evils greater than the benefits. Is this true

here?

And of all the things besides, what of them ? There
is so much that goes to the making of a man or a
people besides just peace and plenty. There is
happiness, there is character, there is honesty, there
is justice, there is courage, there is religion. What of
all these things? What do we teach in our school,
and how far are the lessons learnt ?

Never before have we taken over a complete people
like we did in Upper Burma, never before have we had

10 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

to subdue a country as we had it. What has it meant
to the Burmese ?

Nations and governments and men exist and are
strong so long only as they carry out the tasks that
Providence has set them. But Providence has her
own ways, she acts but never tells you what she
intends. She launches men and nations forth, and
then she waits and watches. If you do well, then is
it well with you. If you do ill, then is it ill. Her
rewards and punishments arc great. But she is dumb.
She never preaches nor prophesies. She acts. While
you are useful to her, she uses you. And when your
task is finished, then she will let you go.

We know that we are strong, and we are sure,
therefore, that in some way we arc of use. If
Providence has put us here to rule Burma, it is
because she wants us to do some of her work.

What is that work ?

She never tells us.

What are we doing ?

That, perhaps, we can see. And if we can know
that, we may be able to guess, though ever so dimly,
what our mission is. For that we are fulfilling our
mission we may be sure, or all would not be well with
us as it is.

CHAPTER II

TWENTY YEARS AGO

To the traveller going to Upper Burma the road now
is easy. In eighteen hours you may go by rail from
Rangoon to Mandalay. In another day you may go, still
by rail, to the uttermost frontiers on the north or east.
You can take a steamer and go up the Chindwin.

And the journey, whatever it may contain of beauty
or novelty of scenery, will be without incident. Nothing
will happen to you. The country through which you
pass is as quiet and dull as any other part of our well-
administered empire. You need never carry a revolver
or even a stick, and you will find the Union Jack
waving metaphorically on every telegraph post, on
every steamer, on every tree and rock. The country
is swathed in it, and the substratum never peeps through.
You will go the length and breadth of the land and
know as little of the Burmans when you return as
when you started. The atmosphere of British rule
and British trade surrounds you like a guard-rail. You
never get beyond it. The Burman world exists for
you only as a panorama outside your carriage windows.
But twenty years ago it was different.

12 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

It was late afternoon when my companion and I
crossed the frontier. Behind us lay the long straight
road along which we had come. It reached from us
back to a garrison town. Behind the town there was
the railway, beyond the railway was the sea. This
road was as the last tentacle of a great organism whose
heart lay five thousand miles away. It was the finger-
tip of England and civilisation and the West.

Beside us as we stopped was a white pillar. There
the road ended. Beyond us was the forest. And as
we came to this frontier post we stopped and looked.
The rain came down unceasingly. The road was a
sea of mud through which our ponies had splashed
with difficulty. It was straight and ugly and forlorn.
But we could see far along it. It was purposeful and
direct, evidently knowing its own object. We knew
whence wc had come. Whither we were about to go
we could not tell. This was the end of civilised rule
and government — so we were told. Beyond us lay
the wastes and woods of a retarded barbarism. We
sat upon our ponies in the wet and waited. Our
bullock carts were struggling yet across the mud. We
wanted them to close up ere we crossed the frontier.
We wanted all to be together.

When they came up we went on.

The woods in front were dense. The broad, cut
road had ended. But there continued from its end
some narrow tracks that passed into the forest. Our
guide chose one of these, and we went on.

Directly the pillar passed, our Burmese with us

CH. II TWENTY YEARS AGO 13

laughed ; a cart-man shouted ; a man on foot leaped
into the air and sang ; another clapped himself upon
the chest and breathed full breaths.

They looked at us and laughed again.

' They say,' explained our guide, ' that now they
come into a free country. They are glad.'

We rode forward.

The cart-track wound in and out among the trees.
Where an obstruction rose the road went round. If
a tree fell, it lay, no one removed it, the track made a
detour. If a mud hole formed, the track sought higher
ground. There were a maze of tracks sometimes that
crossed and rc-crossed. They were the tracks of last
year, of the year before, of hundreds of years ago.
Sometimes the rub of wheels had, in a narrow place,
worn the rock into ruts so deep at last that the cart
body stranded in the ridge between. There was never
fifty yards straight. Yet was the going pleasanter than
on the broad road that we had left. The mud was
less deep, there was more variety and interest.

A mile of this wandering brought us to the frontier
station.

That was a small hamlet of grass -thatched huts
surrounded by a high thorn fence. The gateway lay
in a pool of mud and filth. The houses were poor
and mean, built on piles, the floors five feet above
the ground. Our guide halted before a hut in the
centre of the village, and we stopped. He called out
something. Presently into a little verandah came out
a stout old man. He was dressed simply in a blue

14 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

cotton longyi and a soiled white jacket, and he smiled
upon us amiably.

' Who arc you ? ' he asked.

Our guide explained.

' Where are you going ? '

' To Ningyan.'

' Are you armed ? '

We opened our coats and showed a revolver in the
belt of each.

The old man nodded.

' He says,' explained our guide, ' that there have
been robberies recently, and it is as well to go about
armed.'

Then our guide took twenty rupees from us which
he paid to a ragged-looking follower who held a flint-
lock gun and smoked under the shelter of the eaves.
The old man beamed upon us from aloft. He was
the commander of the post and the customs agent
He did not take his duties very seriously. I met him
again later, in somewhat more unfortunate circum-
stances for him. He was running then, but was still
good-tempered.

Then, getting a light from the sentry, we went on.

We had crossed the frontier and were now in Inde-
pendent Burma, where King Thibaw ruled. Beyond
the village the road got worse. The woods had ended,
and we came on huge flats covered with rank grasses,
where rice is planted later in the year. The water
stood upon the fields, and the wheels sank sometimes
up to their axles. The little ponies tripped and slipped

CH. II TWENTY YEARS AGO 15

and waded courageously. But our progress was slow
and the night came fast.

Presently it was quite dark. The rain fell more
persistently than ever. It seemed to block us in
within walls of wet. We could not see. Sometimes
a cart got stuck and a halt had to be made to extricate
it. Sometimes a pony fell and the rider slipped into
the mud. The tall wet grasses brushed against us,
and sometimes we stumbled against a tree-stem or
a mound.

Still we went on.

Some three hours after dark wc found the cartii
beneath us growing firmer. A light appeared at a
distance. Then another. Wc had come at length to
our camping-place.

It was outside the village. There were two build-
ings without walls, a roof, a floor of teak some twenty
feet square, the usual resting-places built for travellers.
We took one of them, and our men the other.

Out of the village we borrowed a few mats to wall
one side. Our boys lit a fire upon some earth in a
corner and made us some cocoa, which with biscuits
and cold tinned meat formed our dinner. Then we
changed into dry clothes.

Luckily, the night was hot.

So I pas.sed my first night in Upper Burma twenty
years ago. The rain poured all night long in torrents,
and I lay awake wondering whether the robbers would
think it worth while to come out in such wot, wonder-
ing if this was a fair sample of what life here was to

i6 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

be, wondering that men find pleasure in leaving the
trodden ways of civilisation, wondering how soon I
could get back. That was twenty years ago, and
I am here still.

Next morning we woke to undiminished gloom.
The rain clouds lay upon the fields. They drifted past
in sad procession as of mourners to a grave. Their
dripping skirts trailed over all our world. The water
in the fields had deepened. The mud was more per-
sistent, the grasses taller. Still there was no road.
The cart-tracks wandered to and fro across the plain.
We could not see. But the Burmans have the instinct
of direction. They might be walking compasses.
They always reckon by the compass. They do not
say ' turn to the right,' but ' turn to the west.' They
do not speak of the ' table near the window,' but ' the
table in the east of the room.' They speak of the
north and south side of a street, not the shady or
sunny side. Of two tumblers on a table one will be
the east tumbler, the other the west. Thus, even in
this rain and mist, they knew at once. ' That is
north,' they said, ' and that is east. Our way lies
about north-east.' Then they drove on.

The distance was seven miles. We had some
bullion in the carts and dared not leave them and ride
on. So we plodded along in front of them. As on
the previous evening, we sometimes fell, and the carts
very often stuck.

At last the weather lightened. A little breeze
came sweeping down the fields breaking the clouds.

CH. II TWENTY YEARS AGO 17

The dense wall parted, and now and then we caught
long vistas of the distance. Sometimes we saw a
clump of palms, a distant hill, a long reach of plain.
Then the clouds would shut again and re-open. At
last we saw some spires. The mist closed upon them
quickly, but when it cleared again we saw we were
approaching a town. A high stockade of great teak
logs fenced it about, and above it rose the roofs of
houses, the spires of monasteries, and groves of palms.
A little watery sunshine flickered over like a smile.
The clouds drew up, and we found ourselves in a broad
swampy plain. The town was a mile away, and
beyond it lay the hills.

The road became better, the tracks united, and we
were evidently on a highway once again. Another
sign showed us that we had come upon a frequented
way. It was two crosses, and on the crosses were
two bodies. Vultures sat by them, and crows pecked
at them. Our guide told us they were two of four
robbers recently arrested and executed. They were
hung there to be a warning. So we tlid in luigland
a hundred years ago.

Then we went on and gainctl the town. That was
at the end of May, in 18S5, and here I lived till the
war broke out in November.

It was a strange life.

There were eight of us there, and we livctl in houses
near the centre of the town. The manager had a
house to himself, we seven chummed in a large build-
ing near. Our houses were all within a fence, and wc

i8 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL i r. i

had f^atcs which were closed at night. I remember
the watchmen were natives of India.

Our business was that of the firm which held the
monopoly of the great teak forests of Upper Burma.
We lived mostly out in camp, supervising the ringing
of the living trees ; the felling of the timber three years
later, when it was seasoned ; its draught to the water-
courses, where it lay till the freshets swept it down to
the main river.

There it was caught and rafted for Rangoon.

W'c travelled about a great deal up and down these
streams and in the forests. Sometimes we rode on ponies,
sometimes on elephants. We put up in rest-houses
like that I have already described, or in native houses.
We lived principally on tins. At headquarters we got
bread and soda-water sent up from Toungu, and we
could usually buy fowls. But in camp there was
nothing but rice and vegetables to be had. Cattle
might not be killed, and the villagers would seldom sell
us fowls. Milk could never be obtained ; although the
country was full of fat cattle the cows were never
milked. The liurmesc hate milk. They regard it
with disgust. And so amid a bounty of beef and of
milk we almost starved for animal food. We ate
tinned meat till our souls abhorred it.

Our only amusement was law n- tennis at head-
quarters. Once one of us went to shoot snipe in a
marsh, but the soldiers turned out, fearing it was an
invasion, and we received a serious warning not to
do so again. When we were on tour we travelled

CH. II TWENTY YEARS AGO 19

generally every day ; when wc were at Xingyan we
rarely went outside our fence. The town was, like
any other Burmese town except Mandalay, built any-
how. The streets were narrow, dirt}', never mended,
never cleaned, scavenged by pigs and dogs. In the
rains there were numerous mud-holes and pools, with
sometimes a sidewalk of planks for pedestrians built
by private effort as a work of merit. European
villages were little different two hundred years ago.
There was nowhere to walk, nowhere to ride. The
dogs barked and snapped behind you, and the people
jostled you. If you met an official, you had to kneel
down or get out of the way.

As to this last, I do not complain. I do not think
foreigners have a right to claim to be exempt from
the usual respect due to the government of the country
they live in. And as regards the former, matters
are not much changed now. No European can walk
through an ordinary village now with any comfort.

But though there was a feeling of restriction, of
confinement, there was, at first, no sense of danger. We
travelled about quite freely and met with hospitality
everywhere. There was never any difficulty in finding
a roof of sorts and the countr)- food. There was very
rarely any discourtesy or insult. The people were
always glad to see us. As to robbers, the only ones
1 saw or heard of, were those on the cros.ses beyond
the town. Wc learned to laugh at the exaggerated
stories current in English Burma about the insecurity
of life and property in I'jipcr Burma, and abi)Ut the

20 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pi. i

discontent of the people. The people were content
as far as we saw. They governed themselves in little
village communities, and the central government,
whether good or bad, affected them very little. They
lived happy, careless, open lives, never wanting
the necessities of life ; pleased to be alive, pleased
with themselves and all about them. They seemed
gay children of a younger world not yet come out to
the troubles of school life.

Their amusements were many, their laughter was
free and cheery, they had no ambitions, save the
highest of all, to take the hour as it came and make
the best of it. They were in their daily life honest
and truthful. They troubled the courts but little,
and settled their disputes at home.

We were friendly with them all. The officials
often came to see us. The governor would come
and dine with our manager, furtively drawing his
feet up to the seat of the chair, for he preferred to
sit cross-legged.

The revenue official came, the forest official, the

captain of the Shan regiment.

They asked us to get them guns from England.

They drank our whisky, and they sold us ponies.

They were cheerful and friendly, and we liked them.

I fear we had little opinion of their ability. They

seemed to be playing at government.

What has become of all of them save the head

revenue official, I do not know. He was killed after

long fighting against us, years later. He was, I

CH. II TWENTY YEARS AGO 21

remember, a pleasant little fellow. They say he was
a brave and energetic leader.

We never went to see them, but I do not remember
why. We did our business in the courts through
Burmese agents. As for myself, the only thing I
remember doing was engineering a canal away out in
the district through which to float logs from one
stream to another. The canal was, I am afraid, a
failure. It never floated any logs. But it drained
the people's fields of the water necessary for their rice
crops, and they sued the company. My canal of
which I was so proud was then closed up.

It was a dull and weary life. There was no
interest, no pleasure, no excitement. It was for those
on tour lonely to a terrible degree. But the European
in the East must get accustomed to loneliness ; and
it gave an opportunity of observing the people that
could hardly have come any other way. We saw
them more clearly then, more fully than is quite
possible to us as officials now. I could be sure, for
instance, that their hospitality and friendliness was not
due to desire to curry favour, but was natural and
spontaneous in them to all strangers; aid I could tell
that where they disliked our ways, it was a genuine
dislike ad hoc, and not mixed up with an\' political
motive.

CHArTi-:R III

IN THE NURSERY

Let mc try and give a clearer idea of what these
people were like then under their own kings. Coming
over from India, there were many striking dififcrences
to be noted between the Burmese and the peoples who
live in the great peninsula. In India, I think the
most pervading impression that one receives is of its
immense sadness. The people seem always to be
fighting against starvation, which is very near. The
thin cattle, the starved dogs, the skinny fowls, the
whole hard landscape is imbued with the same tragedy
of life. A fierce sun rules it, blights and burns it,
and the misery of existence is seared into all life.
There is an oppression, a weight, as if life were a
weariness and a disillusion terribly spent in trying to
hold at arm's length disease and want and death,
never escaping from them, often failing to hold them
at bay. Everything is full of seriousness, of unhappy
purpose, of resignation, sometimes even of despair.

It is of course true that this impression is a false
and exaggerated one. Neither the country nor the
people are so poor as they appear. Neither arc the

CM. Ill IN TllK XURSERV 2;

lives so unhappy as they seem. They have their
quiet pleasures ; they are humorous if not gay. If
they take life soberly, it may not mean sombrely.
Ikit still there is somethint^. The people are old,
tired, and worn out, sated with life.

In Burma all is different.

The people all seem youn^r. They are never old.
Life comes to them always as a pleasant thing. It is
worth living. It contains many things worth having.
It is to be passed through with a laugh and jest, not
to be taken too seriously. The people seem all happy,
all well to do, as if the wants of life were easily fulfilled.
They have leisure too, they play, they make themselves
merry. Their cattle are all fat, and they wear the
same jaunty cheerful air as do their masters.

In India money rules. If you have money, you
can buy almost anything, or any one. You have but
to offer enough and )-ou will have most that life can
give. Money is the god. Money is he who averts
death and starvation, therefore to be grasped by any
effort that may be, and to be held with secrecy and
determination. It is so hard to win.

In Hurma it was not so. Its power was limited.
Money was good to get, but so were many things. So
was leisure, so were festivals, so was independence.
Money was not a master but a slave. Man was worth
more than silver. And so you found often that the
power of money failed. If a man liked his pony, he
would not sell it, not for any profit. If he did not
want to go, he would not go, for no payment. It

24 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL i>t. i

seemed as if the necessities of life were come by so
easily that their importance lessened. A man was
free, less hampered b)- necessity, less subject to fear,
therefore we thought he was idle and careless. I know
now that this appearance too is partly false. Life
everywhere in Burma is not easy. In the greater part
of Upper Hurma it is as hard as anywhere in the
world. Throughout great areas the gross return per
acre of cultivated land is not worth fifteen shillings.
To live is difficult. It requires work as keen, as hard,
as enduring as in India. Poverty is often terrible.
But yet, withal, the Burman puts a good face on it.
He laughs as well with his stomach empty as full.
And he will work with double energy to-day that later
he may take his holiday and be gay for a space. He
is not an idler, but he likes his pleasure too. Life is a
broader, greater thing than any money can cover. To
many of us, earnest, narrow, taking our pleasures sadly,
this attitude of theirs to life is hateful. We see the
Burman at his festival and say, ' The lazy brute I Why
is he not working ? ' VVe offer a man double pay to
do this or that, and he refuses because his soul abhors
it. Then we condemn him ; we prophesy for him dire
prophecies ; we rail at him because he will be inde-
pendent yet for all our money, because he will not turn
himself into a machine, because he will retain his
liberty. But for one who cares to look beyond the
surface it is different. Then when you sec the Burmese
at their festivals, speeding the hours with song and
dance and merriment, when you sec the pleasure they

CH. Ill IN THE NURSERY 25

take in bright clothes, in gaiety of demeanour, in the
pleasanter things of Hfe, you will laugh too.

For beneath all this you know the toil, you know
the labour with which they have wrung out their living
from the earth. You will remember the start before
sunrise, the return, very weary but full of song, late
after dark. If the Burmans do not feci life so hardly
as other people, if they can pay far more in taxes, if
they keep their cattle fat and their faces happy, it is
not because of any peculiar bount}- of the soil. It
is not because they do less, but more. It is in them-
selves, in their temperament.

A merry heart goes all the way,
A sad tires in a mile-a.

Another noticeable circumstance was the position
of women. In India we see little of women. Those
whom we see are labourers. The better classes are all
shut up. Directly a man acquires a little money, he
gives his wife rest from labour and retirement from
view. As far as one can .sec in India, women enter
very little into the worlds of business or of politics.
They are apart. They have great influence, but it
is hidden.

In Burma the women have equal rights with the
men. They are as free, they have the same rights to
property, thc\' have equal opportunities for work. They
do all the petty trading, and in those days did neari>'
all the weaving, while the men did all the heavy work.
The)' were co- partners with their husbands in all

26 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

enterprises. Usually they kept the money-box, because
they stayed at home. Vou met them everywhere.
The streets were full of them. You could not do any
business at all without them. They were an insepar-
able part of the community, just as much in evidence
and apparently just as intlucntial as the men.

Burma was at that time practically ruled by a
queen, and in many households it seemed as if the
same applied. You always had to consider a man's
wife as well as himself in any contract. And in many
deeds of conveyance of land, partnership, etc., the
wife's name appeared with the husband's. They were
the main supporters of the lUiddhist monkhood, and
had succeeded in imposing on the people generally
many ideas which elsewhere arc confined to the
women alone.

For instance, the Buddhist edict against taking life
of any sort.

The Burman man is naturally much like other men.
His instincts make him like hunting, lead him to kill
noxious beasts and reptiles, and rejoice in maiil\-
games.

But these instincts have to be kept under. Buddhism
says it is wicked to take life, and in every home the
mother and wife enforced this precept. Of course, in
forest places deer had to be killed to protect the crops,
panthers were killed to protect the cattle. Malefactors
had occasionally to be executed. These were considered
as unfortunate necessities, and were condoned. But
that hunting was a grand and brave sport, that war

CH. Ill IN THK NURSKK^ 27

was a pleasure and a glory, were ideas that never
occurred to them. They had no manly games, and,
generally speaking, the tone of the community was
feminine.

Vet with all this the men were not effeminate. They
did not give one the idea of weakness, or cowardice.
Rather they seemed like boys still in the nurscr)-.
They were under women's governance. Their mothers
made their right and wrong, and the world was not yet
open to them. They lived too sheltered lives to have
awakened to the harder, stronger, truer things of life.

That the command of the Buddhist faith over the
Burmese people is due to the ascendency of the women
and women's ideas is very clear. And the ascendency
of women was due to the secluded life the nation
lived.

These people, as I have described them, lived in
small village communities scattered over the great
valley of the Irrawaddy from Mogaung to our frontier.
Every village was almost self-contained. Its connection
with the supreme government was very slight. The
English papers in India and Lower Burma talked of
the misrule of the Burman kings and how the people
groaned under the t)Tann)'.

Well, the last Burmese rule ma\' have been weak or
worse, indivitluals here and there, especially at Maiulalay,
may have suffered, but tyranny over the people there
was none. There could be none.

Each village was self-contained and self-governed.
It had its own headman, usuall)- the descendant of a

28 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pr. i

long line of such, it assessed its own taxes, it settled all
its minor affairs. A bii^ crime, a land dispute with a
neighbouring village, or a question of reserved timber
might bring them into contact with the higher authorities,
but speaking generally the village managed its own
affairs, and the cental government mattered to it hardly
at all.

Taxation could not be overdone, as if a village were
over-assessed it had ample means of evading payment.
There was no forced labour except occasionally for a
big pagoda near Mandalay or a fort on the river.
Wars were local and small, and did not affect the main
country. The troops were raised by a system of
service lands which was light and simple, and confined
to certain tracts in the centre.

There was no aristocracy of any sort, no ruling
class, no endowed church. The Burman villager was
as free a man as it is possible to conceive. The
restraints over him were those of his family and his
village community, not of government. The local
officials were taken from the mass, and returned to it.
The restraints, both good and bad, which are the result
of an organised government, a gradation of class and
caste, and a disciplined church or sacred caste such as
the Brahmans, did not exist. The monks were peasants
also, and were dependent for daily bread on the village
around them. Their Buddhism could never assume a
position of command.

The Burman was a free man, subject only to the
natural very limited restraints of a semi-civilised

CH. Ill IN THE NURSERY 29

community and the strong feminine influence. That
made itself noticeable in his manner. The subservience
of the ordinary Oriental is absent. He had the frank-
ness and fearlessness and touchiness of a boy. He
showed respect to the local officials and to the monks
only. To every one else he was an equal. Wealth or
learning might extort admiration but not subservience.
However, there was very little of either. The poorest
man could live in independence, the wealthiest could
not do much more. This is the condition of very
primitive people only.

But the Burmans are a primitive people. They are
a very young people. There are certain marks and
signs by which physiologists can determine the relative
youth or age of a race. One of these is the physical
differentiation between boys and girls. In early races
it is slight, as a race grows old it develops.

If you dressed a Burman boy of eighteen in a girl's
dress, or a Burmese girl of the same age in a boy's dress
you could not distinguish quickly true from false. Face
and figure and voice are very similar. In an old people
such as the French, or the Brahmans in India, a boy
begins to differ from a girl very early indeed. Their
faces seem almost different types, their figures even at
twelve could not be disguised by any clothing, their
voices are utterly different.

The Burman race is in its childhood.

Then, again, it has developed so far under \cry
strange conditions. Shut in by mountain walls and
by the sea and swamps, it has nc\cr been overrun.

30 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL ft. i

New races have not flowed over tlicirs and made strata
such as the Normans in England, the Vandals in Spain,
the Brahmans in India. They have been left to
themselves. They are homogeneous to an extra-
ordinary degree. A few Chinese traders were all the
foreign community ever found throughout Upper Burma
except in Mandalay. And these Chinese took Burmese
wives and became Burmanised. Burma was and is all
Burmese, but India is an extraordinary mixture, a
jumble of races, castes, creeds, and civilisations.

Thus all foreign influences were conspicuously
wanting, and as all new ideas come from without, the
state of society remained very primitive. The laws of
marriage and inheritance were those of early India as
laid down in the Laws of Manu, which came to Burma
with Buddhism.

Some of the administrative ideas and names were
Chinese, as for instance the name of a governor, Wun,
from the Chinese Wong, shows.

But there were no social or caste distinctions at all.
There were no divisions. There was no aristocracy of
birth or race, no sacred caste, no religious sects, no
fighting caste, no trading guilds, hardly any provincial
differences. They were peculiarly friendly to strangers,
because such were few and had never done any one
any harm. But they were peculiarly dense to new
ideas, because such ideas had never come to them in
any forcible form. They had the omniscience and
arrogance of a boy who hardly believes any world can
exist outside his garden wall ; who thinks he is the

CH. Ill IN THE NURSERY 31

receptacle of all knowledge, and who has no fear,
because he docs not know what numerous things there
are to be afraid of outside.

They were people one got to like very much, for
their insouciance, their freedom from care, for the
courage with which they faced the world. They were
as children who had not yet been to school.

CHAPTER IV

SUSPENSE

There was trouble between the Burmese Govern-
ment and the timber Corporation. It is unnecessary
to go into it. The Burmese Government charged the
Corporation with all sorts of offences against their
leases. The quarrel was referred to the Government
of India. And gradually a state of tension grew up
that could end only in a war. There were many other
grievances on either side, and this was deemed a good
moment to settle them. Thus the quarrel between a
trading Company and King Thibaw's officials over
teak-logs became the occasion of a war, became the
determining incident that led these people into that
great school we call the Indian Empire.

Not, of course, the cause. What are the causes ol
things ? Why does the flood come upon the plain ?
Why do the rain-clouds come and go ; wliy do the
rivers flow ? Because there arc forces that drive them,
forces that come from the unknown, that exist, no one
knows whence nor why. Why do nations grow and
spread, why has half Asia been given into our hands
to-day ? No one will ever know. As heat raises the

CH.iv SUSPENSE 33

clouds, as gravity pulls the rivers, so has it been with
us. We have come because we had to come. We too,
as drops of water, obey great forces that we never
understand. Our fate leads us, and what we call
' the cause ' makes but the difference of a year or
two.

The immediate occasion of great events may be
often very trivial, they are never very enlightening.
The real causes are great trains of facts that go back
to the beginning of things, that have their explanations
only on the knees of the gods.

But it made some difference to us in Ningyan that
we were the ostensible cause.

Even when I came up in May there were danger-
signals flying. Away up in Mandalay there was talk
and threats of many things. But that was ten days'
journey off, and in Ningyan the local officials were our
friends. They had good reason to be so, and the
people knew little and cared less.

Still there were rumours. There was to be war,
and if so we were the cause. Those who disliked us
talked. There were difficulties now and then hard to
smooth over. We became later more careful how we
went^about. In the streets, sometimes insults and threats
were called after us. It was not pleasant. It was in
September that the first significant event occurred.

There is a great festival then. It is the feast of
the end of Buddhist Lent, when the rains are over and
the skies are beautiful once more. It is the gayest
festival of all the year, and lasts for several days.

34 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL i>i. i

The market square was near our houses, and in tlic
centre a }^reat trophy had been raised. It had a
golden spire, and panels painted with scenes from
classic plays. I remember these panels were painted
by the "governor himself, who showed them to us,
proud of his ability. Round this building were piled
all the presents for the monks. It was a strange
assortment — food of all kinds, rice and fruits and vege-
tables, English tins, strange beasts formed in paste,
clothes and toys and gilded kites. Of course, the
monks had no use for many of the offerings, but they
looked gay. In a great procession the monks came
through the town in the morning to take them. And
when they had gone the spire was surrounded by
a maze. It was of bamboo lattice, and the outer
walls, some two feet high, rose by gradations to the
centre.

At night the whole was outlined by little lamps
placed on the bamboo rails.

And all about were shops where refreshments were
sold ; there were side-shows of curiosities and monstrosi-
ties, of two-headed calves, and there were conjurers.
There were plays, both real and marionette. The
whole place was crowded with people in gay dresses,
laughing, trying to get in and out of the maze, singing
and enjoying themselves. We went out to .see it.

I remember we thought it very pleasant, we enjoyed
ourselves, although that very day we had heard rumours
that we were to be all arrested and sent in chains to
Mandalay. It was impossible to think that any harm

CH.iv SUSPENSE 35

could come from people who were so happy and
so gay.

Suddenl)-, out of the croutl, a man came pushing
towards us. It was one of our durwaiis. He told us
the gates had been opened by the new soldiers, and
that our place was now entirely in their hands, and
that the commander asked for us. We turned back.

We feared the worst. We thought it meant instant
arrest at least. Orders from Mandalay perhaps. A
new regiment had arrived from there to-day, we
knew. Well, we must go and sec.

The manager, I remember, was away somewhere up
the forest. There were only three of us in Xingyan.
The senior took command and we went in. We found
the gates, usually so carefully closed, wide open.
Some untidy soldiers stood as sentries. The hou.scs
were dark. But on the lawn-tennis court there was a
blaze of light. There, in a chair surrounded by torch-
bearers and swordsmen, we saw a man sitting. It was
the commander, and we went to him. He was young,
I remember, a pleasant -faced, even-tempered fellow
He was a dandy. His clothes were of the finest silk
embroidery in the latest fashion, his sword was golden-
sheathed, with jewelled pommel, and he wore earrings
of big diamonds.

We concealed our apprehension and asked him why
he came. He said to visit us. We saitl that we were
honoured. Then we had refreshments brought, and
tlid our best to entertain our visitor, admiring his
jewels and his arms.

36 A PKOPLK AT SCHOOL pt. i

Still, all the same, we were not free from anxiety.
For this is the Oriental way, not to rush into business
in too much of a hurry. There is always lots of time,
and etiquette must be observed.

After the first formalities were over, it was quite
likely he would tlcmand the surrender of our money
and our arms. W'c had large sums of money in the
safes. Or when he went away he might invite us to
go with him.

It seemed as if his visit lasted hours. He was just
come from Mandalay, from the Court, and was full of
gossip. He told us stories of the King and Queen.
He showed his diamond earrings, presents from
the Queen, he said, and laughed. He flashed his
diamond ring across the red light of a torch. Who
gave it him ? A lady. Then his sword. The King
had handed it to him in full durbar. He was to use it
on the King's enemies.

We said we did not know the King had any.

At this the soldier laughed.

' Don't you know that war is nearly come ? ' he
asked.

We looked surprised.

' With whom ? '

' With the foreigners,' he answered ; ' with your
Government. Did you not know ? Oh yes ! And on
your account, too, about this timber you have been
stealing all these years.'

Then he drew the sword and looked at the edge.
' It's a good sword,' he said, again putting it up.

CH. IV SUSPENSE 37

We stood him drinks — wc stood all his escort drinks,
although it was against their religion, but then so is it
to be a soldier. We placated them with courteous
words. Wc assumed an air of indifference and calm-
ness we were far from feeling. We even asked him
questions.

' What were his orders ? '

He said he had none )'et. When he had he would
let us know.

Then at last, after midnight, he went away. He
swaggered out of the gateway with his gold and jewels
gleaming in the lights. He took with him his swordsmen
and his musketeers. Wc shut the gates, and wondered
when the orders he spoke of were likely to arrive.

I saw that officer several times again before the
war. What happened to him later I never heard.
Where is the golden sword and where the jewelled
bowl? Where arc the earrings? I fear that he was
killed. The gold perhaps is hiilden in the ground,
forgotten. Where is the lady of the ring ? Grown
old and sewing coats may be in some slum of
Mandalay to earn a living. Who can tell ?

The rumours grew quickly worse.

There were two things we were afraid of. One was
that orders might come from Mandalay to seize us and
send us there. The other was that bad characters or
daring men might muster courage to break into our
compound and seize all our money.

In the former case we knew that there was little
chance that wc should ever reach Mandalay alive.

38 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL i>t. i

The heat, the chains, the want of food such as \vc
could cat, would be enough without any violence. In
the latter case wc should probably be killed instantly.
Our place was perfectly indefensible. The fence was
a rotten bamboo railing, and a thrown torch could set
fire to our houses anywhere.

So the days passed. The other men came in from
camp, and we were all gathered in Ningyan.

At last, at the end of October, we suddenly got
orders. We were to go. The time was up. War
was about to be declared, and we must seek safety on
our own side of the frontier.

W'c were divided into two parties, with different
duties.

The manager, with most of the assistants, was to
ride down to the frontier and see the elephants across.
There were a large number — over thirty, I think — and
their value was very considerable. It was expected
that there would be trouble. The Burmese mahouts
would probably refuse to cross to the British side, and
would desert — might perhaps take the elephants with
them — and the officials would probably obstruct the
passage.

My duty, with another assistant, was to take down
the office records and books, the mortgages and deeds,
the valuables and specie. The last amounted to about
three lacs of rupees. We were to go down by river.
All the things were loaded into carts, and we started
out to go down the five miles to where the launch and
boats awaited us on the Sittang.

CH. IV SUSPENSE 39

We went off about midday. No one obstructed us.
But as we passed slowly through the town the people
gazed. Sometimes they called after us threats and
abuse — mostly they were silent.

The road was, as always, terribly bad. The mud
was deep. The water from the creek had overflowed
all the country and made it into a swamp. The grass
was in places eight or nine feet hii^h. It took us five
hours to get down to the village over the river, and
then it was late evening.

I remember we had a discussion then what we
should do. The Burmese clerks and boatmen said it
was too late to start. You could not go at night, and
it would be nearly dark before we could be ready.

But we determined to be off. We were in a hurr>-
— we had private information that messengers from
Mandalay, ordering our arrest, were on the way. Aii\-
moment they might arrive. Any moment wc might
be seized ; or even if no messenger arrived, the local
people, if they had time to think, might attack us for
the money we had with us. Our friend, the governor,
was far away and could nc^t help us.

I remember as we waited the slow loading of the
boat that we kept looking back. Behind us the trail
stretched across the muddy flats, now crossing an open
place, now lost in grass. We watched by turn, fearing
to see some horseman suddenly appear.

The launch was ready, ami we had determined what
we would do. Abandoning the boat, we would cut the
launch free and go. She held the money and the most

40 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL i>t. i

valuable papers. \Vc might escape with her. Anyhow
we would try.

All of a sudden a horseman did appear. He came
riding quickly, splashing through the wet hollows,
covering himself with mud.

We very nearly started. lUit there was something
about the man and pony familiar. He did not seem
to be a soldier, did not seem to be an ofTicial. We
waited, hands on ropes, to determine, and when he
came nearer we recognised the pony. It was one of
our own men with a message from Ningyan.

' Do not delay,' it said, ' get off at once. I hear
that orders from the Court arc expected before the
night.' We worked harder.

But at last, when all was safe on board, it was nearly
dark. Within the shadow of her banks the river was
already grey. Faint mists began to rise, and the
launch serang said he could not start. We should
go aground.

However, we insisted, and just as the sun set we
swung out into the current. We took the boat in tow
and headed down the river. The stream was fast, and
rounding a curve, we passed quickly out of sight. Then
half an hour later, when the dark had come, we moored
alongside the bank in a place far from a village. The
forest came close down to the water, and the river
was between us and the road.

Before we slept we decided on our plans. We took
the money and hid it under the wood bunkers, all but
a few hundred rupees we kept for use. Our guns also

( H. IV SUSPENSE 41

we hid, as it was forbidden to take firearms across the
frontier, and their ch'scovery might cause our detention.
Kut we could get at them quickly. Our revolvers wc
put under the seats. Then we discussed what we
should do when we came to Mehaw, the river frontier
post. Should we steam quickly past and chance being
fired at ? Should we go in ? The river is very narrow,
and we could not get out of range even if we kept over
the other side. Still we might do it.

What, however, decided us not to try was the warn-
ing we had received not to stir up trouble if wc could
help it, because of the other men going down by road.
We might get past, but if we did so illegally, revenge
might be sought by stopping the other party. It is
best to let sleeping dogs lie.

The early morning was misty and it was late when
we started. Hut the distance was not great, and wc
rounded the point above Mehaw about ten o'clock. A
gun was fired as a warning to us to stop. But we had
already decided to do so, and we turned round and
moored under the bank ; then we were boarded.

They made a complete .search of the launch and
found nothing. They made a search of the boat astern
and apparently found nothing. Then we asked leave
to proceed, and were refused.

What the rea.son was we could not guess. We
reasoned, but without avail, we argued, wc tried to
coax. lUit no, we could not go. Had orders been
received to detain us ? we asked ; but wc could get no
answer. We could not go, and that was all.

42 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pi. i

About two o'clock they said that not only wc could
not go on, but must go back. War was near and wc
were suspicious people. Wc must go back to Ningyan,
to the governor to abide his orders. We said we
wouldn't. Who dared to give us such an order ? we
asked. They said it was the post commander. Then
I said that I would like to sec him. It appears he
was in a house on the bank above and would receive
mc. So I went out.

I found him seated in a verandah with his sword-
bearer and his gun. He did not seem at all truculent,
and I thought I would soon persuade him. But he
was firm. We could not go. It appears wc had
broken the law, as two guns had been found in the
clerks' boat. That was against the law.

I said I was very sorry, but it was my ignorance.

The commander said such ignorance was culpable.

I asked to what extent it was culpable, and he
replied that in Ningyan it was culpable to the extent
of fifty rupees.

Until then I had been afraid we were in for some
serious trouble. But when I saw the old man's eyes
twinkle I became suddenly reassured. Poor old fellow,
oflficial pay was small and hard to come at, and, after
all, one must live. I said that capitals were more
expensive than outposts, and a fifty- rupee offence at
Ningyan could be only a twenty -rupee ofifence at
Mehaw. I was quite willing to pay that. But the
commander said that I was wrong. There would be
the expense and trouble of remitting the money.

CH. IV SUSPENSE 43

Again he winked. There was no post. He would
have to send a special escort. He estimated this at
five hundred rupees. Two offences at fifty rupees each
made a hundred rupees, costs, etc., five hundred, total
six hundred. Would I pay six hundred and go ?

I forget now what we compromised for. But we
each made concessions and gradually we agreed. We
became excellent friends and drank to each other's
health. Then I returned towards the launch. On
the way down I met my companion coming up.
He said he heard that I was killed. I laughed and
told him what had happened. We sent up the money
and a bottle of whisky.

Well, we got off at last. The post commander
waved a friendly tumbler to us as we went down
stream. A turn and we were out of sight. And an
hour later we were safe beyond the frontier. Next
day we reached Toungu.

A few days later, the very day war was declared,
the manager and others came in. They had got
across safely with the elephants, but they had met
with adventures. Most of the elephant riders had
deserted, and they had been obliged to ride the beasts
themselves. They had never ridden elephants before,
and said it was a new experience. It had taken them
two nights, but at length they had got all across. So
we were all safe.

And when wc heard later of how three of mir
men had been killed upon the Chindwin, through a
misunderstanding, and the others put in prison and

44 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL i>t. i

threatened witli cUMth, \vc felt we had good reason for
congratulation. I'or the messengers from Mandalay
did reach Ningyaii but a few hours after we had left.

1 do not think any facts could better illustrate the
Wurman kingdom and the people than our escape.
The slackness at headquarters, the want of energy of
the officials in distant places, the indifference of the
people. Think what would happen in any other
country ? Would any one holding our position have
got away ? Would not the government have arrested
them at once ; would not the people have risen
against them ?

The Burman kingdom was that of children. It
was full of good intentions, full of great weaknesses,
full of the faults of childhood. A month later it
had disappeared.

But the people stayed, ;ind for twenty years now
have known another master. They have come out
of their nursery into the world. They have learnt
new knowledge and new discipline, they have opened
their eyes to wider horizons, they have entered into
the arena of competition and of change. They have
learnt much, they have forgotten much, they have
grown in many ways.

And what this is that they have learnt, what they
have forgotten ; whither this road' leads that they then
entered on, we are all surely concerned to know.
For now that they have entered our school, what
affects them affects us ; and whatsoever leads us to

CH. IV SUSPENSE 45

a better knowledge of them, must in the end help us
to a better knowledge of ourselves. If they have done
well, may we not claim some of the credit ; and if
they have failed, may not the fault be partly ours as
well as theirs ?

CHAPTER V

THE C.REAT RIVER

In July 1 886, [seven months after the annexation
I came up to Mandalay.

The only way then was by river steamer from
Prome, a journey ^that lasted four days ; and every-
thing in the journey suggested war. Although we
never stopped except at posts held by our troops, yet
we had machine-guns in the bows, and an infantry
guard on board the steamer. And all day long as we
passed up slowly stemming the current, now under
one bank, now under another, we knew that we might
be attacked. We might be fired into from the cover
of groves, of pagodas, or of sandbanks, never seeing
perhaps our foe. It had happened to other steamers
now and again.

Our passenger- list consisted almost entirely of
soldiers. There was a colonel of British infantry
going to his regiment beyond Mandalay, there were
two subalterns rejoining from the base, there was an
intelligence officer who landed wherever we touched,
and came back full of notes and information.

And there were two or three of those waiters on

CH. V THE GREAT RIVV.K 47

Providence whom a war attracts now as it has
ever done.

One I remember well. He came of some good
family at home, which he had quitted years before. He
had been, he told us, many things. Once he had been a
boot -black, in Melbourne, earning, he said, a not un-
reasonable profit. He had dug in New Zealand for
kauri gum, that fossil product of long-vanished trees.
He had washed sheep and herded cattle and broken
horses. And his last address had been boiler No. 23
Sydney wharf. After all, he said, a boiler is not such
a bad place to sleep in. You get privacy and shelter,
and when you shut the boiler it is so dark you might
imagine yourself anywhere.

What numbers of men there were who came, like
him, hoping to find an opening in this new country.
Some of the men were good and obtained here just
that opportunity they lacked. They were the men for
new countries, and this new country kept them, to its
benefit and theirs. Some there were very much the
reverse. Yet many were picturcscjue rascals, ami I
miss them somehow in this well-ordered province now.

There was the Irrawaddy pirate, he of the insinuating
address and charming manners. He held a minor
appointment in the police for a year or two, and robbed
.systematically every one he could. There was the
' White dacoit,' a brother of his, if not by blood, yet by
nature, though he lacked the former's manner. There
was Signer Beato, who became perhaps the best-known
figure in Burtna later. A man with a hislor)- of

4S A PIvOPLK AT SC'IIOOL i>r. i

adventure going back to the Crimea. He had made
many fortunes and lost them. There were few countries
he had not been in. He came to Mandalay with a
partner and ten pounds. He stayed to make much
money, first by photograpliy, and then in other ways.
He was a man quite unlike any other, and Mandalay
is different now he is gone. There were many others.
Most of them came but for a time, and vanished.

My fellow -passenger, he of boiler 23, attracted
much attention on the steamer. He took the lead
easily, and told every one what he should do. He told
the soldiers how to wage the war and how to restore
^)cace. He told the civil officers how to govern. He
had a most varied knowledge for a boot-black. He
played cards for fairly high stakes with every one who
would. He became quite a personage. And when I
heard afterwards in Mandalay that he had only been
offered an inspectorship of police on jCS a month, I felt
how true it was that governments rarely know how to
appreciate merit.

He did not retain even that appointment long ; there
were difficulties, I believe. Anyhow, he left ; but
whether he subsequently gained distinction in fields
better fitted to his abilities, or whether he returned to
boiler No. 23, I cannot sa>'. I have never been able to
go to Sydney and inquire.

The voyage, as it happened, was without incident.
No one fired on us, and we therefore fired on no one.
Do not think this last was a necessary consequence of
the first, for mistakes were stated to have occurred.

CH. V THE GREAT RIVER 49

Villagers cscapint; from an accidentally burnin^^ village
were supposed to be the dacoits who had set fire to it,
and were fired on by machine-guns — an inconvenient
error only palliated by the fact that no one was hit.
Therefore steamers were ordered in future to mind
their own affairs. If fired on, they might reply. If
not, then a non-committal attitude was to be adopted.
I remember one energetic passenger saying, discon-
solately, that it reminded him of Dr. Watts's hymn —

Whene'er I steam to Mandalay

How many daks I see.
But as I never fire on them.

They never fire on mc.

' Dak' was a pet diminutive for 'dacoits,' by which wc
indicated these Burmans who were dissatisfied with our
proclamation of annexation and strove to make it of
no avail.

When wc stopped for the night we went eagerly on
shore and asked for news, but there was little news
going. There were skirmishes daily somewhere or
other, but mostly of small account. No movement of
troops was going on. In fact, the army of occupation
was then limiting itself to maintaining its {XDsitions,
awaiting the cold weather, when heavy reinforcements
would arrive and we could extend our influence.

And, generally speaking, the country was quiet, but
we understood clearly enough that no progress had yet
been made in the way of pacification. We held the
rivers to Bhamo with a long chain of forts, and had a
few at important places inland, but they dominated

50 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

only the area within range of their rifles, and the
country was, as yet, completely hostile. The hostility
was, however, more or less inert just then, A few
months later it broke out.

The night before we arrived at Mandalay we stayed
at Myinj^yan.

This is a town near the confluence of the Chindwin
river and the Irrawaddy. It was then the headquarters
of a brigade, and full of troops. The river ran close in
under a high bank.

There was then, and for some time later, an agita-
tion in the Rangoon press to make Myingyan the
headquarters of our Government in Upper Burma
instead of Mandalay. It was averred to be a growing
place of immense capabilities, a certain centre of trade
and wealth in the rising future. And Government was
sternly taken to task for its blindness in not seeing this.

Well, I passed Myingyan a few days ago. It has
not grown. It has even fallen off. There are no
troops there now, and only five Europeans. The trade
has not come. But, instead, the river has gone away.
A desolate sandbank, two miles broad, now divides
it from the steamer ghaut. And Mandalay remains
the capital. The economic revolution is not yet, and
this is but an instance of many things. There have
always been those who prophesied that English rule
would revolutionise the East ; that the past was passed,
and the future in our hands to shape it. We have
built railways in straight lines, careless of the towns
we avoided, saying the towns would come to it ; they

CM. V THE GREAT RIVER 51

have not come. \Vc have projected new trade-routes
to kill the old ; they have not died. We have intro-
duced new ways, new thoughts, new faiths — but the
old live. And though we are masters, yet is our
power limited. If wc move, it can be only in the
ancient ways. Charm we never so wisely, the East
shuts her ears and goes her own way.

We left Myingyan at daylight, and passing the old
capitals of Sagaing, Ava, and Amarapura, we came, at
nearly dark, to Mandalay shore.

The city is not upon the shore — it lies three miles
inland.

It is said that King Mindon, when he founded
Mandalay in 1859, placed it far from the river so as
not to hear the steamer whistles, and so that his palace
might not be liable to be shelled by British gunboats,
as the old palaces were.

There may be truth in this or there may not. But
even if he had not objected to the steamer whistles, he
could not have founded Mandalay upon the river-bank.

For the bank there is not like what it is at Ava or
Amarapura or Sagaing, firm and strong and above
high-flood level. It is, for a mile or more, below high
floods, and a great embankment had to be built to
protect it. But the low land was never secure.

VVe slept on the steamer that night, and next
morning early we landed on this bund.

It was crowded with men ami stores, with troops
and followers and coolies, with mules and horses and
bullocks. It seemed a perfect chaos.

52 A PKOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

There was, of course, no hotel to go to ; so out of
this confusion I got a bullock-cart for my servants and
luggage, a bullock-carriage for myself, and I started to
report myself at headquarters at the palace.

There is an electric tram running now, and the
streets are full of pony -gharries. The roads arc
metalled and fairl)' even, ami thc\' arc swept and
drained.

In those days the only conveyance was the bullock-
carriage.

This was a gay square box on wheels drawn by a
pair of bullocks. You sat cross-legged upon the floor,
and your head nearly touched the roof. If you got
cramped and tried to stretch yourself, your limbs went
through the door and windows, and caught in the
wheels or in other carriages. Therefore they were
cramped and hot and uncomfortable ; but they were
picturesque, gay with colours, while the modern pony
conveyance is hideous.

The roads were straight and broad, but deep in ruts
and mud. Rubbish was freely thrown into them.
Pigs wallowed there, and dogs wrangled over refuse.
The people seemed disengaged and indifferent, if not
exactly happy. The streets were busy, and there was
about the town that air of being a capital and not a
country town which all capitals have.

As to wherein the difference lies, I have never been
able to be certain.

What differentiates a busy street in Birmingham or
Liverpool from one in London ?

CH.v TIIK GREAT KlVLli 53

What style has Taris that Marseilles lacks? Why
arc you always quite sure New York is not a capital,
but only a business city ?

It is not public buildings, it is not wealth, nor
tidiness, nor luxury, nor stir. I think it is something
in the people. Manchester now is vastly greater than
London was a hundred years ago. Yet a Mancunian
is a provincial and a Londoner never was.

It must be something in the manner and carriage
and dress of the people, also in the variety. Provincial
towns suffer from sameness and dulness, but capitals
arc cosmopolitan and freer.

Whatever it is, Mandalay had it then. The roads
were mere tracks, the houses no better than in Ningyan,
there were no public buildings to be seen, as they were
all within the city walls. But the people looked as if
they were cleverer, brighter, more urbane. There was
a mixture of peoples, Chinese and Shans and Indians,
with all the mixtures between. There were strange
costumes, strange conveyances, strange houses, strange
temples now and then. And nothing attracted anv
notice. The city was accustomed to strangeness. Ii
was d/ast' — man of the world.

In the few succeeding days when I knew Mandalay
better I noticed this still more. You met all .sorts of
strange peoples here. There were ministers or ex-
ministers passing on horseback with trains of followers,
there were plays going on at the street corners, there
were women in the gayest silks seated in hullock-
carriages. Everything was purely Oriental. You

54 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

never saw a European boot or umbrella, or a saddle on
a horse. The roadside stalls were all full of native
goods. The city had its own purely Oriental life, amid
which the patrols of our troops passed as utter
strangers.

There was a fascination and romance about it.
The city was a living entity, with a strange, gay, varied
life of its own untouched by Western tawdriness.

But now nearly all this is gone.

The King is gone and all his Court and all his
ministers, and with them has gone all style and fashion.
The dresses are dull now, because there is no Court to
make them gay. The manners have deteriorated,
because there is no Court to dictate their observance.

Cheap European goods are evident everywhere. A
native Court would not tolerate such things as patent-
leather shoes or Cawnpore saddles or shoddy umbrellas ;
and what courtiers do, the people imitate.

When I remember Mandalay then and now I cannot
think that it has gained. Electric trams and metalled
roads are but a poor exchange for national taste in
dress, for a high standard of manners, for the organised
life of an Oriental capital.

And yet withal she still remains the social capital
of Burma. She stills sets the fashions and in all the
native arts she leads the taste. Yet she is very poor,
and growing poorer. She has no Court to bring money
to her. She has no ministers to buy her goods and
to keep open houses. She has fallen in many ways.
Romance and she are strangers. And instead of the

CH. V THE GREAT RIVER ss

daily gossip of the Court, the intrigues and plots, the
movement of great affairs, she has but a municipal
water scheme or a village scandal to interest herself in.
It is hard to keep up your prestige on that.

The Golden City they used to call her. There is
little gold about her now.

After three miles through these streets we came to
the city.

It has been often described, its great red-brick walls
over a mile square and thirty-five feet high, its red-
lacquered guard-houses on the walls, the drawbridges,
and about all the lotus-covered moat.

The drawbridges were down, but the gates were
strongly held. There was a company of native troops
at the gate I entered ; I saw close by a field battery.
Troops were quartered here and there in unburnt
buildings, for nearly all the buildings in the city
between the palace, which stood in the centre, and the
walls had been burnt down. There was a bare black
waste all round the palace walls, except on one side,
where some monasteries — now occupied as barracks —
had escaped. It looked dreary and desolate to a
degree. And the great gold spire of the * centre of the
universe ' rose up from the palace platform right before
us. We passed through the triple stockades and walls
and came through the gardens to the palace.

I found the Secretary to Government in a small
room half full of great mirrors, and he invited me to
stay with the Chief Commissioner's staff in the palace
till I could leave for the station to which I was posted.

CHAPTER VI

MANDALAY

The palace in Mandalay was then the centre of
power and administration in Upper Burma. The
General had his headquarters there, and the rooms
formerly occupied by queens and maids of honour, by
ministers and pages, were now full of officers in khaki.
The throne-rooms were offices, the great reception-room
was the mess.

Sir Charles Bernard, the Chief Commissioner, also
resided in the palace.

For it must be remembered that Upper Burma was
never under martial law. From the time that annexa-
tion was decided on, two months after the first columns
came up, the country was assumed to be under civil
rules. It was hoped and believed that we could take
over the government as a going concern. The King
was displaced by a Chief Commissioner, but the
ministers, or some of them, were to remain in power.
The government was to be carried on through them,
and they were to transmit the necessary orders
to the officials throughout the province. The old
administration was in a way to be kept going till

CH. VI MANDALAY 57

gradually displaced by one after the pattern of Lower
Burma.

It will be seen that it was assumed that the Burmese
officials would readily transfer their allegiance from the
power that was to the power that is ; and as to the
people, it was not supposed that they counted. Indeed,
judging by Indian precedents, they would not count.
Throughout our conquest of India we had but to
reckon with the existing government. When we
overthrew it, the struggle was ended. The people
always accepted as ruler whoever was strong enough to
upset the previous ruler. They stood by indifferent
while princes and generals fought out their battle.
Then the winner stepped into his predecessor's shoes,
and all was over. In all India there was never any
nation. Nowhere in India has anything like a popular
movement occurred, e.xccpt in the Mutiny, The
strongest power we met was the Sikh Khalsa. But
that was not a nation, it was a religious organism ; and
the army once overthrown, the country fell completely
into our hands. The arbitrament of the sword was
always accepted as final. The Indians throughout the
peninsula were so accustomed to foreign masters, so
utterly lacking in anything approaching a national
spirit, that it never occurred to them to even express
an opinion as to whom they wished to be ruled by.

Therefore, according to all Indian precedent, having
overthrown King Thibaw, our fighting should be prac-
tically at an end. Little troubles there might be ; we
could not ex{x:ct everything to go smoothly at first.

58 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL im . i

\Vc had taken over the government, and all that
remained was to settle ourselves down.

Therefore any semblance of martial rule was quite
uncalled for. The civil government was already in
power, Upper Hurma was annexed, every Upper
Hurman was a subject of the Queen, the principles of
criminal and civil law were to be obscr\'ed, and the
troops were there, not to conquer, but only to support
the civil power. No state of war existed. If any one
made any disturbance, he was to be dealt with under
the penal law.s. Thus, if he fired on our troops, he
attempted to commit murder ; if he killed any one, he
was a murderer. If an insurj^cnt band arose and levied
on the villagers for supplies, they were ' robbers,' and
so on.

Thus arose a very astonishing nomenclature. The
insurgents were * dacoits,' that is, organised robbers and
murderers. They were liable to all pains from death
down to imprisonment. All prisoners taken were
liable to be tried by ordinary law, and hanged or sent
to penal servitude. They were considered as ordinary
malefactors. While on our side any one killed in
action was popularly said to be murdered.

Not of course by our soldiers. They took things-
as they found them. That is to say, they found a
state of war, and no legal fiction could persuade them
of anything else.

Indeed, I heard one well-known soldier speak very
freely his mind on the subject. Two officers had been
killed in an attack on a post, and the news appeared

CH. VI MANDALAY 59

in the papers as ' Murder of Captain X. and Lieutenant
V. by dacoils.'

' Murder,' he said. * What do they mean by
" murder " ? This is a war, and \vc are soldiers, not
constables. We are here unasked, and these people
they call dacoits have every right to kill us if they can
by any methods known to war. We also can kill
them in return. A la guerre covtvic a la guerre. But
to talk like this. Can anything be more contemptible ?
Either this is a war or it is not. If not, then I am
going to resign. I did not engage to be a thief-
catcher, and if shot in action, to have it written on my
tombstone that I was murdered.'

But of course there was also much to be said on
the other side.

An army fights an army, a soldier meets a soldier.
Only a soldier can claim a soldier's privileges. And
our opponents were not soldiers. They had no
organisation, no discipline, no recognised leaders.
They were guerrillas, like the Spaniards in iSoo and
like the Franc-tircurs in 1870. They were beyond
the scope of military convention. While we were
bound by all the rules of warfare, they were bound by
none. No amount of defeats would be any permanent
use, because there was no one to authorise a surrender
or enforce it. Therefore there was no alternative but
to do as was done in Upper Burma — to treat the
insurgent as a rebel, and to try and build \\y an
administration as early as possible.

The position was difficult, and it created at the time

6o A PliOl^LE AT SCHOOL I'l.i

some friction. The soldier said, ' I am at war, what is
the civilian doing here ? What has he got to do
with it ? '

And the civilian said, ' This is my district. Your
troops are only here to support the civil arm, and to
do what I want.'

The soldier wanted his pri.soners treated as prisoners
of war. The civilian wanted them handed over to him
to try by the ordinary process. And I may say here
that if I were a conquered country, and had any choice
as to the hands into which I should fall, I would
decide for the army. Soldiers may in times of excite-
ment forget themselves, but such occasions are very
rare, and their usual attitude to an enemy is forbearini;
and kind-hearted. While striving to win, they honour
those to whom they are opposed, and they can
sympathise with their foe. They are chivalrous, and
they never bear malice. If they are defeated or suffer
loss, they take it as the fortune of war and they may
desire to get even ; they never seek after revenge.

For though the profession of war may be at times
a cruel one, so must also be that of the surgeon and
phy.sician.

What the surgeon's knife is to the disea.sed body,
that is the soldier's sword to the diseased nations.

And as doctors arc the kindest of men, as with
them the acquaintance with suffering and death leads
not to hardness and cruelty but to compassion and
care, so it is with the soldier. What does brutalisc is
the ignorance of death, the fear of it, either to inflict or

CH. VI MANDALAV 6i

to receive. The emperor who wept over the first
death-sentences he had to confirm, ended by enjoying
massacres.

Long peace does not make nations or men more
humane, but less. It makes them weak, and weakness
is the root of all brutality.

At this time, July 1886, both sides were keeping
quiet and waiting for the cold weather. Our Govern-
ment was awaiting the end of the rains, the arrival of
cavalry and large numbers of infantry to begin opera-
tions inland from the river. The Burmese people were
slowly making up their minds. At first they hoped
that we would soon go away of our own accord and
leave them alone. Now they began to realise that we
meant to stay, and as they did not want us, they were
slowly determining to turn us out.

They were realising also that if any action was to
be taken, they must take it. Their officials failed them
altogether. Chosen from the bulk of the people, they
had the confidence of no one. The\- were not leaders
in any way.

There is nothing a democracy distrusts so much .as
itself. Where the theory is that all men arc equal,
how can one be acknowledged as chief? How can
discipline be enforced, how are you to find men who
will lead, where no one has ever led ?

In an extremity there is no asset so valuable to a
people as a class who by tradition arc tiic leaders to
whom the mass of the people can turn with confidence
and submit with wiliintincss.

62 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pi. i

Now Burma was and is still an instance of the
purest democracy conceivable. Its King gone, there
was absolutely nothing left which had any permanence
or value till you got down to the village commune.
And therefore it was the villages which found they
had to take up the war each on its own account.

All this I learned by degrees while I stayed in
Mandalay and heard men talk. I'or all news came to
the palace, and there was a continual coming and going
of officers and troops, of civilians taking up their new
appointments. There was frequent news from the
districts, and incessant preparation for the cold weather.

And while I waited for orders I wandered about
the palace and the gardens. They were little changed
then from what they were when the King left them.
No alterations had been made. The gardens were
much as they had been when the King and Queen
wandered there, and the palace rooms retained the
brilliancy of their gold and crimson.

But it was very cramped. The three lines of
stockade and wall that surrounded it shut out all view
and all air. Upon the platform the buildings were
very crowded. Many of them have now been removed,
and the main buildings gain by standing clear. The
removal of the walls has let in light and air ; the filling
up of the Queen's Bath h s improved the sanitation.
But, of course, all these changes have taken away from
its reality as a palace, and made it now only a show
place. It is hard to-day to realise the stories and place
the people. But when I saw it, all the rooms and

CH. VI MANDALAY 63

gardens retained the appearance of having been used
quite recently. You could picture the maids of honour
playing hide-and-seek and the King sitting in council.
The background of the tales was there alive. And
even in places it had been judiciously improved. A
bloody hand-print in red sealing-wax upon a wall was
a guarantee of good faith about the atrocities that was
convincing. It was the jai iV esprit of two young
subalterns. But it has passed into many a book in
Burma as a proof, if proof were wanting, of untold
horrors. History is so easy to make, if you know
what is wanted, and supply that want.

Orders have recently been passed to renovate the
palace, to restore the principal rooms and the main
buildings.

All those among us who care for the beauty of
great columns, of lofty ceilings, of the glory of gold
and crimson shown in the wonderful building, will be
glad. It is not, of course, a marble dream like that
of Delhi or of Agra. There is nothing like the
Summer Palace. But it has its beauty, both in itself
and for its history. Nothing like it will ever be built
again. It is unique.

But some there arc who would be glad to see it
burnt. They think that it keeps alive amid the people
memories that were better dead. They think that
while it stands its sight will always bring to peoj)le
old desires and hopes. It makes them restless, unhappy,
discontcntcil with that which is and must be.

For myself, I have no such opinion. That the

64 A PEOPLE A r SCHOOL pt. i

people should admire the old palace as the ^^reatest
building they ever built, as the greatest expression of
their desires and tastes, does not seem to me harmful.

That they should regard it as a symbol that the)-
were a nation, and that they are a nation, is not for
harm but for good. With every sentiment of nation-
ality a people rises, not falls ; it is at the base of the
higher moralities, why should we wish to hurt it ?
Which is more easily governed, which is more free
from crime, which produces the better men and women :
Upper Burma, where the feeling of nationality lives,
or Lower Burma, where it has hardly ever existed ?
The difference is enormous, and the explanation is
mainly from this cause.

It should be our part to increase it, not injure it ;
to draw men together, not separate them ; to give
them a coherence, and not to scatter them.

As for their old ideals, the>' are quite dead. No
one dreams that they could revive. They belong to
the past, and the people's face is now set other whither.
But they wish to front the future as a people, and not
as a crowd.

The palace helps them to remember this. They
know this, and are grateful for its preservation.

After a few days I left Mandalay for my new station.
To-day you can go there by rail in little over an hour ;
then it took three days.

The first day I went down again to the shore, and
took a launch which ran down the Irrawaddy for some

CH. VI MANDALAY 65

way, and then turned up a tributary river which comes
in from the east.

A few miles up this I disembarked at a small post
held by some sappers, where I stayed the nic;ht. The
next day I proceeded on my journey in a boat on
the canal.

It was but a tiny canal. Where I entered the boat
it was only some three yards broad, and it wound
sinuously across the plain.

My escort marched on the bank, and sometimes I
marched with them ; sometimes *! got into the boat and
rested. For the weather was not pleasant for exercise.
An August day is about the worst possible for heat
and oppression. The boat itself was towed by two
boatmen, and we made about two miles an hour.

Before mid-day we reached another fortified post,
and halted.

This place had been the scene of a gallant fight not
long before. Three Europeans of the same timber
corporation that I had served in, thinking the country
quiet, had left Mandalay to return to their forest.
They were escorted by a local official, and they thought
themselves safe, no doubt. The idea that the people
themselves might rise did not occur to many in the
spring of 1886; and these men, being friendly with
the local official, supposed all would be well.

But when they came to this place a band of
insurgents attacked them. The official and his men
fled, and the three Europeans with their servants were
left to fight it tiut. They did so fight it all the day.

66 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

One of them, Gray, formerly a coflTec- planter, and
a t^'reat hunter, used his rifle to great effect. But
numbers told. They were surrounded, taken in rear,
and two were killed. Gray, when his ammunition was
exhausted, was taken prisoner. He was afterwards
killed in captivity — an act for which, later, wc exacted
retribution.

I was interested to see all the place, to see where
they had lain to fire, to note the bullet-scars still in
the pagoda walls.

And the officer commanding told me that in digging
the ditch for the fort they found Gray's watch. How
it came to be buried there no one knew. Perhaps he
dropped it in the fight. It was sent, I believe, to his
jjcoplc in England.

That night I saw for the first time lamp-signalling.
There were, of course, no telegraph lines about the
country, and had there been, they would have all been
cut. Yet it was very necessary to keep all posts in
touch with Mandalay and with each other. This was
done by heliograph and lamp-signalling. Almost every
post was so linked up — some by circuitous routes. It
depended on the lie of the land, on the hills, and on
the facing. Fc)r the heliograph, though readable at
great distances, can only be used when the sun is partly
in front of you. When the sun is east you cannot
signal west, for instance. And though you can signal
east, you cannot get a reply.

But lamps can be used at night in any direction to
and fro, and can be read twelve miles or so.

CM. VI MAN DA LAV 67

Therefore early every ni^ht all up and down the
river, and at the outlying posts, the lamps winked
messages. All kinds of messages came. First official
telegrams, orders from the General, orders from the
Chief Commissioner, messages about insurgents, about
hospitals, about stores.

And when the official telegrams were finished, the
signallers would gossip. They would send news of
what was going on, of fights and marches. Fragments
of news from home, of Reutcr's messages, came through.
And then came all sorts of talk — scandal perhaps, or
jokes. I remember there can have been little or no
scandal, because the field - force did not include a
drawing-room ; but there were plenty of jokes.

Many a time in little outposts we have gone up
after dinner to the signalling station, upon a hill, or a
pagoda, or even on a tree, and seen the news come
twinkling through the night. The red eye, winking
intelligently to us from far away, seemed a reminder
that we were not quite forgotten. By light and
electricity we were still in touch with home. I re-
member that night a heliogram coming through told
us of a skirmish a few miles south of my destination.
Evidently I was getting ne.ir. Next day another
voyage on an ever-widening canal brought nic to m)'
station.

CHAPTER VII

WAR ?

There were then in Kyauksc two companies of the
Somersetshire Light Infantry and a Bombay Native
Infantry regiment. A small stockade at the foot
of the hill was occupied as a fort, but most of the
troops were in monasteries in the neighbourhood,
and the officers lived in small buildings partly up
the hill.

It was a time of comparative peace. All the two
months that I was in Kyaukse nothing happened.
At an outpost farther south an occasional skirmish
occurred, but in Kyaukse itself all was quiet. The
country round was irrigated, and movements of troops
were practically impossible until the cold weather.

But by collecting information, making maps, and
so on, preparations were being made for the winter
campaign.

The civil government was slight. An English
deputy commissioner was stationed at Kyaukse, but
his power existed only in posse. An old Burmese
official retained some semblance of authority yet, and
within a ver>' limited radius civil rule might be said

CH. VII WAR ? 69

to exist. But it was only administrative rule. Courts
e.xisted only nominall)-. We tried no cases, civil or
criminal, and collected no revenue. Still at that time
it almost seemed as if civil administration had taken
root and would quickly spread. The country round
was quiet. We rode out several miles without escort.
Our communication with Mandalay was not interfered
with, and supplies came in from the neighbourhood
without difficulty. The huts in which we lived were
quite unprotected by any defence or even a picket.
The villagers seemed peacefully employed ploughing
their fields. Xo one could have supposed that any
trouble was brewing. Most stations in Upper Burma
then were small as this was. The people seemed
settling down slowly to the new state of things. A
few months later all the countr)- was ablaze — fighting
was continual. The huts in the hill had to be
abandoned, and no one could move out without a large
escort. But I was not there to see.

In October I went to a place up the river called
Shemmaga.

This village had recently been burnt down b\- the
insurgents. It was a place where salt traders lived.
And these traders, anxious only for money and quiet,
had assisted the troops stationed there in many ways.
For this they incurrctl the anger of the insurgent leader
in the neighbourhood, who denounced them as un-
patriotic. He threatened to burn the place and kill
the principal men. He did so. When I came to
Shemmaga it was a blackened waste. Half the inhabit-

70 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

ants had fled, the rest were homeless and starving.
The Government gave them help.

It was very different there from Kyaukse. We
lived in monasteries on a hill above the town surrounded
by a breastwork. Sentries and pickets were on duty
day and night. Sometimes the fort was fired into.
Beyond the fort lay undulating barren ground with
thorns and thin grass, through which roads led on to
the inner country. In Kyaukse we rode out every
morning whither we would, spearing the half- wild
village dogs for want of pigs, and never thinking of
danger.

In Shcmmaga no one was allowed to pass beyond
the pickets. The whole country inland was ablaze.

I was by title subdivisional officer. Now a sub-
divisional officer in a settled country has many duties.
He is in charge of a large area of country. He
sees to the collection of the revenue, he checks the
assessments, he recommends remissions.

He is a magistrate, and he tries all cases but the
petty ones, which go to his subordinates, or the big
ones, which go to the Sessions Court. He is a civil
judge to try civil cases. He is the president of the
municipality. He has innumerable duties.

But here in Shemmaga my duties were much
simpler. I acted as intelligence officer to the troops,
and that was all. I got them what information I
could find ; little enough, and most of it wrong, I fear.
For I had only the reports of spies and general gossip
to go on. We knew nothing of the country, had no

CH. VII WAR ? 71

detailed map.s, no history of the surroundings. The
people shunned us, and when they told us anything it
was usually untrue.

However, certain facts came out quickly. We
were in a very hostile country. That was evident
enough. You had only to go out a mile to observe it.
The first time I went out with a small reconnoitring
party we saw about half a mile off in the main road
the body of a man fastened to a tree. There was an
inscription on the corpse to the effect that he had been
a traitor and so was killed. I found he was the head-
man of a neighbouring village who before I came had
rendered some service to the troops.

A little farther wc were fired on from some thick
bush. Then we returned.

Our picket by the steamer ghaut was fired on once
or twice.

Then our supplies were stopped. We could get
neither fowls nor milk nor eggs. We lived on rations
of tinned meat and biscuits. Bread there was none.
Sometimes we had chupatties made out of flour in
the Indian fashion. Whisky we could obtain some-
times from the steamers, but beer and soda were un-
known. Wc thougiit reprisals necessary, and we tried.
But to retaliate you must have some one to retaliate
on ; to hit, you must be able to see ; you must know
where to strike ; you must get at your enemy.

And we saw nothing. Day after da)* wc marched
out through these barren hills to the villages beyond
and looked for foes. Wc found only villagers. They

72 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

tilled their fields and looked upon us curiously. When
we inquired where the enemy was, they shook their
heads and said they knew of none.

' Where are the dacoits ? ' we asked.

' What (ire dacoits ? ' they answered.

' Evil men with guns.'

They shook their heads blankly. They were all
peaceful cultivators and never knew of such things.

Then we would annex as many fowls as we could
find, leave a generous price upon some villager's porch,
for we were very particular, and go on. And the
peaceful cultivator would then unearth his gun and
follow us to get a pot shot as we went back.

Organised enemy there was none.

The leaders were villagers, the rank and file were
villagers. They would collect for some attack and then
disperse. When you went out to look you found
nothing. You could not attack, because there was
nothing to attack.

It was like thrusting a spear through water that
closed behind it and left no sign of its passage. We
never seemed to gain anything, never got any farther in
our task, and we became weary of this marching
fruitlessly through the country. But although we could
not meet him, the enemy existed none the less. There
was always a small body of men with the leaders, and
they camped now here, now there. When any enter-
prise offered, the numbers could be swollen rapidly to
several hundred. But such a company could only be
kept together for a few days. They had no organisation,

cH. VII WAR ? 73

no commissariat, and but few guns, all muzzle-loaders.
Their object was never to meet us in open fight, but to
harass us on the march, to attack us at night, to boycott
us and make our rule impossible. For they hoped
against hope that some time we would go away.

Once, however, we nearly had a fight.

A man came in one morning to sec me. lie was a
villager from ten miles away. I had never seen him
before and knew nothing of him. But he said he had
some information he wished to give me.

' About the insurgents ? ' I asked, when he had come
into my hut and we were alone.

' Yes.'

* About Maung Yaing ? '

' Yes.'

' Where is he ? '

' About ten miles from here camped in a palm grove.
He is collecting men again.'

' What for ? '

Rut my informant eiid not know. He shook his
head.

' He will attack somewhere,' he replied, ' but I don't
know where.'

' How many men has he got now?'

' A hundred, a hundred and fifty, perhaps two
hundred. I did not count, liut I know that they
are collecting fast. He ordered mc to join.'

'And you refused? '

The man nodded his head.

'Will you come with me to show the wa\- ? '

74 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pr. i

' No."

Of course lie was afraid. He had relations and
friends on whom vengeance would be taken even if he
remained secure. Not only would he not come, but he
did not wish any one to know that he had told me.

' If it is known,' he said, ' I shall be killed.'

I went to the oflpicer commanding and told him.
An hour later wc marched out with sixty sepoys to see
what wc could do.

I remember it was terribly hot. October is one of
the worst months of the year. There is no wind. A
damp and breathless heat beats down, and the thunder-
storms that pass only make it worse.

We reached the place about an hour before sunset.
It was amongst low hills, and a large village stood in
some open fields. Beyond the village lay a palm grove
where a stream passed, and in this grove we supposed
the enemy lay.

We advanced upon it rapidly but found it empty.
There was no sign even of any number of men having
been there. It lay in peaceful occupation of a few
sugar-boilers.

Wc arrested the sugar-boilers, and then going to
the village we arrested several of the villagers. We
fixed our camp in some little monastery huts north of
the village, for it was too late to return that night.
After our, usual dinner on grilled fowl and biscuits, I
interrogated the prisoners.

Maung Yaing ? They had never heard of him.
Dacoits ? What were they ? Well, yes, they had

en. VII WAR ? 75

heard of them. They were evilly -disposed people.
Now this villafjc was a quiet, honest, peaceable place.
It had no concern with such things.

The officer commanding was of opinion that, as usual,
I had been sold. My information was all wrong.

' They come to you,' he said, ' and fill you up with
weird stories, and you believe them. You tell us, and
we march everlasting distances and nearly die. As to
dacoits, I doubt if they exist.'

He wanted to release the prisoners.
But I objected. Somehow I thouL;ht that the
information I had got was true. I thought the
villagers lying. I thought it advisable to keep them
till the morning. The officer agreed, saying it was my
business and not his, and then we prepared for the
night. Me went and posted his sentries, and I went
with him.

The camp was in a vcrj' awkward place. It was
at the upper end of the village, which joined it.
One side was open, but on the other two were pagodas
scattered about behind which an enemy could assemble
and find cover. However, we expected no trouble, or
certainly we would not have campeil there.

The sentries posted, we went back. The men were
in a wooden building, and we slept in a little hut close
by. I remember the floor was rotten, ami we both fell
through several times.

The night pas.sed without incitlent. Next morning
we released the prisoners and marched away.

But some time after I heard all about that iii;jiii

76 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL n. i

and wliat occurred around us as wc slept. A prisoner
caught by the cavalry told me. He was one of the
lieutenants of the band and was with Maung Yaing
that night.

' The news,' he said, ' was quite true. Wc were all
there, three hundred of us. Only not in the palm
grove you went into, but one a mile farther on behind
a rise of the ground.

' We saw you come two or three miles away, and we
were ready for you. We had a breastwork, and we
meant to fight. But of course wc preferred not, as wc
cannot stand before you in daylight.

' However, you never came on to where we were.
You went back to the village and camped. As soon
as it was dark, we surrounded you. There were
pagodas all about, and wc hid behind them. We came
up quite close to you. Wc could hear you talking,
and see you quite distinctly at your camp-fire. Wc
intended to wait till after moon-set, about two or three
in the morning, and then rush into your camp with
swords. We expected to kill you all.'

' Why didn't you try then ? '

The man laughed. ' You have great luck. Do
you remember the prisoners you made ? Among them,
by some extraordinary chance, you got two of our best
men, whcj were in the village at supper. You also got
several leading villagers. Wc expected you to release
them before night. Hut you did not do so. Therefore
wc did not attack you.'

' Why ? '

CH. VII WAR ? ^-j

' We feared you mi'i^ht kill the prisoners if we did.
Besides, the \illa^cr.s besought us, saying their village
would certainly be burnt afterwards. So we decided
not. Wc thought we would attack you on your return
march.'

' You did not even do that.'

' No, for when the daylight came we did not like
the look of your rifles. You had a hundred men.'

' Sixty,' I said.

' All trained men with ritles. We had three hundred
men truly, but only forty had guns, and they were
muzzle-loaders. What chance had we ? '

' Why, none,' I said, ' by daylight, but at night it
would have been different. You missed j'our chance.'

In November a squadron of cavalry landed —
Hyderabad Lancers.

Hut although we now could move about more
quickly and more freely, we accomplished little. Wc
dominated all the country, but we caught no one. We
fired a few shots now and again, we raced about the
fields on cold trails to no effect. The people remained
as hostile as before. It was impossible to get any hold
on them. We lost an officer of the Naval Brigade in
an ambush and a few men. No one who has not
tried it can imagine how difficult, how dispiriting it
all was.

War is war. It is full of excitement ; you win, you
lose, you hit and are hit back, you have an object.

Here there was nothing of all this. Every one
longed for a fight, but no fight came. We marched

78 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL n . i

and marched and countermarched. And after two
months we were exactly as we had been. The soldiers
were eaijer to find the enemy, to defeat him and end
the war. The civilian was anxious to bct^in his work
of reconstruction and assert his authority. And all
cither could do was to wear out his own arul his horse's
patience.

I can remember now even the cverlastini^ weariness
of getting up morning after morning in the dark and
marching over bad roads, stumbling and falling and
swearing, to find at the end that the insurgents had
news of us and had gone.

We certainly captured a great many of their
abandoned camps, but as a camp consisted merely of a
few leaf-huts and some earthenware pots, the booty was
not great.

And this reminds me of the bulletins.

It must be remembered that the troops were not in
large bodies. They were split into innumerable little
columns that marched about on their own account and
sent in reports of their doings to the General. Tiie
civilian of course also reported to his superior. And it
was very diflficult to make their reports interesting.

* Monday. Marched ten miles, saw lots of villagers.

'Tuesday. Marched fifteen miles. Awfully hot. Ten
men down with sun. Saw one dacoit in the distance,
who fired a gun.

' Wednesday. Made a night march of twenty miles,
saw considerable number of villagers. One sowar killed
and two wounded by person or persons unknown.

CM. VII WAR ? 79

' Thursday. Were attacked at night. Lost five men.
Fired great quantities of ammunition. Result unknown.

' Next morning, Friday, spread out over the country,
and found a Burman with a bullet wound. Said he
got it accidcntall)'.

' Saturday, liack to camp. Every one worn out.'

Now, such a report might be absolutely truthful
and would contain all the information necessary to
give, but it is manifestly unpicturcsque. It might do
credit to the writer's sense, but not to his imagination.
And it would not certainly attract attention up above.
Something after the following style is much better.

' Monday. The civil officer having informed me
that a large body of insurgents were collecting at A.,
I immediately moved out with troops, as detailed
below, and marched to B. to be within striking distance.
Here we camped.

' Tuesday. Starting at 3 A.M., I made a swift and
strategic march on the enemy's position, arriving before
it at noon. This was masked by a grove of trees
and some pagodas, and was very strong. After care-
fully reconnoitring the ground, I directed the infantry
to charge it with fixed bayonets. The attack was
completely successful, but the enemy's look-out had
discovered us and alarmed them by firing a gun, so
that when we entered the position we found it evacuated.
Our casualties, ten men down with sunstroke. Kncmy's
loss unknown. We captured the whole of his camp
equipage and commissariat ' (two earthen pots, half a
basket of rice, three salt fish).

8o A PKOPLE Al^ SCHOOL pi. i

' Wednesday. Before dawn we renewed our pursuit
of the enemy, driving him twenty mile.s farther out in
disorganised flight. In an encounter between the
cavalry and the enemy's left wing we lost three men.
The enemy's loss is large, estimated at a hundred or
more. The insurgents arc now quite demoralised and
broken up.

' Thursday. We were vigorously attacked at night
by the enemy in overwhelming numbers '

And so on. It is wonderful what imagination will
do to liven even work like this. Some men never
came within ten miles of an insurgent leader but ' they
very nearly captured the Bo.* They never found a
pot of rice cooking in jungle but they * had rushed a
dacoit camp ' ; they never made a movement but what
they were ' scouring the countr)-.'

One gallant officer so distinguished himself with his
pen that he obtained the name of Fitz Bulletin ; and
one civil officer rose into fame by capturing or killing
the famous leader, Hla-U, once a week for a whole
open season.

And so we took life fairly cheerfully, subsisting on
fowls, tinned meats, and commissariat rum, and ever
hopeful that some day we should have a fight and get
a little nearer the end.

CHAPTER \'III

WUNTHO

Mkanwhilk events iiad bccn movincj rapidly every-
where. The period of rest and expectation had passei!,
and both sides were taking matters more seriously
than they had, were more awake to the necessities
of the times.

The Burmese people had risen throughout I'pper
Burma. In every district there was a ferment and a
movement. Posts were attacked everywhere, convoys
were fired on, every village was a centre of disaffection,
and every villager was ready to fight. The old leaders
increased their bands, and new leaders sprang up every-
where. A word as to these leaders.

It was made a reproach to the Burmese people that
these leaders were frequently men who had been outlaws,
even in the Burmese times. It was assumed, therefore,
that their object was simply plunder, and that patriotism
had little or no infUience with them.

But, of course, the inference was wrong. For a
people who have lost their natural leaders to turn to
outlaws for help is not a j)cculiarity of the Burman,
but is human nature all over the world. The outlaws

Si i'.

82 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

have had, presumably, some experience of fighting, and
must, by their very profession, be men of a certain
courage and influence. If they successfully defeat
their own government, they could be able to lend help
against a foreign one. And, as in many places the
local officials had no experience of fighting and little
influence, the people turned to the outlaw. Always a
friend of the countryside, as Robin Hood in England,
he became a national hero, and men flocked to him.

Elsewhere the leaders were old officials, such as the
Revenue VVun in Ningyan, who became one of the
most noted leaders of the time. Men sprang up out
of nothing who in a month or two gained name and
influence.

These men were, as a rule, the best and bravest of
the ^people. They rose because they had courage,
because they had ability, because they had the power
of command. Their proceedings were often uncon-
ventional, but then that is a characteristic of guerrillas.
They had often to weigh heavily on the people for men
and arms and supplies, but such is the nature of war.

The people admired them and assisted them, cover-
ing their movements with a conspiracy of silence that
was extraordinary.

But their power was very small. Each locality had
its own leader, and they could never combine, never
unite in any general movement. Their strength con-
sisted in being of the people — being known to, and
probably related to, many people in one area.

And this, too, was their weakness, because outside

CH. VIII WUNTIIO 83

that area they were unknown, could command no
following, and had no authority. They were in their
way the best men the country could produce.

It is one of the regrettable necessities of a war of
annexation that the best men are always against
you. The men who come in to you and help you are
usually not the best. They are the time-servers, the
fearful, those concerned for their money and for their
property. They are useful to the conquerors, and in
fact essential. They must be well treated and well
rewarded. But, r^evertheless, one's sympathies are
with the others.

Fate, for its own good ends, may have ordained
that a country is to be conquered, and the conqueror
have no doubt that what he is doing will in the end be
for the best for every one. He may be perfectly clear
in his own mind that what he is doing is right. And
yet he may be sorry at incidents that are inevitable to
that conduct.

That our conquest of Burma was not only inevitable,
but that it was the only way by which the people could
be led out of the nursery into the world — could be
conducted to a higher, stronger, wider life — I have
never doubted. What Rome did for the Western world,
that we are doing for the East. The people must come
into our school, and there learn what England learnt
long ago — first at the hands of the Romans, and then at
the hands of the Normans. One might have much
sympathy with the Burmese Hercwards or Robin
Hoods, but that must not prevent their suppression.

84 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

\Vc never ceased to recognise that it was our
opponents, not our friends, who deserved our respect.
The first duty of every man is to his country, to fi^^ht
for it and preserve it. A man who cannot be fiiithful
to that, has little likelihood of being faithful to anything.
We felt that it was those who resisted most strenuously
who would, when all was over, be our best fellow-
subjects of the Queen.

Therefore, on our side at least, there was never any
bitterness in this war. VVc never became vindictive,
never wished to humiliate, to injure or destroy. We
wanted only that our supremacy should be recognised,
and that there should be peace. We wanted to be
friends. And I don't think that we felt surprised, or
annoyed, or angry that the people resisted. They said
to us in cfTect : 'If you arc the stronger, come and
show it ; if you can beat us, come and demonstrate
your power. You can't expect us to admit you as our
rulers until you have proved that you can rule us. If
you can conquer us, do so. Hut although you have
overturned our government, we remain. Come on.'
So Upper Burma rose and much of Lower Burma
too.

As the people rose, troops came pouring over from
India — cavalry, artillery, and infantry, more than forty
thousand men. Columns were organised to sweep over
the whole country up to the frontiers. Two of these
columns were to proceed to Wuntho. The State of
Wuntho lay far north, on the west of the river above
Mandalay among the mountains. It was semi-

cH.viii WUNTHO 85

indcpcntlcnt, and was ruled over by a prince who was
called a Sawbwa. When our columns advanced on
Mandalay in 18S5 the young Sawbwa was living in
the palace. Hut when we occupied the capital he fled
to his own territory. Then he declared himself inde-
pendent, set up a kingdom of his own, and proceeded
to annex slices of the neighbouring country. To bring
him to reason two columns were organised. One was
to start from Shwebo and march up north, the other,
assembling at a river station a hundred and fifty miles
above Mandalay, was to cross a mountain pass and
threaten him from the east.

With the latter column, which was the principal one,
went the General and the chief civil officers. The
former column was smaller, under a colonel, and I
was ordered to accompany him. I received my orders
at the end of the year, and in two days I was travelling
up to join my column. It was six da)-s' long march-
ing up through the country. I had with me as I rode
a few sowars, and my cart with my kit had a small
infantry escort.

On the march I was alone, but ever>' night I stopped
in some post established by the advancing column. I
overtook it in camp at a place called Sagyin. It was
a desolate camp enough. All round was a thin, sparse
forest, and in the middle a patch of rice-land. Tlic
fields were dry now, and on tliein were pitched the
tents. A small, poor hamlet of some ten or twelve
houses stood on the edge of the forest. No local
supplies were to be obtained, and our rations were all

86 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

we fjot to cat. In addition to other discomforts, a cold
rain came on which lasted three days. It turned the
fields into a clammy swamp, and made us all wet and
depressed.

\Vc were waiting there for news of the other
column. It was delayed in starting, and its road was
more difficult. Our column had been ready some
time, and we were only thirty miles or so from the
objective — the town of W'untho. We could easily
have been there first. But the other column contained
the General and the chief civil officers. We were
only a support, and therefore we had to wait. With
the column I found two interesting people. One was
the Wun of Kawlin. This territory was just north of
us and lay along the Wuntho frontier. It had been
annexed by the Wuntho Sawbwa to his incipient
kingdom, and the Wun had sought safety in flight.
He now joined our column as an ally. He was a
stout old man, and his family had been hereditar>'
Wuns for generations. Kawlin was his family fcof,
and he felt his expulsion deeply. A treasure accumu-
lated for many years had been taken, and he was now
reduced to poverty. He was not himself a man of
much intellect or character. But his eldest son was
one of the best Burmans I ever met. He was a
gentleman, courageous, courteous, and able. He was
wounded twice while in our service, and two years later
he died. The other strange character was a Catholic
priest. There arc scattered throughout Upper Burma
communities formed from prisoners brought back by

CH.viii WUNTHO 87

the King Alompra from his conquests. From Syriam
near Rangoon he had brought a number of half-caste
Portuguese. From Siam ho had brought some Danes
and half-caste Danes with their Bishop. From
Chittagong he had brought other prisoners.

To these communities he had given grants of land
in various places, and they had built villages and
settled down.

In time they became to all outward appearance
Burmese. They wore the same clothes, spoke the
same tongue, had the same customs and ways. Hut
they retained their religion.

It was never, a desire cither of the Burmese kings
or people to proselytise. In fact, they rather avoided
it. They wished each man to follow that faith that he
was born into.

Therefore these Christian communities were never
persecuted. They lived in peace, and when they could
they got their priests.

The history of the priests who came to minister to
these colonics is a strange and interesting one. I
have written it full length elsewhere.' At first they
were cared for by the Benedictine monks of Italy, who
sent them priests. But the invasion of Napoleon
disorganised Italy, and the supply of priests came to
an end. For many years they were without any
spiritual guides. They liveil alone. Catholics amid a
Buddhist nation. But still they never lost their faith,
they never became absorbed.

' In TfmpU Bar Afagasitie.

88 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

Individuals of course did so. The villages did not
increase. When the young men left their homes and
went into the lUirmese world they in time fell into line
with their surroundings. If the daughters ran away
with Burmese boys, they took the religion of their
husbands.

But the village itself remained Catholic, as a rule.
At least no village ever turned Buddhist. Two or
three abandoned all religion. Having no priests, they
forgot their Christianity. Not being Burmese by blood,
they would not become Buddhists. They fell into the
condition of the savage, having no faith of any kind.

But the most remained staunch, and when the
priests at last returned they were welcomed readily.

These priests arc furnished now by the Soci^t^ des
Missions Etrang^res at Paris. Mostly they are
recruited from the Alpes Maritimes. And one such
priest was at the outbreak of the war in his village,
Monhla, some twenty miles from our line of march.

Here for a year after the occupation of Mandalay
he lived in comparative peace. But when at the end
of 1886 all the country rose, the Burmese people
turned on him. Being a European, they confused
him with the invaders.

Mis people could not protect him, and he hid. He
told me an exciting story of how he was secreted in a
wood and brought food at night by the faithful. But
the Burmese had suspicions, and began to search for
him with dogs. Then he fled away and sought refuge
with the cavalry, who were then passing up ahead of

CH. VIII WUNTHO 89

the column. He was accepted by the captain of the
squadron and invited to accompany it. He made a
strange addition to the head of the column on the
march. Behind the broad-shouldered captain riding
on his Arab charger, gay with scarlet cummerbund and
blue turban, with a long sword on his saddle, and a
lance in hand, rode the priest. He was short and
slight and bearded. His cassock was old and brown
and stained. It was the only one he had. He had
escaped just as he stood. And he rode with ill-assured
seat a small, fat, cream-coloured pony that had been
lent him. When the column was at the walk it was
all right, but when it trotted, still more when it
cantered, there was trouble. The roads were narrow
and bad, and the big sowars on their big horses clattered
noisily behind. The cream-coloured pony jumped and
frisked. And at last the worthy father would ride
desperately into a bush and so dismount, holding on
vigorously to his pony till all was passed. Then
following on at his leisure, he would find us safely at
our camp. He is still alive and well, but he has left
his village now and lives in Mandalay.

After a week's halt we got our orders to move.
The cavalry went on in front, and I went with them.
Pushing our way through some fifteen miles of forest,
wc came out into a broad plain. 1 1 was the Kawlin
plain. Before us were the mountains of the VVuntho
Sawbwa, and in a valley to the right was his capital.
But that was too far away, and, going on to the village
of Kawlin, we camped.

90 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

This was the home of the Kawlin Wun. After a
year's exile he was back. He wept to see his people
once again, to see his village where he lived, the
monastery he had built. And his friends came out to
meet him, glad to welcome him. The Wuntho Sawbwa's
people had retired before us. They were now in the
hills above, for the General's column had occupied
Wuntho town the day before. There was no fighting.
The Sawbwa was said to be negotiating, and all would
be peace.

The next day we rode to Wuntho to see the other
column. The General and his staff and the Commis-
sioner met us on the way. We received orders to
leave a small garrison at Kawlin, and the rest of the
column to come in and join the main force at Wuntho.
So our march was over for the present.

CHAPTER IX

ON A FRONTIER

The troops at Wuntho occupied some large monasteries
outside the town on the north. The town itself was
square, surrounded by a high timber stockade. And
in the centre was the palace of the Sawbwa, where
civil officers lived. There were five of us there — the
Commissioner, who was, of course, the chief, the Deputy
Commissioner of the district in which the country
round Sawbwa would be when it could recognise itself
as part of a district and not an unknown country, two
minor civil officers, of whom I was one, and a police
officer.

The police officer had with him some newly enlisted
Burmese police — ' Never there's ' as they were called,
who were of no use at all. But he lent a certain ' at
peace ' air to the proceedings, ill-balanced by the large
military force outside. And of course we had a
military guard in the palace. Palace is a large word
to use, and in fact it is not a proper translation of the
Burmese word. But I can think of no English
equivalent. Castle would be suitable if only it had
been a castle, but it wasn't. It was a large, untidy

92 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

wooden building, built as arc most buildings in
Burma, with the floor six or eight feet above the
ground. It was also surrounded by a stockade
dividing it from the town outside. Here we five
civilians lived, and had even our mess apart from the
soldiers, and did all the high political business that
came in our way.

This was rather difficult.

The Sawbwa had not resisted the advance of our
columns, he had not defended his capital, he had in
fact acted much as King Thibaw did, only that instead
of waiting to be arrested he had run away. He was now
reported in the mountain overlooking the town, with
an army variously estimated at from two hundred to
two thousand men. He was perfectly ready to negotiate
at a long distance, and the negotiations began. It
may be urged that we had no cause to negotiate, our
position was clear. We had assumed the government
of Burma, and the Sawbwa was its tributary. It
therefore lay with him either to come in and accept
our suzerainty, or to refuse. In the latter case we had
force enough to attack his principality and drive him
out.

But in fact the position was not so simple. We
had our hands very full without these tributary States.
All Upper Burma, and much of Lower Burma, was
urgently requiring garrisons. This Sawbwa was only
one of many all along the skirts of Upper Burma,
and if we went for him, we should have all the others
on our hands. Besides, there were political reasons

CH. IX ON A FRONTIKR 93

outside Burma why he should not be hardly dealt with.
Our Empire contains a great number of tributary
States, and the chiefs of these States arc inclined to be
apprehensive of our policy towards them. W'untho
was a mountainous, unhealthy, poorly populated
country. If the Sawbwa would only behave reason-
ably, he might retain his country permanently under
our ovcrlordship. Therefore the urgent entreaties of
the cavalry that they should be let loose to pursue
and capture the recalcitrant Sawbwa could not be
listened to ; we must try persuasion. As the Sawbwa
would not listen to our blandishments, further help
was sent for. The Kinwun Mingyi, who had been
King Thibaw's principal minister and was now on our
side, was sent for to come to Wuntho and talk to the
Sawbwa.

So the old man came, and he sent messages ; but
all to little effect. The Sawbwa would not trust us ;
he would not come to an interview. All he would
say was. 'Go away, please, go away. If \-ou will
only go, I will give up my recent conquests. I will
acknowledge your suzerainty, and I will pay the usual
tribute.' An unfortunate mistake made matters worse.
As the Sawbwa would not come in, and as it was
necessary for some officer to meet him, it was decided
that the other junior civil officer, Mr. Cloney, should
go and meet him. The Sawbwa was up the mountain.
It was arranged that Mr. Cloney should march to
the foot of the mountain with a military escort. That
he should be met b}* the Sawbwa's officials there, and

94 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

leaving his escort behind, go in their care to meet
the Sawbwa, a mile farther on.

So Mr. Cloney went, and he met the Sawbwa, and
they sat down to discuss matters. Hut while they
were discussing them, shots were heard from where
he had left his escort. Evidently a fight was going
on. Presently men came rushing in to say that the
soldiers were advancing. They had killed one or
two of the Sawbwa's men they met on the road, and
were evidently intending to kill or arrest the Sawbwa
himself.

Then there was fearful confusion. The Sawbwa
was frightened to death, his men were furious. They
drew their swords and rushed upon the unfortunate
Cloney to destroy him. Killed he would have been,
there and then, if it had not been for one of the
officials, who threw his arms round Cloney's neck and
covered him with his body.

The Sawbwa fled, and Cloney rejoined his escort,
who were then halfway up the hill.

It was an unfortunate mistake, never, I think, fully
explained.

It naturally confirmed the Sawbwa in his profound
distrust of us, and destroyed all hope of his coming in
and making friends. ' No,' he said ; ' King Thibaw
surrendered, and you deported him. I agreed to see
one of your officials, and you made an attempt to
catch me. If I come in, you will probably shoot me.'
Therefore he remained at a considerable distance.

All this lasted some time, but we did not remain

CH. IX ON A FRONTIER 95

at Wuntho idly all that time. We had a race meeting,
in which one of my ponies did well. Burmese ponies
were then plentiful and cheap. For fifty rupees you
could buy a passable mount, for a hundred a very
good pony. But now they arc scarce and verj' dear.
We had for several years lar^e numbers of mounted
infantry and of transport trains to which these ponies
were supplied. And the men in charge of them being
inexperienced, the mortality of animals was very heavy.
After five years of war a pony was hardly to be got.
And now, though there has been peace for fifteen years,
the supply of sturdy ponies does not increase, and
the price remains very high. One principal reason of
this is the unfortunate attempts of ourselves and the
Burmese to improve the breed.

The Burmese pony is a small, sturdy, spirited little
fellow of from twelve hands to twelve hands three
inches. He is suited to the country, will go all day
if you don't hustle him, and is as familiar as a pet
dog. But being so small, it was considered advisable
to try and enlarge the breed. For this purpose the
Government imported Arab stallions, and the Burmese
villagers took what wretched country-breds they could
get — casters from the cavalry, usually. The result was
very unsatisfactory. The descendants of the Arabs
were large, handsome, and fast. But they were of
delicate constitution and not suited to district life.
The ponies from the village stallions were leggy, weedy,
unwholesome scarecrows. And, worst of all, these
half-breeds, good or bad, arc a barren stock. The

96 A PEOPLK AT SCHOOL pt. i

race dies out. Therefore, instead of improving the
breed, \vc did our best to destroy it altogether — the
usual result of benevolence without exact knowledge.
1 think it is now recognised that the future of the
Burmese pony lies in breeding him pure, and not in
mixing blood. Mixed breeds, whether of man or
animal, always tend to disappear. They inherit the
defects of both stocks and the virtues of neither.

After the races, 1 went out with different columns
on exploring expeditions. It must be remembered
that all the country was new. No European had
ever been here before. There were no maps and no
descriptions. Therefore, while avoiding Wunlho terri-
tory, we explored the rest of the country. We went
down a pass in the mountain to the Irrawaddy, where
we established a base for supplies. And wc went
west across the Mu river into some heavy forest
country, where we were heavily attacked one night.
W'c had several other small fights of no serious
account.

Looking back on these days from now, there are
two or three incidents that come up. They are not
incidents of the fights, they are not political events,
they are, I suppose, trivial. And yet while I have
forgotten most of the events of which our lives then
were full, these have remained. One refers to a cup of
tea, one to some kerosene oil, and one to a bottle of
apricot brandy. I hojje it is not significant that they
all refer to liquids.

The adventure of the cup of tea was connected with

CH. IX ON A FRONTIER 97

a fight. W'c were attacked one night while camping
in the forest. There was a tiny monastery there built
of bamboo and thatch wherein wc officers slept.
About two A.M. we were aroused by volleys of mus-
ketr)-. The monastery being conspicuous, the shots
wont fl>'ing through it in all directions. We got
out quickly, just as we were. I was particularly lightly
dressed, for, being a political officer and a man of
peace, I did not consider it necessary to go to sleep
half- dressed with my boots on, as the soldiers did.

Outside, it was a February night and bitterly cold.
There was nothing for me to do but sit and shiver with
the cold. I wanted to go back upstairs and get a
blanket, but a sentry at the stairs stopped me. And
there I sat four mortal hours till the dawn came and
the enemy withdrew. Then wc had a cup of tea,
cooked over a fire built in a hole in the ground and
sheltered with blankets, that the glare of the fire might
not be seen.

It was the most glorious drink I over had. It
seemed like pouring hot water into ice. I was all
frozen inside and wet, but with the tea the frost dissolved,
and the blood went round again.

The kerosene affair was different. Wc were camped
then in a pleasant little place in some fields. There
was a village near and supplies were plentiful. The
water, however, was thick and muddy, so it was filtered
through our little pocket filters and stored in bottles,
which were placed in rows inside the door. One day
wc went out for a long expedition. Wc were out all

98 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

day in the sun, and came back in the evening very hot,
very hungry, but most of all, thirsty. Sir Frederick
Johnstone, a major in the British mounted infantry,
was thirstiest of all. On the way back he had been
talking all the time of how thirsty he had become. He
began by imagining cool drinks — claret cup with ice on
top, and shandy gafif and foaming beer out of a big
barrel. But as the time went on and his thirst increased,
he dropped them one by one. What were mixed
drinks to him, what was flavour, what was scent ? He
was too deadly thirsty even to notice flavour. It would
be only in the way. He longed for plain liquid, and
the best liquid of all was water. He wanted it in
buckets, barrels, rivers. Then he stopped talking, as
his tongue was dry. When we got back he flung
himself from his pon}- and made one leap for the water
bottles. He opened his parched mouth and tilted the
contents down his throat in a great and gurgling
stream.

Fortunately, we had a doctor with us, and he took
the astonished and pallid Johnstone and laid him out
upon a cot. He made him weird mixtures, lukewarm
water and mustard by the gallon, and poured them into
him. If Johnstone wanted fluid, he got as much as
any man could desire, and he was ill, desperately ill,
for a while. But, little by little, as the kerosene oil
left his system, he recovered, and by dinner-time he was
nearly all right again. He said, however, that he tasted
kerosene for weeks, and that he was afraid to smoke for
fear he might ignite.

CH. IX ON A FRONTIER 99

As for the servant who mixed the bottles containing
kerosene with the water bottles, I forget what happened
to him, whether he was shot or fined or only repri-
manded. But I have an idea we never knew exactly
who he was.

In this same camp I first saw Sir George White.
He was commanding then in Upper l^urma and he
came round inspecting. No soldier in Burma was
more liked and more respected than was he. He looked
and spoke and acted like the fine soldier that he was.

And when after dinner his A.D.C. produced a
bottle of apricot brandy, just enough to give us a
liqueur glass all round, even those who saw him for
the first time were sure that he deserved all that was
said of him.

For it must be remembered that none of us, except
Johnstone, had drank anything but Madras rum for
weeks. Now Madras rum is made of arrack, it is
flavoured with old worn-out boots, and it smells like sin.

Meanwhile, in Wuntho the negotiations dragged
drearily along. The Sawbwa would not come in, and
the open season was passing away. At last it was
decided that nothing more could be done. If the
Sawbwa would not come in, he must stay out. He
agreed to relinquish all his recent conquests, to
acknowledge British overlordship, and to pay his tribute,
which he did mainly in gold ingots. Then the column
went away, and I was left at Kawlin to take charge of
and administer the newly acquired territory south of
Wuntho. A Madras regiment was left to garrison

loo A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

Kawlin, where a stockade had been built, and small
posts with detachments of cavalry were placed on the
lines of communication. The rains very soon afterwards
set in and the country became an impassable morass.

Kawlin was a dismal place. It was desperately
unhealthy — full of a subtle malaria that did not as a
rule kill, but only disabled. The men went down with
it in dozens. We were all ill, not by periods and times
with intervals of health, but continuously and inces-
santly. The officers of the Madras regiment were
invalided one by one ; were replaced, and the new-
comers were invalided. The English police officers
who came to assist me fell sick and went. My clerks
formed a procession, sick ones going down and new
ones coming up, until at last no one would come, and
I had no clerk. Then I did all my own work myself.
I cannot say it was heavy, and it obliged me to learn
Burmese better and more quickl}' than if I had an
interpreter.

There was, in fact, little to do. As far as I could
I tried to get control of the country. I visited the
principal villages, and saw their hereditary officials, and
tried to draw them into our administration. I sent for
the free-lance leaders, who had been roaming the
country since the departure of King Thibaw, eighteen
months before, to come in and acknowledge our
government. I told them to lay down their arms and
return to peaceful occupations. I displaced headmen
who were recusant, and appointed others I hoped
would do better. But it was uphill work. I also kept

en. IX ON A FRONTIER loi

up a continuous intercourse with the Wuntho Saubwa
by letters and throu^i^h his officials, soothing his
shattered nerves and encouraging him to go straight.
Indeed, he required it. Very little gave him the
jumps. I remember, in the middle of the rains, when
I was away south, getting a letter from him, ' very
urgent ' written in red ink, to the effect that he heard
cavalry were marching along his border and he was
frightened to death. They were only commissariat
mules with supplies coming to Kawlin.

Beyond thus trying to consolidate our rule, and
making myself acquainted with the country and people,
there was little to do. How the people settled their
criminal and civil disputes during these years I cannot
say, for there were no courts. I don't, however, think
they missed that much. Perhaps our courts, now, are
what they appreciate least about us. Of all the
complicated system of law, revenue, and general
administration which now prevails there was then no
sign. We wanted only peace, and tried for that
alone.

On the whole the country was quiet. A year later
it rose in the most determined way, and was for long
one of the worst places in Burma. But at first, like
the rest of the country, it was fairly quiet. The people
were much as 1 had found them elsewhere — in Shem-
mago as in Ningyan, three hundred miles awa\- — only
less well provided with some of the gifts of civilisation.
For instance, they had never seen copper money, and
would not take it. If you wanted small change, you

I02 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL in . i

bought a basket of rice and used handfuls of it. They
had never seen matches, and had various ways of
making fire — flint and steel, compressed air, and
friction. But in their social condition I saw no
difference. Their laws, habits, customs, were the same
as all over Burma. The carvings in their monasteries
were unusually good. It is astonishing how uniform
the Burmans are. The differences from district to
district are hardly noticeable. That is, of course,
because the race is homogeneous. Difference such
as between Somersetshire and Yorkshire comes from
difference in race.

And, getting through the incessant wet, and fever,
and monotony as best we could, we arrived at length
at the cold weather. But when it came, the only one
left was myself. Every one who had come to Kawlin
with me in May was gone, and their successors gone
too ; and in November the whole regiment was certified
as too sick for further service, and was sent back to
India.

It was an unusual kind of fever. As I have said,
it did not kill at once. No European died in Kawlin
while I was there, and not many Sepoys, either of the
regiment or military police. They merely sickened
and became useless. But many died afterwards. I
remember hearing in Madras, two years later when I
was over there, that out of fifty troopers of the
Hyderabad Lancers who garrisoned a place called
Singon on the line of communications, not a man or
horse survived.

c!L IX ON A FRONTIER 103

However, at last the rains ended, the stifling heat of
September and October was over, and in November
1887 I looked forward with pleasure to a new open
season, to see new places, to meet new people, and to
do something after the long wait.

CHATTER X

A HAPPY MONTH

Early in November there came news that Government
had decided to march the 43rd Ghurkas back to Assam
through Kawlin. The Ghurkas were then far east of
the Irrawaddy, and Assam lay hundreds of miles to
the west, beyond the mountain ranges of Munipur.
Without a map, the country will hardly be understood,
but it meant a long march, much of it through unknown,
uninhabited country, belonging to our new possessions,
but where no one had ever been before. The regiment
coming up to Kawlin would march for some days
through Wuntho territory to the Chindwin, and then
through the passes to Munipur. I was to arrange for
the march as far as the Chindwin river, and accompany
the regiment.

The Sawbwa, on hearing of this order, had a long
and severe attack of nerves. It was a plant. The
column was intended to depose him and annex his
territory. If it crossed his frontier, he would fight, or
run, or both. The Sawbwa's official who came to see
me said the matter was most serious.

I explained to the officials, but uselessly. ' Yes,'

104

CH. X A IIAIM'V MONTH 105

they said, ' \vc believe you ; uc know you. But the
Sawbwa has never seen you. He would certainly
believe you if he did. But as it is . . .' Evidently
the Sawbwa was incredulous.

There were more negotiations. But the more we
negotiated, the less progress we made. It was like
trying to urge a shying pony. The Sawbwa only
backed nearer the precipice.

I felt sorry for him. After all, there seemed to be
no harm in him. He had behaved quite properly in
all the dealings I had with him. His people liked
him, and they spoke well of him. It would be a pity
if he went under, and I was sure Government would
let him down easily if they could.

Yet there was, of course, a limit to forbearance.
After all, he was the Queen's vassal, and his land was
British territory, and it could not be borne that Briti.sh
troops should not be able to cross it. The regiment,
I was sure, would go, and unless the Sawbwa came to
his senses, there would be a row, aiul that would be
the end of him. Vet talking at him across fort)- miles
of mountains was a hopeless business.

There were two roads across to the Chindwin from
Kawlin. The northern one ran through the centre of
the Wuntho State ; it passed the new capital he had
founded in the hills, aiul it came out on the Chindwin
river high up. The southern road ran along the
Wuntho boundary for some di.stance, then crossed into
Wuntho tcrritory^ for a distance of twenty miles or so,
and came out at Kindat. Government wanted the

io6 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

regiment to go by the northern road ; the Swawba
said, if ihiy must go at all, why not go by the
southern, which was the better road of the two, and
the shorter.

Well, after long negotiations, it was decided to go
by the southern road, not so much to spare the
Sawbwa's feelings as because we understood the
northern road was hardly passable for a regiment.
It was very steep ; there was no fodder, and, for two
marches, no water.

The regiment therefore came up to Kawlin, and
we started. But at the thirtl march we came to such
difficulties that the Colonel decided the transport could
not proceed, and we therefore returned to Kawlin.

The Sawbwa hoped this ended the matter, but no.
This road had to be explored, and if the regiment could
not go, a detachment might. Fifty men under an
officer were to remain at Kawlin to furnish this party.
The rest of the regiment then marched to the
Irrawaddy, and went down by steamer. Then I was
told that Colonel Sj'uions would come up to lead
the party.

I suppose no soldier was better known in the
Burmese war than Symons. Coming over on the staff
with the first column, he was presently appointed to
organise the mounted infantry, that were found .so
necessary ; and whenever any difficult affair called for
a special officer, it was Sj'mons who was selected.
His exploits in Burma would form a short epitome
of the six years' war. He began as major, and he

CH. X A HAPPY MONTH 107

ended by commanding, as brigadier-general, the forces
that carried out the Chiii-Lushai expedition. Mis
history after then is well known, to his death as Sir
William Penn Symons, in the hour of victory, at
Dundee. Colonel Symons was coming up, and I was
to go with him ; we were to explore both roads, and
an officer of the Q.M.G.'s department was to come
with the party to sketch the roads. When I told
the Sawbwa about this, he became as bad as ever.
He could never, never stand it. There seemed only
one thing to be done. ' Suppose,' I said to the officials,
' I came and visited your Sawbwa, would he come part
of the way down to meet me ? '

They said he would be charmed with the idea,
provided I did not bring any soldiers. The Sawbwa
had an antipathy to soldiers, after the previous
adventure.

' Will the Sawbwa, in that case, guarantee my
safety ? '

They said he certainly would.

' Very well,' I said, ' go and see your Sawbwa, and
tell him that, provided my Government will allow me,
I will come up and visit him, trusting that he will
make proper arrangements for my safety.'

Then they went off,and I had recourse to the telegraph
wire, for we now had a wire to Kawlin. \\ liat the
telegraph said in the voluminous messages that passed
is immaterial. I got my leave to go, and when the
Sawbwa officials returned, we arranged everything.
The Sawbwa would come down to a camp in the hills,

io8 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

two days' march away, to meet me. He fixed the day,
and, at the appointed time, I started. My first march
was to Wuntho town, where we had been camped the
previous spring. At Wuntho I was well received. My
own party consisted only of myself, my Madras cook,
two Burmese servants, and a Burmese clerk. Two of
the Sawbwa officials escorted me with several armed
men. They gave a dance in Wuntho for my arrival,
and they treated me well.

Next day we went into the hills. It was a stiff
march. The mountain paths do not wind about to
find easy gradients, they go straight up and down.
The streams are bridged by the simple expedient of
cutting a big tree so as to fall across, and then
trimming off the branches and levelling the trunk.
No pony, I should think, but a Burmean pony would
face such bridges. They walked over without a
qualm. I had a cream-coloured mare who climbed
about like a cat while I held on.

It took us four hours to get to the top, and there
we found a small bamboo rest-house, where I stopped
to breakfast. The kit, of course, came on coolies'
heads. In the afternoon I intended to march on the
six miles more to the Sawbwa's camp.

But unfortunately I went down with fever. By
three o'clock, when we ought to have started, my
temperature was up in the hundreds, and I could not
move. A messenger went in to tell the Sawbwa that
I could not come till next day.

That evening about seven a messenger came back

CH. X A HAPPY MONTH 109

from the Sawbwa with a letter in which he expressed
his regrets. He said that he was unaccustomed to
Europeans, and he did not know what they wanted
when they had fever. The luxuries at his disposal
in such a jungle place were limited, but such as they
were he placed them at my disposal, and the messenger
produced the following : — One tin of condensed milk,
one small tin of sweet mixed biscuits, a tin kitchen
spoon, an electro-plate fork, and two enamelled plates.
He also sent his own shampoocr, who was the most
useful gift of all, for he shampooed me to sleep, and
next morning I was all right.

It was a pleasant ride. VVc started early when the
air was cold. The path lay down a ravine clothed
by thick forest, where the jungle fowl and pheasants
ran and called, and as we got near the camp wc met
officials who came out to meet me. They were gaily
dressed in silks, with fur cloaks and gold-hilted swords
across their breasts. l^efore nine I got into the
camp.

Imagine a narrow valley where the stream ran
between steep hills. The hills were clothed with
forest, and there were no signs upon them of inhabi-
tants or cultivation. In one place the stream made
a curve, and in the curve there lay a meadow covered
with coarse grass. Perhaps this meadow may have
been cultivated once with rice, but that was long ago,
and the people who had worked it were gone.

In this little glade, occupying nearly the whole of
it, was a high and rough stockade of posts and

no A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

bamboos. It was not quite new, for it looked weather-
beaten, but that appearance soon comes to rough
structures in the tropics. There were gates of sawn
timber, and on the top of the stockade appeared watch-
boxes. Within it stood a large building. This, too, was
very rough, mostly of bamboos, and with a thatched
roof. Here was the Sawbwa with his men.

Without the stockade, under a big tree, was a new
and comfortable little house built for me. But I
passed it by and went straight into the stockade to
pay my visit.

The enclosure was full of armed men, and in the
verandah in front of the building were a number of
officials seated on mats upon the floor. There were
two chairs for me, and one for the Sawbwa, who,
however, had not yet appeared. I sat down and
waited.

The Sawbwa was within, and men came out and
went in continuously. I supposed the Sawbwa was
not dressed. I waited, but still no Sawbwa. Then
they brought me cigars and fire, so that I might
smoke. I exchanged a few words with the officials
near. I watched a juggler practising at the far end
of the enclosure. No sign yet of the Sawbwa.

' What is the matter ? ' I asked.

An official disappeared within apparently to inquire.
A woman came and looked at me from behind a
curtain. I began to get tired.

' Tell the Sawbwa,' I said to an official near me,
nhat I will wait five minutes and no longer. If he

cH. X A HAPPY MONTH iii

is not ready then, I return at once.' The official
disappeared. The minutes passed, and I was just
about to go, when an official I knew well, the same
who had acted so well in Cloney's affair, came and
knelt down beside me. He whispered in my car,
' The Sawbwa doesn't like you being armed.'

' Do you mean my revolver and sword ? ' I asked.
The official nodded.

I was about to ask if he was afraid, but reflected
that this would not improve matters, especially as it
was true. ' Breach of etiquette ? ' I asked.

The official laughed.

' Please tell the Sawbwa,' I said, ' that I brought
them with me because I wished to give them to him
as presents, otherwise, of course, I would have left
them outside.' Then I unbuckled my belt and gave
it to the official, who laid it on a mat beside the
Sawbwa's chair.

A moment later he came out.

He was much as I had expected, a young man
with pleasant face and dignified manners, clearly
irresolute and weak. We had a long conversation,
and then I returned to my house. Half an hour
later he paid mc the usual return visit. I found
him very difficult to deal with. He was wanting in
decision, wanting in determination and insight, want-
ing in initiative. He was, as I have said before, just
like a nervous horse. Not that he was a coward ; I
believe he was acknowledged by his people to be a
good rider, a good hunter, and ready to face dangers

112 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

he knew. lUit as the horse will face a dangerous
jump, and shy at a piece of paper or a leaf, so was
the Sawbwa. He was full of distrust, he was always
imagining things, and he could not thus see his way
clearly. He was unable to recognise that there were
only two ways before him, frank acceptance of our
rule, which meant willing obedience to orders from
Government and trust in its word ; or rebellion. He
kept hovering between the two, turned by every wind
that blew. He meant to play honestly himself, but
because he could not believe that we did so also, lie
could not go straight. Instead of making up his own
mind and going ahead, he waited on us always in a
bitter state of uncertainty as to what we would do.

The result of the interview was that our party was
to march through to the Chindwin river by the lower
route. After arrival at Kindat we were to march fifty
or sixty miles up the river and there meet an escort of
the Sawbwa's men, who would bring us back by the
northern route through tiic middle of Wuntho territory.
The Sawbwa promised to meet us on the way near his
new capital. Besides this arrangement various other
matters requiring settlement were discussed and ended.

The Sawbwa presented me with a gold-mounted
sword, a pony, and various other things. He also gave
presents to all my servants. So we parted in a friendly
way.

But I was sure then that the Sawbwa would not be
Sawbwa long. He was impossible to deal with. Much
as I liked him in ways, and well as I understood the

CM. X A HAPPY MONTH 113

reason for his attitude, the position was impossible. A
door must be open or shut. A vassal must submit to
his suzerain and trust him, or he must rebel.

And in fact the Sawbua, after going on in this way
for two more )*ears, suddenly took umbrage at an
accident and did rebel. His country was at once
overrun, and he fled to China, where I believe he is
now. I was far away at the time, but I heard of it
without surprise.

I left the Saw bwa's camp next morning, and in one
long day's march I returned to Kawlin. Two days
later we started, and amid that long period of wars and
marches, of change and trouble, that march across to
the Chindwin and back returns to me as a delightful
interlude. On the way across there were four of us —
Colonel Symons, who commanded ; Major Sawyer, just
over from Simla, who came with us to map the road ;
Captain Cowley, who commanded the escort, and myself.

We marched every day at dawn, rising before the
light to drink our tea by the camp-fire while the things
were packed on the mules. It was very cold then and
we shivered as wc startetl. Hut soon the sun rose and
the woods became full of life. The jungle cock, most
beautiful of birds, called in the woods and ran across in
front of us. The peacock -pheasants glided past.
The path led up water-courses, the beds full of rocks,
or climbetl on to the ridge of a watershed and continued
there awhile. Sometimes it skirted precipices or was
lost in heavy bamboo forest. We had ponies with us,
but we rarely rode. Generally we marched, Colonel

114 -^ PKOPLK AT SCHOOL it. i

Symons at the head with liis ;^un. Sawyer brought up
the rear, and drew his map as he went, tneasurinj^ the
distance by his paces. He made a wonderful sketch,
and I believe at the end it fitted almost exactly to the
scale. Yet there was no ten yards straight anywhere.
It curled and curved antl rose and fell. About noon
usually we came to camp. Then the Ghurkas made
us quickly little shelters of bamboo, the mules came up
and were unladen, and we had breakfast. In the
afternoon I loafed, Colonel Symons read. Sawyer
improved his maj), and Cowley went out to hunt big
game — which he never found.

At night we built huge camp-fires of great logs, and
argued or told stories till we went to bed.

At Kindat Sawyer left us. At Sitthaung Cowley
left us with his men to go to Munipur, and from there
Colonel Symons and I returned alone, accompanied by
a few men sent by the Sawbwa.

We climbed more hills, we waded across streams,
we shot no end of small game. We met the Sawbwa
as arranged and talked to him, and when we reached
Kawlin I took a few days' leave and went with Colonel
Symons down to Mandalay and stayed with him at the
palace. It was a pleasant month between long periods
of dulness and discomfort.

Two little stories, and this account of our march is
ended. When Symons and Sawyer left Mandalay to
come on this expedition, Symons being busy asked
Sawyer to arrange the mess. So Sawyer laid in all
the stores, the tins of soup, the hams, the biscuits, and

CH.x A HAPP^' MONTH 115

the beer. When he left us at Kindat he mailc up the
accounts.

' Total expenditure,' said Symons, reading the bill,
' stores sixty rupees, fowls, etc., twenty rupees, servants
and other expenses, twenty rupees. Total one hundred
rupees, of which Symons' share is forty rupees.'

' May I ask why I am not allowed to pay half?'

' Because,' replied Sawyer, ' you didn't use half.'

' I don't remember missing a meal,' said Symons
reflectively ; ' I have a pretty good appetite too. Why
didn't I use half?'

' There are inequalities,' said Sawyer.

' What inequalities ? '

' I am six feet four,' said Sawyer, ' and big at that.
You are only five feet eight. It is of course inevitable
that my messing expenses should be more than yours.'
Which is the first time I ever heard of mess bills being
calculated by altitude.

But Symons was ready for him. lie reflected for
a minute, and then he spoke.

' That is true,' he said, ' but you have forgotten our
rank. As a Colonel I eat more for my size than you
as a Major can by all the articles of war, so the fairest
thing will be to divide.' Thus they divided.

The second story is about the Sawbwa. When
Colonel Symons and I visited the Sawbwa, we first
talked business, and after that the conversation became
desultory. Colonel Symons was wearing his sabre, the
Sawbwa having got over his fear of weapons. The
Sawbwa admired it.

ii6 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

'Yes,' said Symons, ' it is a beautiful weapon. It
belonged to my ancestors. The steel is so fine you
can pick up a rupee with it without turning the edge.'

The Sawbwa regarded it reflectively. He turned it
one side and the other and weighed it in his hands.
Me ran his finger along the edge. ' Yes,' he said,
as he handed it back, 'it is a good sword.' Then
turning to one of his officials he saitl, ' What has become
of Maung Ba ? '

' Who is Maung Ba ? ' I asked.

' He is a sword-maker,' said the Sawbwa, ' who made
swords that would cut a pile of twenty rupees in two
at one stroke.'

' I should like to sec him,' said Colonel Symons.

' I will inquire and send him to you,' answered the
Sawbwa politely.

CHAPTER XI

ANOTHER FRONTIER

In July i88S I left Kawliii and went to the Chin
frontier.

AH along the western frontier of Burma dividing it
from Assam and the Bay of Bengal lies an enormous
range of mountains. It is indeed more like a scries of
parallel ranges than one range. It is a buttress of the
Thibet citadel, and it ends in the sea at Cape Negrais.

This great range of mountains is inhabited by
savage tribes called on the Burma side Chins, and on
the other side Lushais. They are a small black sturdy
race of people, each tribe speaking its own dialect,
with no written language, and a very elementary civilisa-
tion. These tribes hail at first kept quiet, but now,
sharing in the general upheaval, they had begun to raid.
One tribe had carried off the Burmese Sawbwa of the
valley along the mountain base, whom they, however,
subsequently released. And other tribes had come
down into the valley and attacked the villages, killing
the men and carrying off the women ami childrc-n as
captives.

In the preceding cold weather we had established
117

ii8 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL it. i

posts along the base of the hills, and Captain Travers
had remained as Political Officer. He was now dead,
and I was to take his place. Towards the end of
August I arrived at the post on the Chindwin river
that gave entrance to the Kal^ valley. The streams,
one running north, the other south along the base of
the mountains, met, and joining forces burst a way
east through a low range of hills and fell into the
Chindwin here. The river was called the Myittha, and
it was now in heavy flood. Up this lay my way to
Indin, my headquarters.

The boats I and my party went in were dug-outs.
They were perhaps twenty-five feet long by three feet
broad. Near the stern was a little covered cabin some
four feet high and eight long, where I sat. The boat-
men poled or rowed or tracked from the bank with a
rope. The river was in high flood, thirty feet higher
than its cold-weather level ; the banks were very steep
and rocky, and our progress was slow. The first day
we made four miles by dint of very severe exertion, all
the crews of the four boats having to join to get each
boat past bad places. The rain poured down in-
cessantly, and when we halted there was no place to
land. The banks were precipitous, with difficulty
giving any foothold, and recking with wet.

For the four days that voyage lasted I never
landed except once or twice to help the men at a very
hard place ; we never lit a fire, had no warm food, and
slept at night in the tiny cabins, while the rain never
ceased.

cH.xi ANOTIIKR FRONTIKR 119

The second day wc passed the rapids and made
two miles. But after that, when wc entered the Kale-
valley, the scenery changed. Coming out of the defile
we emerged into an enormous swamp. On the west
rose like a huge wall the Chin hills, on the cast was
the low range through which wc had come, and all
between was flooded by the river. The banks were
feet under water everywhere, but the huge grasses
rose above the flood, marking where the river banks
should be.

Through this green swamp we poled. The water
was not very deep, three feet or four or six, but it was
everywhere. There was no dry spot on which to land,
no cooking could yet be done ; the rain still swished
and soaked, until at last on the evening of the fourth
day it stopped. The clouds cleared, and a great full
moon came out and hung above the valley. The
muddy waters turned to silver lakes, the hills drew
purple wreaths about their feet, the night became
full of magic ; and so at midnight we came to our
journey's end. It was a little village on the right
bank of the river. There was a post here of some
hundred sepoys of military police, and here the Sawbwa
lived.

He was a little man compared to him of Wuntho,
ruling but this valley. He was very poor, and his
valley was suffering so much from Chin invasions that
his people were deserting it. It must be remembered
that my position vis li vis him was very diflcrcnt from
what it had been to the Wuntho Sawbwa. The latter

120 A PEOPLK AT SCHOOL pt. i

regarded the British Government with distrust, as his
enemy to be guarded against and feared. To the Kal^
Sawbwa we came as friends and helpers. But for us
his valley would be destroyed, and his people killed.
We were his allies and protectors. Over against us,
in those huge mountains, lived the tribes who came
down suddenly by night, swooped on a village, and
departed, leaving behind them only ashes and corpses.
Their movements were so quick, so unexpected, that
there was no chance of catching them or cutting them
off. The mountains they lived in were unknown and
almost inaccessible. The communications in the
valley so bad that, although we had four different
posts of military police ranged along it, they could
only protect the village in which they were. A village
even a few miles away might be rushed and destroyed,
and the raiding party half way to their hills before we
even heard of it. There was only one way to have
peace, and that was to send columns into the hills.
The Chins must be reduced to subjection. Only in
that way could there be quiet.

My duty was to prepare the way, as far as possible,
for the columns which would come up that cold
weather, to sketch maps of the hills from the ex-
planations of those who had been there, to make out
routes, to collect all the information possible. From
the few tame Chins who lived in the valley, from
Burmans who had visited the hills, from escaped
captives, I got all the facts I could. Besides that I
could do nothing. Just at the time I came to the

cH.xi AN0TIII-:R FROXTIKR 121

valley the raids had ceased. The heavy rains had
flooded the mountain streams and blocked the paths,
so for two months there was peace.

If h'fe in Kawhn had disadvantages, that in Kale-
was worse. In Kawlin there were other Knglishmcn,
even after the departure of the troops ; in Kale I was
alone.

In Kawlin the roads were bad ; in Kale there were
none. In Kawlin, fowls and vegetables were obtain-
able, and wc baked bread. In Kale there was ab-
solutely nothing to be had but rice. Tinned meat,
biscuits, and rice was the daily )?ienu. Kawlin was
unhealthy ; Kale was the valley of death. Kawlin
had a telegraph and a postal delivery ; Kale was a
hundred miles from cither. I sat in an old monastery
in the midst of the everlasting wet, or went occasional
journeys up and down the river to visit the other
posts. It was November when at last the rains
ceased, the river fell, and the country began to
dry up.

I then moved into a tiny house I hail bulk within
the military police stockade, just outside Indin, for the
river was passable, and the Chins might come at any
time. Alreaily they had been .seen roaming in the
woods, and had killed some cultivators. Wc were
sure trouble would come, and it did not delay.

One morning early, while it was yet dark, I awoke.
Just outside my hut was the fort gate, and in a little
watch-box outside it a .sentry stood day and night.
I liked to have him there at night, and to hear the

I 22

A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

periodic cry going rountl the hut in dying cadence,
' Number one — All's well,' answered by all the
others.

When I awoke all was silence. Then I heard the
sentry call out softly, ' Havildar, Havildar sahib.' The
Havildar of the guard came up, and they began to
talk. I could not hear what they said, but it made
me uneasy. I got up and went out.

' Hush,' said the Havildar, raising his hand. Wc
stood and listened.

It was still dark. Along the valley lay a light
mist through which the stars shone dimly. Afar, on
the edges of the eastern hills, a faint white line
heralded the dawn. A dead stillness hung over the
valley, not a sound came to us.

The Havildar shook his head. ' It is quite certain,'
declared the sentry. ' I heard the shots clearly down
the river, to the north.' He listened again and no
sound came. Then we opened the gate and went
down to the river, shrunken now within broad banks
of sand. Wc knelt upon the sand and listened, our
ears to the water. At first all that came were the
river sounds, the ripple of the wavelets on the sands,
the fall of earth into the stream where the bank was
undermined. Then very faint, but clear, travelling
along the water, came a sound, a shot, and then
another. A pause, and then a louder, sharper noise.
We rose suddenly to our feet. There was no mis-
taking that. It was a volley.

' The troops at Kambal^,' said the Havildar. ' The

CH. XI ANOTHER FRONTIER 123

Chins ... do not fire volleys. It is they. There is
fighting there.'

I ordered two boats to be got ready, and ere the
dawn was fully come we were rowing down the river.

Kambal^ was a fort ten miles or so lower down.
It was not on the river bank, but two miles inland.
I got there before noon and heard the news. The
Chins had attacked the old village of Kale, once a
city, and had killed many men and carried off many
captives. The military police, who were two miles
away, arrived only in time to fire a few volleys at the
retiring savages. They fled with extraordinary swift-
ness into the fastnesses of the hills and disappeared.

So began the open season, and after that there was
no peace. They raided here and raided there. No
one knew where the blow would fall. They were in
great numbers, and the villagers, reduced in numbers,
terrified and disheartened, could do nothing. It
seemed as if by the time the columns arrived the
valley would be depopulated. The authorities sent up
all the men they couid from below, militar)' police ami
English police officers, and we made what tlispositions
we could to protect the villagers.

Above all, we wanted to preserve Kale. It was
the largest village in the valley. It used to be a city,
and the ruined walls still showed its great size. It fell
in a rebellion fifty years before and had never been
rebuilt. Since then it had shrunk and shrunk till now
it was a poor hamlet huddled in a corner of the old
city site. Yet still it held its name. It was the

124 A PKOPLh AT SCHOOL it. i

mother town of all the valley. To its destruction the
Chins inteiiciecl to devote all their strength. The
attack I have just described was but a reconnaissance.
They would soon return and destroy it utterly. And
they sent down messages to that effect. VVc deter-
mined to preserve it, and so four of us with ;i hundred
men went and established ourselves there.

It was a horrible place, smothered in mud and filth.
The houses were half tumbled down, the stockade was
rotten and unsafe. And night after night the Chins
came down, four or five hundred of them, seeking for a
chance to make a rush.

But we knew their ways. The)- have but one
method of attack and one time. They always attack
during the waxing moon. It gives them light to come
out from the hills to the village they intend to attack.
They wait till the moon sets. Then in the dark before
the sunrise they fall suddenly upon the place and
carry it by storm. The early dawn sees them going
back, and soon after the sun is risen they are again
within their hills.

And therefore every morning during the waxing
moon we rose at two, and falling-in the men, we made
our disposition. At the first shot or first alarm we
should have sallied out of all the gates and met the
Chins upon the little open space beyond the walls.
We longed that they would come on. They never
did. They came down several times, they surrounded
the village stealthily in the dark, ready to rush. But
at the last some sound from within, an order perhaps,

cii. XI ANOTIII-R FRONTIER 125

a rattle of arms, told them they were expected, so they
retired.

Twice indeed we recognised their presence, and as
soon as we could see we pursuetl them towards the
hills. Hut they went (juickcr than we could, and they
got away. Their aim then was not to fight but to
raid and rob. Later on, when we invaded their hills,
they fought with great courage and devotion. A tribe
of Chins called the Seyins, and a small tribe of
Kachins near Bhamo, gave us harder fighting than all
the rest of Burma put together. They were more
savage, better armed, and their hills gave them such
enormous advantages.

So, amid incessant alarm and incursions and
occasional skirmishes, the cold weather came, and
with it the column. After a short halt at the
base to collect supplies it advanced into the hills.
With the two years' expeditions in the hills I had
nothing to do. The columns went up, but I did not
not go with them. .Another senior oftkcr was then
Political.

I remained in charge of the valley down below to
manage its affairs, to help the officers at the base, to
forward supplies. And the news came down to us day
after day of fights upon tiic hills. The camps were
attacked at night ; convoys were fired on and cut off ;
the hills were in a turmoil of unrest. But down below
we had comparative |)eacc. The tables now were
turned. It was not the Burmese villages now that
burned, but those of their enemies. Yet the Chins

126 A lM':OPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

showed no sign of givin|j[ in. They fought with
the most determined courage ; and only now and
then a party of them would still come down, would
carry off a woman from the fields, would fire upon a
boat. Once even they went down to the rapids
and fired upon our convoys as they tracked slowly up.

Then came the rains again, the incessant wet, the
floods, the want of any food but that from tins, the
fever and the cholera. In our base forth beyond
Kale out of two hundred men on one occasion but
one uian was reputed fit for duty. The others were
all ill. The sentries, the escorts, the convoys
were all formed of men who should, by rights, have
been in hospital. And the roads, the roads along
which our convoys passed ! A native doctor going
down from the fort to .see the cholera people in
Kale town reported once to me with indignation,
' The road is impassable. Even an elephant can
hardly go. The mud this morning came up to his
waist.' I don't know where an elephant's waist is, but
the mud I knew was deep.

Then came the cold weather again, and more
troops, more columns, and a new general. It was
Symons, now become a Brigadier, whom they sent to
carry out these new operations.

These were long, but in the end we were successful,
as we always are.

I was not there to .see. In December 1889 I left
the Chin frontier, never to return. In the dry weather,
when the troops were there, when there was continual

en. XI ANOTIII-R FROXTIKR 127

movement and change, and always many officers, life
was pleasant enough. But in the rains, when the
garrisons were reduced to tiicir utmost, when fever
became a daily routine, and there was nothing to do,
it was different.

The days hung very heavily. It rained and rained,
and we sat in the fort and watched the rain fall. The
country became a morass, and to go either up or down
the line of communications, or visit any village, meant
to wade and struggle. There was no change. In a
few days we had said to each other all we had to say.
We could only study Burmese and read, when we had
anything to read. Any new arrival was welcome for
three reasons — for himself, for his news, for his books ;
and every book was passed from hand to hand till all
had read it.

For myself, I had no books. In December 1S88
an accidental fire in an outpost had destroyed all I
possessed in the world — clothes and shoes and trophies,
such as the Sawbwa's sword, and all my books. I was
dressed by the regimental tailor in clothes made out of
cloth woven in the village hand-looms, and for weeks
I had neither hat nor boots.

But I think the dearth of reading matter troubled
me most. Some men got files of t)ld Knglish daily
papers and read them through, beginning at the police
news, and ending with all the advertisements. And
by so doing they lost their early faith. For to read
the articles in a ilaily paper one month later is to
discover man)- things. As they come out dixy by day,

128 A PEOPLK AT SCHOOL pt. i

tlic imposing style, the certain assertion, the general
omniscience of all the past and all the future are im-
pressive. But a month later, when the more recent
telegrams have falsified the prophecies and have con-
tradicted the assertions, is another thing. The style
hangs round the matter like a cloak thai flaps and
discloses the nothingness within.

Yet one bright spot there was. Some one, I know
not who, brought up one day the early books of
Rudyard Kipling — the little grey bookstall pamphlets
wherewith he made his name. They went round all
the forts like wildfire. They were bespokcti weeks
ahead. If a man had started a circulating library with
them alone, he would have made a fortune. They
came nearer to us, to our lives, to our feelings, than
any other books. We admired them, rejoiced in them,
and at the same time rather disliked them too.

But of all remembrances of that valley, the most
wonderful, the most lasting, is that I have of the sunrise
as it came each day when the rains were not. Rising
behind the low eastern hills, the valley lay in shadow
while the rays struck right across and lit the eastern
peaks. Slowly the light came down, and as it fell it
drew from out the hillsides faint dewy mists that turned
to crimson. Lower ami lower it came, until the sun
leapt suddenly above the ridge, and the whole western
mountains swam in that blood -red haze — formless,
immense, and terrible. Then, as the sun grew hotter,
it faded, until at last the whole world was clear and
bright.

CH.xi ANOTin:R FROXTIKR 129

Two LiiTLK Stories of Two Genkkals

After the early fightin<; in the hills, and when the
column was establishing itself in a fort up there, some
Chin chiefs came in to negotiate. Or rather tiiey
came in to ask questions and make remarks. They
wanted to know, firstly, what we meant by crossing
into their hills at all ; secondly, when we intended to
go away. And they wished to add that if we didn't
go soon they intended to make things hot for us. For
the simple Chin knew his own mind, and was more or
less indifferent about ours. The Political Officer ex-
plained how ver>' much his thoughts varied from theirs,
but they were deaf to what he said. Then the General
took the chiefs in hand. ' Words,' he said, ' are
useless ; soldiers have other means. I will give them
a demonstration — then they will be afraid.'

So he called out some troops, and formed them up
in line, and fired volleys across an open space, knocking
the targets into bits. Me toKI the Chins to imagine
themselves the targets, and the Chins smiled. Then
the guns were brought out. There was a Chin village
across the valley that had been taken by assault a few
days before, and was now abandoned. The guns were
turned on this village and fired some shells. The
shells hit the village fair and square, but to every one's
surprise it immediately showed signs of \\(c. Little
black figures began to run about and escape. Anil the
General laughed, the staff laughed, even the Chins
laughed. Here was indeed a demonstration. Hut

130 A PFOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

when the colonel of a Ghurka regiment came in hot
haste to inquire why his working party there was being
fired on, the laughter died from all faces, collecting only
on the faces of the Chin chiefs, who sat upon the
ground and shrieked. So the demonstration was
stopped. But it was not lost. For the rest of the
war the Chins took very good care, if they wished to
have a fight, to arrange it in thick woods where volleys
were impossible, and when they built stockades they
did it where the guns could not shell them. A good
lesson is never lost. If it does not benefit one party,
it may do the other.

The second story is about General Symons. One
night after dinner we were all sitting talking in the
village of Kal^ — for the headquarters were again there
and not in the fort. VVe were expecting an attack,
and sentries and pickets were posted far out beyond
the stockade. Suddenly we heard one shot ; of course
every one jumped up. The bugles went ; the men fell
in ; the officers ran to their posts. General Symons
alone had not moved. After listening intently for a
minute or two, he had sat down again. I myself was
between two minds — whether to go out with one of the
parties hastily assembling outside, or to stay with the
General, who was lighting another cigar. So I stood
irresolutely by the door.

' You can sit down,' said Symons ; * it is nothing.
A sentry has let off his rifle by accident. That is
all.'

CH. XI ANOTHER FRONTIER 131

And so it proved. Leaning upon his rifle, it had
gone off, and so had his fingers.

General S)'mons told me afterwards how he knew.
But war was to him a pleasure and an instinct. He
understood it naturally ; and, when he fell at Dundee,
England lost a greater soldier than perhaps she knew.

CHAPTER XII

PEACE AT LAST

In the beginning of 1890, after more than three years'
absence, I returned to the central districts of Upper
Burma.

In these three years a great change had taken
place. A few insurgent leaders still remained in
difficult parts of the country, but they were now
without influence and without following. They had
become fugitives, sheltered by the people, but incap-
able of further harm. There were still occasional
' dacoities,' but these had deteriorated into crimes,
and were no longer illuminated by patriotism nor
condoned by the country-side who suffered from them.
Burma was pacified, and, for the first time since I
crossed the frontier in 1886, I was able to lay aside
my revolver and to live beyond the sound of a sentry.

At first the change was difficult to realise. That
we should be able to ride about alone and without
arms, that one could go into camp and stay in zayats
or little rest-houses without any guard ; that our duties
were no longer to consist in getting information of
enemies, but in organising the revenue and practical

'32

CH. XII PEACE AT LAST 133

administration, required a readjustment of all one's
ideas. It seemed in 1886 and 1887 that Burma
would never be quiet, but now it was so. There
was a railway open to Mandalay, and trunk roads
had been cut to all important towns.

It will be interesting to note how all this had been
accomplished — to recall the lessons learnt here. For
they are very soon forgotten, and they are in many
ways of general application. If they had been re-
membered in the Transvaal, the necessity of learning
them all over again there would have been obviated.

The greatest want was cavalry and mounted
infantry. The first columns that came to Upper
Burma had no cavalry at all. They had a few of
the Volunteer Mounted Infantry from Rangoon,, but
all I ever heard of their doing was humping bags
of rations on Mandalay shore, which is hardly the
role for which mounted men were intended. And
it was not till a year later that any mounted men
came at all. Then four regiments of cavalry were
sent, and mounted infantry companies were formed
out of every regiment in Burma. They were mounted
on Burma ponies, and their value was great.

For the great essential for a few troops in a great
country is rapidity of movement and mobility. When
you get information of a ho.stile gathering, you must
be able to strike at once, and before they know you
are coming. Infantry can never do this. Especially
in a tropical country like this their movements are
slow. They march not more than three miles an

134 A PKOPLli Ar SCHOOL im . i

hour over the bad roads. And as every camp and
post was watched, directly any column moved the
news went ahead of it and the enemy were warned.
Now mounted men went faster than the news, and
fell upon the insurgents before they could get away.
With infantry alone the insurijents felt themselves safe.
Going light and knowing all the roads, they always
knew exactly what a column was doing, and would
get out of its way or attack it where they chose ;
and after a fight they escaped with ease. Mounted
men altered all this. It is true that Upper Burma is
not a cavalry country, it is too rough and too enclosed.
But mounted infantry can work well enough.

The next lesson to learn was that columns moving
through a country did not pacify it. The people let
the column go, and closed up behind it the same as
before. Moving columns may be good against an
organised force, and may destroy that organism.
Against a people in arms they have no permanent
effect. You must not only come, but .stay.

So the country was, as it were, pegged down by
innumerable small armed posts, distributed at from
ten to fifteen miles apart. Some were of troops, .some
of military police recruited from Upper India and
trained as troops, of which some twenty thousand
were raised. Each post consisted of fifty to a hundred
men, and was usually commanded by a subaltern.
The subaltern sat down in the post with his men and
got a grip of the country all round. He visited ail
the villages, got to know the people and the roads,

(H. XII PKACK AT LAST 135

and was then independent of guides. No big gather-
ing could take place without being nipped in the bud.
And in time the people got accustomed to his presence
and reconciled to the inevitable. These were the
two main military measures. The third measure was
administration.

Upper Burma, as I have said, consisted of village
communities, all to a great extent self-contained.
These villages had been the growth of centuries.
The people were all more or less related to each
other, and were accustomed to mutual responsibility.
Under the Burmese kings the taxation was levied
on the villages as a whole, and the demand was sub-
divided by the elders amongst the houses. They
judged all their petty cases, and they were, as a
community, responsible for the acts of their members.
Thus, if stolen cattle were traced to the village, the
community was responsible to the owner, and so in
other matters. And their organism, unlike that of
the central government, had a strong and vigorous life
of its own.

This principle was used to restore peace. The
village was held responsible for keeping the peace within
its borders, and for the gootl behaviour of its members.
Thus, if a village harboured insurgents, or sent its
young men to join a band, it could be punished. It
could be fined, or have troops or police quartered in it.

There was, further, the power to deport from one
place to another an)- persons who were suspected of
assisting the insurgents.

136 A PKOPLK AT SCHOOL pt. i

Such measures had slow though permanent success.

All the insurgent leaders were purely local men.
Beyond a narrow circle they were unknown and had
no power. If their relations who fed and helped them
were required to go and live elsewhere, and if the
villages from which they drew their supplies were
fined continuously till they were arrested, they soon
were left helpless. If they went away to other parts
of the country, they were unknown, and, even if not
noticed and arrested, they could do nothing.

But one form of punishment was strictly prohibited.
No village, or part of a village, was ever to be burnt.
In wars of invasion where the conqueror intends to
retire, this might be done occasionally, no doubt, with
success. Where the intention is to remain, the burn-
ing of a village is a mistake. It punishes the people
certainly, but it does more. It makes them hopeless,
it exasperates them. Many of them have now lost
their all, and have nothing to live for but revenge.

In wars of conquest, if your conquest is to be a
success, if the people are to settle down with you
afterwards, you must above all things be careful never
to exasperate them, never to lose your temper, never
to be vindictive or cruel. Such memories live and
bear evil fruit. To shoot men who resist you, to
punish localities which harbour insurgents, to deport
or imprison those whom it is necessary to remove,
these wounds leave no scars. They are quickly
forgotten.

To burn villages or to have public parades of

CH. XII PEACE AT LAST 137

execution leaves sores that time will never efface, either
in the East or West. Such deeds do not frighten, they
exasperate. That Upper Burma at last has settled
down so peacefully is in part because such things were
hardly ever done. There was a vcr)- strict order
against burning, and public executions were hardly ever
carried out. I remember one such case only, where it
was considered that the execution of certain leaders in
their own village before their people would have a
good effect. It was not a pure coincidence that from
this village came the fanatics who in 1896 tried to
rush the palace at Mandalay and kill the officers in
the Club. Men who tame horses and animals tell you
that you must sometimes punish, you must sometimes
even be severe. But you must never lose your
temper. If you do that, the horse never forgets or
forgives. Men are like this too.

The first people who came to our side were the
merchant and trading classes. War meant more to
them than to the peasants. The peasant tilled his
field and lived — poorly perhaps, but still he got food.
His wife and daughter wove his clothes. He had the
strong patriotism of him who holds the land, who is
part of it, who clings to it with a passionate desire
which has no equal.

The trader in war time suffers more. For trade is
almost dead. If he has money, it is taken for war pur-
poses ; if he sends merchandise abroad to the villages,
it is robbed. Only in peace can he thri\c and do his
work. And then ai^ain the merchant, divorced from

138 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

his land, has never the strong patriotism of those who
Hve on it and by it. The desire of money has to
some extent displaced the simple patriotism of the
peasant and the landowner. He docs not feel the
stranger's presence a desecration. He trades with him
and makes money. He desires peace that he may
succeed. He is quicker to sec when resistance becomes
hopeless. So our first friends were the traders, and
their influence spread from trading centres. Then the
influence of the monks made for peace.

Not that the monks liked us. They disliked us as
much as any one could. Many of them saw, no doubt,
that our influence must in the end overshadow theirs ;
that we brought with us a breath of unrest that would
shake their faith and custom.

Yet with very few exceptions they remained true to
their doctrines. They preached peace. * Doka aneitsa
anatta.' ' There is only one good thing in the world,
and that is peace.'

Of course, here and there is found an exception ;
here and there a man not a monk at all assumed
monk's robes as a disguise to hide him from us. And
from such instances men have judged the monks
wrongly. It is so easy to make mistakes from a
distance. If you never hear of a monk but when he is
concerned in a disturbance, you are apt to think the
insurgent monk a rule, because the thousand monks
who stand apart you never hear of. Men judge by
what they see, not of what docs not obtrude itself on
them.

CH. XII PKACE AT LAST 1^9

And so in 1890 Burma was quiet. It was like a
high-tempered colt brought from out the pastures
bitted and bridled. It was exhausted, panting, weary
of the useless effort. But the people had begun to see,
I think, that we were not so bad as they had feared.
If wc could be bad enemies, we could be good friends
too, and we were ready to make friends. They sulked
for a while, desired to see as little of us as possible,
to have as little intercourse with us as might be.
Naturally they were sore ; but there was no enduring
bitterness ; and if most of our troops had not been
Indian troops there would have been even less soreness.

' To be beaten by the English we don't so much
mind,' they said, ' for after all you arc a great people.
But that you should bring Indian troops to do it is
what we do not like.' For the Burman hates and
despises all the Indian races which he knows.

Therefore after 1S90 all that remained was to
organise our administration and proceed. Year by
year the country has grown more peaceful, more
resigned to make the best of it. Year by year
organisation grew. And now, after fifteen years, Upper
Burma is just a quiet ordinary province of the Empire,
differing enormously from all the rest of it in the
people and the circumstances, but with a government
formed on just the same lines. The government of
Burma is an extension of the government of India.
What we have found we can do well in India we have
extended here. Vnr it must always be remembered
that if we are to govern wc must have a nutht)d th.it

I40 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. i

suits us, that \vc understand and that we can use.
Another class is added to our school, but the school is
unchanged. We have our limitations too, and we
cannot alter to suit different peoples.

In such manner as I have tried to describe did
Burma come under our rule.

What after fifteen years that rule has done for it I
will try to show in the next part.

PART II

CHAPTER XIII

OUR RULE IN INDIA

To observe correctly the effects of our rule in the
East it is necessary first to have a clear conception of
what that rule is. And to obtain this it is necessary
to go some way back ; to note how it arose and
developed, and what were the forces that la)' beneath
the surface.

The Honourable East India Company was, as every
one knows, a company of traders to the East. Its
object was trade, and trade alone. It wanted to make
money, and money alone. There was in it no idea
whatever of Empire or of rule. But Fate was behind
them, and as Fate pushed them so they went.

To establish their factories they obtained concessions
of land. To make these concessions secure they built
forts and raised an armed force. To these factories
where wealth accumulated came native princes and
sought loans, and the Company L^ranted these loans
and took in payment monopolies in their territories.
To protect these monopolies they were obliged to
interfere in the politics of the couiilr}-. To render
such interference possible and also to protect thcm-

'43

144 -^ PEOPLE AT SCHOOL ft. ii

selves from the French, more soldiers, European and
native, were necessary. Then the native rulers being
weak, political influence was turned into political power.
The native rulers became unable to hold their own.
For instance, in Bengal the Company's monopoly of
saltpetre and their system of duty-free passes were
worked in such a manner that the local authorities
were powerless. The people were ruined, and when
the native official interfered on their behalf, the Com-
pany, very strong but very keen after money, was
indignant. The agents of the Company, acting upon
the weakness of the native rulers, simply created
anarchy. And where anarchy arises trade ceases.
The Company then were faced with the necessity of
taking over the government if they were to trade at
all. They had destroyed what order there was, and
made it impossible for any one to create a peace.
Their greed soon ruined every native prince who was
set up. If they were to trade, if indeed they were to
continue to exist at all, they must themselves assume
the sovereign power.

But for this the Company was entirely unsuited.
It was formed of traders, it was formed to trade. It
was formed of merchants of the middle classes of
England, and they had in them the spirit of Anglo-
Saxon England. They wanted money, and Empire
was unknown to them. For the England of that day
remained in fact, though not perhaps in name, the
England of the centuries after the Norman conquest.
There were two strata. There was the King and the

CH.xiii OUR RULE IN INDIA 145

governing class, the Lords and the country gentlemen
who filled the Commons, and which was Norman.
No matter that they no longer called themselves so.
They were Norman, Norman in descent, Xorman in
authorit)', in power, in ideals, and in deeds. They
were still the Imperial race who made England, who
conquered its many warring little Anglo-Saxon king-
doms and welded them into one whole. They were of
the race who had but one aptitude, but that was of
command. They felt that they were born leaders, and
they meant to lead. For the rest, they were indifferent.
They cared little for money, for art, for knowledge, for
anything but power. And they had that supreme
faculty — the ability to rule other nations, to understand
them, to identify their interests with these peoples.
They even abandoned their name of Norman and
became English, leaders of the people of England.
But they remained — some still remain — a caste apart.
They would not mi.x their blood, knowing that mixed
blood is valueless, and the sons born of it die out.
Their ideals were Empire, the concentration of power.

Beneath them were the Anglo-Saxons, and their
ideals were as different, are still as different, from those
of an imperial race as can be imagined.

Of the concentration of power, of the welding of
peoples and provinces they had no idea. Empires
and kingdoms were beyond their ken, beyond their
power of sight and understanding. While the Xorman
saw big and could not see small, they saw small and
could not see big. Their ideal of government was the

146 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. 11

municipality, the small local area which elected its own
council and managed its own affairs. They thought
that the only possible form of rule, and that all people
should have it. They considered that every respectable
man was equal to any other, had an equal right to
share in the government, and an equal claim upon all
the benefits of it. They had in them neither the
sympathy to understand other peoples nor the desire
to govern them.

They thought that other races should also govern
themselves by elected members. If they were unable
to do that, then they ought to be enslaved or destroyed.
Their world had room only for two classes of men —
those strong enough to rule themselves, and those who
must be slaves to the Anglo-Saxon. All others must
go. Of the paternal guardianship of weaker races
against the exploitation of the strong they had not the
very least notion.

Nothing is clearer in our history than this. When the
Anglo-Saxon has had his way he has always destroyed
or enslaved. In Australia he destroyed the natives, he
enslaved the Kanakas ; in Africa he tried to do the
same ; in the United States he destroyed the Indians.
He enslaved the negro, and when the reaction came in
1858, he went to the opposite extreme and made the
negro theoretically an equal, gave him votes and set
him free.

Where weaker races have survived in our Empire,
it has always been due to the Imperial Government.
If the Maories in New Zealand, the Indians in Canada

CH. XIII OUR RULE IN INDIA 147

still survive, it is directly due to the English govern-
ment, to the Norman spirit that has almost always
sustained that government. In South Africa it is
notorious that it has been our government in England
who, having first saved the settlers from the natives,
then saved the natives from the settlers again and
again. The Anglo-Saxon would destroy other races
which compete with him in a climate he can live in,
and enslave them in a climate too hot for him to work
in. If there was no slavery in England, that was not
the credit of the Anglo-Saxon but of his Norman
government.

And in India it was no _" otherwise. The Company
had a flourishing slave trade at Madras in very early
days, a trade that so stank in native nostrils that
Aurungzebe started to destroy the Madras factory.
Only a hasty abolition of the trade appeased him.
But when the danger was withdrawn, the trade was
renewed. When the Company found the necessity of
some local government in their factories, they initiated
the quaintest caricature of a municipality. That was
all they understood. They had not the least under-
standing, the least sympathy. They had no flexibility.
' Equal and brother,' or * slave,' — between these terms
they had no meaning. They were as far as possible
from a race with imperial ideas.

The initiators of European empire in India were
the great Frenchmen, Dupleix and Labourdonnais,
not the Company's servants. Neither was it from
their own strength that the Company did not fall

148 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. 11

before the native princes, before French and Portu-
guese and Dutch hostility. They had in themselves
very little fighting strength. They had no service of
men, and hardly any officers. They had practically
no navy. If they did not fall, it was because their
government held them up. It gave them ships of war,
it gave them king's troops and officers, it assisted
them to raise money. The English Government,
always imperial, fulfilled its duty, while the French
Government left its men to ruin. There is perhaps
nothing sadder than the history of the fate of the two
great Frenchmen. But it must be remembered that
the French Government were no way to blame. The
fate of France lay other whither than in the East.
Their task lay in the Continent about them. That
called for all their strength. They had no force
to spare for further ventures. It was for France to
concentrate for the great world-cleansing struggles
coming on. The East called to her, but she would
not hear.

Pitt, the greatest minister we have ever known,
recognised the facts and knew his strength. He
heard. His government answered, and after Plassey,
the Company, behind which was the State, stood as
the one strong power in India. Clive and Hastings
were great men, but it was not they who made the
Indian Empire. It was Pitt and the British Govern-
ment who did that.

Those who believe the Company had the power
and knowledge to rule should read what happened

CH. XIII OUR RULE IN INDIA 149

under their control. The native rule was bad, but
it was weak. That saved it. The Company was
worse, and it was strong. It could not be easily
shaken, could not be obstructed. It existed for
money, and it got money. For the rest it was
indifferent, or, if perhaps not indifferent, yet unable to
act otherwise. It squeezed and squeezed with an iron
hand. Read Colonel Dovv's * Enquiry into the State of
Bengal in 1770.' He declares that the only misdeed
the Company's servants did not commit was inter-
ference with religion. ' He who will consent to i)art
with his property may carry his opinions away with
freedom.'

The country was reduced to abject misery, the
people to a slavery the East had never known.
Against native misrule there was always the relief of
rebellion or assassination, there was always the tem-
porary influences of a fellowship of race and faith.
But these English traders were too strong and fierce,
too brave and disciplined, to permit of any resistance
save the final one of universal rising and massacre, and
this very nearly happened. Of temperate influence
there was none.

The Company's servants were corrupt. Thc\-
received presents. They bought and sold favour.
They were still nine-tenths merchants and onl)- a tenth
officials. They were poorly paid, and it was under-
stood that they should recoup themselves with private
trade. And between the private trade of an official
and corruption there is no line. Besides, corruption

150 A PKOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. 11

was in the air. In England bribes were freely given
everywhere, and Englishmen coming to India did not
bring out with them any feeling against it. And
in the East there was no public opinion to which
Englishmen were subject. Every one of them took
bribes ; who was to censure ?

Yet an opinion there was, though far away, and at
last it awoke. A storm arose in England that could
not be braved. Writers have called that storm in-
gratitude. Because Warren Hastings had to stand his
trial, because Clive was bitterly attacked and censured,
because England turned on them its wrath and indigna-
tion at what the Company had done in India, therefore
is England blamed. They added empires to the
Empire, new laurels to her wreaths, and they were
reviled. Perhaps they were the wrong men. I'erhaps
others were more to blame.

When Warren Hastings was tried, it was not he
but the Company that stood at the bar ; when he
was tardily acquitted, it was not the Company but
the man who stood absolved from blame.

But in truth the blame lay neither in them nor in
any one. Whatever happened was inevitable. When
men try to rule who have neither the understanding
nor the aptitude, when traders combine trade with
empire, when a company is backed by the power of a
government and not controlled by it, what else can
happen ? The Company were utterly unfit for rule.
They tried, often with the best intentions, and failed.
The government in England took the matter in

LH.xiii OUR RULE IN INDIA 151

hand. I laving furnished much of the strength, it now
began to control. When Warren Hastings returned
to power the second time, he came as the King's man,
not the Company's. But even so, the control was not
enough. It was but in name.

In 1783 the Board of Control was established;
and from that date the Crown steadily increased its
power. And as its power increased so did the govern-
ment of India improve.

It would be an interesting study to trace the
gradual substitution of the one power for the other, to
note how the principles proper to governments dis-
placed those proper to trade.

The Comipany carried on government on business
principles. They did it to pay. It was a trade just
like any other trade where the object is to enrich the
trader, and the weak go to the wall. But government
is not a business and its principles are very different.
Its object is not to enrich its officers, but only to pay
them a fair salary. It competes with no one, it tries to
best no one, to undersell no one ; its gains and losses
are not to be measured by any money standard. But
neither does it believe in the Anglo-Saxon maxims
that ' all men were born free and equal,' and that
there should be ' no taxation without representation.'

No government in India could exist on such
maxims, and our rule is founded on very different
ideas. They are, that the first necessity for all men is
a strong and stable government, and that all rights
and ideals come secoml to this ncccssit)'. If people

152 A PKOFLK AT SCHOOL pt. ii

can themselves provide this government, well and
good. No one would want to interfere, no one could
possibly interfere with success, even if they did so
wish. But if not, then the right of government falls to
any one who provides this strong and just government.
W'e alone have shown our ability to do so. \Vc
govern India because we can do so, because we alone
can do so, because our success justifies us. If at any
time our ability to govern fairly and justly should
leave us, then no doubt our rule will end too. The
first right of man is to a strong and just government.
If we are no longer able to provide this, our right to
rule will lapse.

And meanwhile the ideals that government works
on are something like this : to be sympathetic to all,
to be just to all, to make the law as far as possible
the same to all, but recognising differences that exist.
A law that is fair to one community may be hope-
lessly unfair to another. Savage tribes cannot be
treated in the same way as city dwellers. Freedom
is a great thing, equal laws are good, but too much
freedom, too much equality, may end in one com-
munity preying on another and destroying it. A
theoretical liberty may end in a practical slavery.
And government tolerates no slaveries, it allows no
monopolies, whether created or acquired. Equal
justice is not attained by equal laws, for the same
law in different circumstances produces different
results. Laws must be adapted to facts and peoples.
The weaker must be protected, the stronger restrained.

CM. XIII OUR RULE IN INDIA 153

The Empire is no cockpit where the weaker may be
destroyed by the sharper or the more cunning, while
we keep the peace. Every race and class and reli-
gion may appeal to government for safety for itself,
none to the damage of its neighbour. And it is
essentially a central government. It has not about it
the least semblance to the Anglo-Saxon ideals of
municipality and of local self-government.

These principles of course grew very slowly.
There were many difficulties in the way. For it
must be remembered always that if the Company
could not exist without the Crown, neither could the
Crown in India without the Company.

India is poor. She is not perhaps poor actually,
measured in her own standards, and measured as
other nations measure themselves, but she is very
poor by our standard. Her rupee is as our pound.
It goes as far in country products, whether men or
material. But the cost of our English government
must be calculated in pounds as we ourselves reckon,
and is even more expensive than English government
in England. That is to say, English officers and men
require more pay ; English material, such as guns and
ammunition, cost more. A great deal of money, or its
equivalent, must be remitted to Englaiul every year to
cover this.

Only an increased trade, both local and with
England, could cover such an expenditure, and only
the Company could carry on such a trade. Without
a Company to provide it with the sinews of war. and

154 A PEOPLK AT SCHOOL pt. ii

the method of transmitting the \;iluc abroad, no foreign
administration could exist.

If this were true then, it is just as true now.
English trade and English government in Intlia arc
united. Each is dependent on the other, absolutely-
dependent.

Unless peace and good order and respect for
government obtain, trade is impossible. Without
English trade and traders, the Government of India
would be bankrupt to-morrow. And if it were
bankrupt, it would end.

Thus, in a way of speaking, it is quite true to say
that the Company established British rule, even
though it was itself incapable of good rule. It made
the Crown rule possible, and it gave that willing and
loyal co-operation without which it could never have
come.

Little by little the Crown, working mainly through
the Company, introduced reforms and the necessities
of good order.

It created High Courts of Justice which were not
subject to the Company's orders, and it appointed
Governors - General. The Company still had its
monopoly of trade, still mixed up business and rule,
liut the control of the Crown ever increased, and the
Company ceased more and more to be a Company of
traders, and became but a department under the
Imperial Government. Then at last the catastrophe
of the Mutiny came, and the Company ended. The
Crown assumed the whole government of India, and

CH. XIII OUR RULE IN INDIA 155

the strange combination of government exerted by the
central authorit)- through a company of merchants
ceased. All India was re-organiscd. The govern-
ment became more centralised. The power was
withdrawn more and more from the provinces to
Calcutta, and from Calcutta to London. Till now
the Indian administration is but a branch whose real
head is in London. It is an administration the whole
nation is proud of, and which other nations note with
admiration and envy, for its efTlcicncy, its solidity, its
fairness.

It is the reverse of Anglo-Saxon in all its methods
and ideals, and therefore it is a success. For the
Anglo-Saxon, a great coloniser, is a hopelessly bad
ruler of subject people. He does not understand it
even now. It is against his grain, against his genius.
The United States abandoned Cuba. They are
anxious to abandon the Philippines, knowing that their
institutions and the spirit of their people arc unequal
to such government.

But the merchants are Anglo - Saxons. They
retain their ideas, the first of which is to make money.
Other matters are indifferent, and they often regard
government with suspicion and doubt. They want to
exploit the people, and government stamls between.

In Burma the Anglo-Saxon ideas obtain expression
every now and then in the quaintest way. The
Burman is first of all things a peasant cultivator, and
he dislikes service. The immen.se extension of cultiva-
tion under our rule has been done b\- him, antl he has

i;6 A PEOPLK AT SCHOOL pt. ii

made an excellent thing out of it. He has therefore
no necessity to work as a labourer. He prefers
ploughing his own field to working on a road or in
a mine. He can make much more money, he is free,
he docs not like leaving his family, and the barrack
accommodation of 24 square feet for each labourer,
given by the mills and by masters to servants, strikes
him as horrible. For these and other reasons the
Burman will rarely work for the European. The
European employer of labour, therefore, hates the
Burman, and he expresses this by writing very often
to the local papers, and, full of a righteous indignation,
says 'the Burman must go.' He would, no doubt,
prefer to use a gun to help the Burman ' go,' and then
bring over a native of hulia in handcuffs to replace
him in the good old way, but unfortunately these
methods are out of date. Therefore he writes to the
papers and in books. Well, it is blank ammunition,
and does no one any harm. And, meanwhile, the
Burman does not 'go.' He increases very rapidly,
and has made in a few years untier our rule the great
prosperity of liurma.

CIIAI'TKR XIV

(JOVKKNOR AM) GOVERNKP

India is a very c][rcat countrx-. It extends two
thousand miles from north to south ; it is twelve
hundred miles from Calcutta to Bombay. Kven under
a government that wished to centralise, the difficulty
of communication before railways and telegraphs
necessitated tiic widest discretion being allowed to
its officers. Living in very different days, it surprises
us to look back for over half a century and sec what
liberty our predecessors had. All India, and Burma
too, is divided into districts like l^nglish counties, and
at the head of each there is an I'lnglishman. In the
old days he was a king. Within very wide limits he
could do what he liked. He kept his district quiet
from his own resources; he raised and remitted revenues ;
he organised police. lie impressed his jjcrsonality
upon the district as no man could ever do now.
He lived in a state that now we can none of us afford ;
he had an authority that has now gone from us.
He pas.sed an order and there was the end, unless the
matter were very serious. Even where appeals lay to
higher authority, the difficulty of travelling restricted

«S7

158 A Pl-OPLK AT SCHOOL it. ii

their use. He knew the people and the people him.
On his personality the government depended. To
the people at large he uujs the government ; of powers
beyond him, of commissioners or governors they had
perhaps never heard even the name. His initiative
was extraordinary. For instance, ' suttee ' was first
forbii.ldcn by a district officer entirely on his own
authorit)'. He did it without reference, independent
of what other districts did, relying on his own power.
No one could imaj^inc a district officer taking such a
step now. To effect a reform like this, orders would
be required from England. Yet of course then it fitted
in naturally with the state of things. Such a condition
was of course primitive. It was a necessity of the times,
it had its advantages and disadvantages. At th.it time
the advantages greatly outweighed the disadvantages.
Now, of course, such a system would be impossible.
For one thing, it required a particular stamp of man,
accustomed to the ideas of supremacy and rule ; and
to attract such men, very large pay and comparatively
little office work was required. Men of old family of
a certain fortune of their own gladly accepted appoint-
ments. The life attracted them, the freedom, the
authority, the high pay. I met once the son of
one of these at home, and he told me of his
early years in India. His father was a baronet of
sufficient fortune, and he came out with pleasure to the
life out here. He lived well, kept open house, had
many horses. He organised great pig-sticking and
hunting parties, and went into camp for weeks. He

CH. XIV GOVF.RNOR & C;0\'I{RNKD 159

was a little prince within his jurisdiction. No returns
bothered him, no reports, none of the endless office
work of nowadays. A rupee then was worth four
times what it is now, and a pension of a thousand a
year wont further than thrice that sum does now.

But naturally a strong central government gathered
up the reins as they could. The extension of rails
and wires annihilated distance. A process of welding
has gone on incessantly. In the old days the adminis-
tration of a district varied greatly with its head. If
he was energetic, it was energetic ; if he was slack, it fell
into arrears. If he was personally popular, good ; but if
unpopular, then it was not good. There was naturally
a great deal of difference between one district and
another, or between a district at one time and another.

But an ideal of government is that no difference
should exist except these differences that government
itself creates intentionally. Administration should be
uniform, should be certain. ICvcry one should know
what to expect. Law should be clear and not dependent
on who happens at the moment to administer it.
Possibly under an ideal district officer the old system
would work best. But ideal officers arc hard to find.
And of course a central government must have uni-
formity, f)r it loses its control. If it had to sit down
and study the peculiarities of each ilistrict and each
head of a district before passing orders on a matter
that came up, its work would be interminable and
impossible. Its control would disappear.

Therefore it says always ' fall into line.' both to

i6o A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

provinces, to districts, and to its officers. The work of
government is so vast, that unless it goes as a machine,
it cannot go at all. Wheels must fit into their places.
It is impossible to have one district go slow and
another fast. And to ensure this uniformity there
must be many laws, many rules, much supervision, a
great deal of appeal allowed.

The defects of the system are its want of life, of
flexibility, of adaptation to local conditions, lint this
is inevitable. All governments tend to it. Where are
the powers of the lord lieutenants of the counties
gone in England, where that of the Bishop of the
County Palatine of Durham, of the wardens of the
marches, of the lords of the manor ? A central
government has taken them all. The change is per-
haps more noticeable here, because government has
more functions than in most other countries and no
local self-government has been possible.

Therefore the district officer has slowly but surely
been falling from his pride of place. His power is
small, his authority is very limited, he has hardly any
initiative of his own. He is now but the channel
through which passes the orders that come from afar.
His every deed is bound by stringent rules and laws.
He acts, but in response to an impulse from far away.
His days arc very full. His work increases, and his
leisure hours are very few now. Government becomes
more complicated every day, and he is responsible for
all. In the olden days he passed an order, and there
was the end. Now it is usually only the beginning,

cH.xiv GOVERNOR & GOVERNED i6i

for most of his orders are appealed against, and
therefore he must explain his order, justify it not
only by the facts, but by showing that it is in
accordance with the rules and laws upon the subject
and with precedent. To give a proper order is often
easy, to justify it to a distant Court of Appeal,
whether in a legal, or revenue, or general matter, is
often hard and tedious. Yet, of course, it must be
done.

And his pay now is nothing to what it was. The
rupee has fallen to two-thirds its value as against
gold ; it has fallen far more in its purchasing power.
A thousand pounds a year at home is not what it
was, especially if he have a family. He must, if
possible, save to help his pension. He has little
leisure for shooting parties, and no means to keep
open house, even if he could get visitors who had
leisure. The qualities he requires are no longer know-
ledge of men, power of command, or self-confidence.
What he needs arc great power of working fast, and
working long, and working accurately, an immense
memory for the different Acts and Rules, great
patience, and good health. If added to these he
has ordinary common-sen.se and a little friendliness
for the people, he cannot well go wrong. His every
official act is bound about by rule and precedent,
and beyond those official acts he had better never go.

There is .sometimes a little disappointment when
first he recognises this fact.

He is head of the district still. If the orders that

i62 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

he gives arc dictated to him, still, he gives them. He
is head of all the departments which work in his
district. He is the Court of Appeal for nearly all
cases tried in his jurisdiction, he collects all the
revenue, and if he cannot himself give remissions, he
can recommend them, and if they are granted, they
come through him. He appoints and dismisses the
headmen of villages ; the police work under his
supervision. The Public Works Department in the
district, the Forest Department, even the Post Office,
are greatly influenced by his views. If his own voice
is rarely heard, he is still the gramophone which utters
all the orders that are necessary. And, of course,
his personality must still, to some extent, affect these
orders. He may be strict or he inay be lenient,
within certain limits, he may be sympathetic or hostile.
It would seem, therefore, that he must greatly enter
into the general life of the people. Yet it is not so.
His functions, in one respect, arc very wide, in another,
very narrow. He stands to the people much as a
physician stands to his patients. He has to do with
the ills of the community, not with its health, with
the failures, not the successes.

As long as the community is law-abiding the
district magistrate is ncjt concerned with it. lie
knows nothing of it. Put when a crime is committed,
then he is concerned with it. As long as traders trade
in peace and honesty the District Judge hears nothing,
but when they quarrel, they appear in his Court.

The majority who pay in their revenue properly

cH.xiv GOVERNOR & GOVERNKD 163

never detach themselves ; the cf)llector knows only of
defaulters. Unless a monk violate the law, or a
relifjious community come into the courts, the whole
^reat organism of religion exists and grows beyond
his ken. He is concerned only with the faults of his
people. He stands to them as the surgeon of their
diseases — that is all. That the peace and prosperity
that obtain are due to the government, and his work
is nothing. He does not appear directly there. Just
as a community may be healthy because the doctors
keep off and cure disease, yet the community will
always rather associate them with the disease they
banish than with the health they ensure.

The people respect and fear the District Head as
they do the doctor ; the less they see of him the better.

Thus he sees the peoj)le's life go on without him.
They are born, grow up, they marry, they die, and he
knows nothing. They have joys and sorrows, they
have their work, their pleasure, their trouble, without
him. There is the family life, the village life, the
religious life, aiul he never sees into it. The com-
munity is as a great tree that grows, its veins full
of sap, full of a thousand energies, antl he is but
the gardener. He is the gardener with but one
duty, to guard it from outside hurt and to remove
diseased branches. Of its real life he knows nothing —
how the sap ebbs and Hows ; liow the leaves come
and go ; why the fruit ripens or remains green. He
dare not touch it, knowing his ignorance. He is far
apart.

164 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pi. n

Perhaps at first he tries to overcome this. They
ask him to their festivals ; he goes. They have boat
races. A dozen or more boats, with fifteen to thirty
paddlers in each, meet to try results. He supposes
it is a regatta, and that at each meeting they decide
which is the fastest. Hut no. It is a series of
matches, wherein there are continuous discussions as
to the terms and the wagers, discussions that continue
may be for hours, and which he cannot understand.
Three heats may take six hours. lie is not personally
acquainted with any of the crews, and it is indifferent
to him who win.s. The great crowd who rush and
shout and cheer and dance along the bank can lend
him none of its gaiety. He is bored.

He sees a play. The language is so difficult he
cannot follow. The music is only a noise, unpleasant,
and very loud. The gestures are strange. And the
plot extends from ten in the evening until five next
morning. Incidents arc few, action is delayed.
Accustomed to a drama crushed into two hours, he
grows very wear)'.

For the Burmese, like all young people, live slowly.
They do not thirst after sensation ; a little goes a
long way. They can eat plain food materially and
emotionally. There is no hurry, especially about
pleasure. Life has lots of time. They do not dash
from one emotion to another.

It all .seems to us so very slow. We are an old
people and we take our days as old men in a hurry.

Perhaps he goes to a religious festival, only to feel

cH. XIV GOVERNOR ^ (JOVKRNHD 165

himself a worse intruder than ever. '1 he people live
outside him. Their thoughts are not as his.

He tries to make friends with some ; with what
result? What can they talk about ? Crops? What
does he know of crops ? Village scandal ? Oh !
What else? Well, it usually ends in this — that
after deadly silences the official begins to describe
England, and the visitor is deadly anxious to be ofT.

No. Community of tastes, of work and pleasure,
of race and custom, onl)' these can make men friends.

And beyond all this difficulty, because of it in
fact, arises another curse — suspicion. The native bores
the Englishman, the Englishman bores the native.
The l-5urman feels like a schoolboy before a master.
He takes no pleasure in talking to an Englishman,
and he is keenly aware that the latter takes no
pleasure either. They are best, far best, apart. A
Burman will never come and see you for your beaux
yeux, nor even for j-our wit. It follows, therefore,
that if he comes to sec >ou, it is for a purpose. He
has something to gain. And as the only side on
which you touch the Burman at all is official, it
must be some official gain. He wants to speak to
you about a case may be. or to gain an official
favour. He comes to you privately instead of in
office, because he wants to get at you. I do not
mean that he wishes to bribe you ; attempts at
bribery to ICnglishmcn are very rare ; but he wants
to influence you in some unrecognised way, some
way that you cannot allow ; perhaps it is to tell

i66 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL it. ii

you scandal of his opponent, or to flatter you into
complaisance. There is not ever, there could not
be, any other reason for a man or woman coming
to visit you except the)' wished some gain.

Yet sometimes the object ma>- be very carefully
hidden.

There was once the head of a district, very energetic,
very zealous, very anxious to be friends with all the
people. He liked them, aiul they liked him. He
wanted to see more of them, to increase the intimacy
and the friendliness. He asked them to come and
chat to him after office hours. Occasionally one or
two came.

Presently the ' two ' dropped off, and the ' one '
remained. He was a merchant in the town, a man
of good standing, of considerable wealth for a villager,
a sportsman who knew a pony, and a man of influence.

Yet he had no official position, was not a municipal
councillor, a board elder, or honorary magistrate, or
anything else connected with government. He never
asked for any land grants, he petitioned for no excep-
tions, he had no relatives in troubles.

He talked mostly of racing ponies, and for long
periods he would sit in the verandah and chew
betel and be happy. If any Hurman ever visited
a European out of sheer friendliness, without any
ulterior motive, it seemed to be this merchant, and
the official was much pleased. He took it as a
compliment to himself.

Well, after some months of this there was a row

cH.xiv GOVKRNOR & GOVERNED 167

one night in the town. This merchant, while crossing
a monastery compound, was set upon and nearly
killed. There was great excitement. An inquiry
followed, and soon facts came out. Alas, for this
pure and simple friendship ! This merchant had an
object. He was ambitious. Hut his ambition lay
not towards honours or money, it lay towards religious
sway. He wanted to be the leader of a religious
section of the town, to obtain a certain monastery
for his monks, and displace those who disagreed with
him. To this end had been his visits. He came
and sat in the official's verandah and smoked and
talked ' horse,' and when he went away he saiil,
' You all see mc, I have been half an hour wiili
the Deputy Commissioner. I told him all about
you and the monastery. He says I am quite right.
To-morrow, out you all go ; my men come in. If )(ni
won't, the police will take you to the gaol.'

There arc, I think, few people more capable of
gratitude and friendship than the Burmese. They
are very quick to recognise when you mean well to
them or not, and anything you do to help them.
But they do not like being bored ; they hate being
interfered with ; they become desperate when you
bother them.

Here is another story.

An official was leaving a district wherein he had
served for a year or thereabouts. He was to cross
the river by launch. In the evening, his kit having
crossed over ahead of him, he strolled down to the

i68 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

river bank to get on board. But the launch was
not yet back from the other shore, so he sat under
a tree to wait. Presently an old man walking along
noticed him and stopped. Another man joined him.
After a little hesitation they came to near where
the officer was sitting. The officer took no notice
and smoked on. The group increased to three, then
four and five.

They approached nearer. One of them spoke.

' Your Honour's going away ? '

' Yes.'

' Not to return ? '

'No.'

A pause. Then the official asked,

' Who are you ? '

They named themselves — merchants, cultivators,
elders of the town. He nodded.

' Yes, I remember some of you, of course.'

The spokesman continued. ' We are very sorry
you arc leaving.'

The officer nodded. It was usual politeness.

' We are truly sorry.'

The officer, also polite, said lie was sorry to go ; the
place was healthy, and the work light, as the people
did not bother.

The spokesman nodded again. ' There was once,'
he said reminiscently, ' an Honour here who pleased us
when he went.'

'Ah! indeed,' said the officer; 'he was more strict
with you than I was.'

CH.xiv G0VP:RN0R & (GOVERNED 169

* No.' They shook ihcir heads. ' Not that.'
' What then ? What did he do ? '

' He talked to us. Every Sunday he sent for us,
and we went to his house and we all conversed.'

He groaned at the reminiscence ; the other elder
also groaned. Then they laughed.

' A whole hour,' said one.

• Was that all ? '

' He used to come to our homes, too, and talk.
He used to give us advice about our cattle — out of a
book ; how we should cultivate our fields — out of a
book ; how we should educate our children — he a
bachelor. He used to interfere in village matters, and
would talk to the monks.'

The officer laughed.

They were very glad to sec him go.

'And I?'

' Your Honour ? ' they all said in chorus. ' We
never saw your Honour except in court, or in business
which was finished very cjuickl)'. For the most of the
time your Honour might never have been here at all.
That is indeed the officer we respect and regret.'

CHAl'TKR XV

Tin-: ORIENTAL MIND

I HEARD it said once by an officer of long experience
of another who was leaving the district, that he was
a good officer, though disliked by the Burmese. And
he added : ' No one who does his work well can help
that.'

W'c arc, of course, strangers here — strangers who
have come from a far country and conquered this land
and made it ours. The laws are ours, the power, the
authority. We govern for our own objects, and we
govern in our own way. W'c are strong enough to
enforce our own wishes, even against those of the
people. And in fact our whole presence here is
against their desires. That we should under such
circumstances be popular or be liked is an impossible
thing. To desire it would be like crying for the moon.
It would be a weakness that would render the position
of any one who was possessed by it an impossible one.
An alien government and an alien officer can never
become popular, can never appeal to the imagination
of the people, can never be other than alien in thought
and act.

170

CH.xv TllK ORIENTAL MINI) 171

But to assert that therefore government and its
officers must be unpopular, must be disliked, is quite
another matter. It is to go too far in the other
direction. It is in fact to again assert an impossibility.
For if an alien Ljcjvcrnmcnt can never be popular, so it
can never be unpopular nor disliked. If the first would
involve a contradiction in terms, the second would
involve a contradiction in fact. For an alien govern-
ment exists, and can exist only by the consent of the
peoples it governs. It must have that consent, given
grudgingly may be, given under the pressure of wants —
a consent that is but temporary, as a schoolboy submits
to discipline ; but still it must be there. That our
government has this tacit consent no one will doubt.
It has earned it b\' its strength, by its efficienc)', b)- its
inevitableness. And therefore, if never a popular
government, it is never, and can never be, an unpopular
one. It must earn always respect and fear and con-
fidence, for on these its very existence is based.

And if it be so generally, it is so particularly ;
if this is true of government at large, it is true of
government in detail ; if true of the empire within the
empire, it is true of each district oftlccr within his
district. That is the microcosm, and it affects in all
main facts the life of the macrocosm. The district
officer to his district is the representative of the
government. As the government is not based on
popular ideas, as it does not appeal to national aspira-
tions or ideals, neither does he. What he stands for
tt) the people is strength, law, order, and efficienc)',

172 A IMa)PLIv AT SCHOOL pt. 11

expressed in alien laws, enforced in alien terms, but
still unmistakable. What he gives is peace and
justice — the former absolute, the latter as best he can ;
and what he tlemands is respect and obedience — not to
himself, but to the principles and laws of which he is
the exponent. Tliere is nothing therefore in his
position to make him disliked, nothing to make him
unpopular ; and not only is this .so, but, except to his
personal entouras^c, it is practically impossible for him
to be either to any considerable extent.

All his acts are so sustained by law and rule and
precedent, .so controlled by higher authority, that he
has no scope for any exercise of per.sonality. He
stands aside, impersonal, and the lives of his people
pass beyond his ken.

The district life, the national life, goes on without
us. We are never leaders of the people ; they never
look to us for example ; as individuals we come and
go, and they never know, Vou may be in a district
two years or three ; then you go away, and should you
again visit it, you will find yourself unknown. A head-
man, perhaps, here and there may remember you ; the
clerks in your former office may come to see you ; but
for the rest, it is oblivion. You arc no longer the head
of a district, you are only yourself, and of yourself they
have neither knowledge nor remembrance. You have
been a wheel in a great machine, and if machines are
to work well, wheels must move all together — they
must not tliffer one from another ; they are often
changed, and must be therefore interchangeable.

CH. XV TIIF OKIHNTAL MIM) 173

III this way, from the social point of view, the
people miss their old officials. For they were more
than officials, they were the social heads of society.
They introduced and maintained good manners, the\'
cultivated the higher form of speech, they introduced
new fashions which were in accordance with the
national taste. They were the patrons of all art.
They led all social movements. Now that they are
gone, there is no one to take their place. Burma has
no aristocracy of any kind, no heads of the people, no
one to keej) alive national taste and feeling. The
national taste, the national manner, the sense of
nationality, which alone can give dignity and ease, have
fallen. There is no one to keep it alive. Where we
interfere we only make it worse. h'or these things are
essentially part of a nation. A nation's art, whether
of dress, of sjieech, of manner, or of silver-ware, is
rightly the national sense of beauty applied to the
national common use. You cannot impart either one
thing or the other. You can no more apply Hurmesc
art in carving to an English article like a chair, than
you can adapt a Grecian urn into a cofrce-|X)t.

Thus there has Ikcii a deterioration not less marked
because inevitable. For a Hurmesc official of ok! days,
dressed in his rich Mandalay-wovcn silks, with his gold
umbrella borne by men behind him. you have a
merchant or native official of to-day, riding in a cheap
copy of an Knglish dog-cart, ilressetl in their worthless
Japanese silks. He very likely wears a bowler hat in
place of a silk head -cloth, ami In- has cotton socks

174 A PEOPLE AT SCMIOOL pi. ii

and patent leather shoes in place of his Hurmese
sandals.

The demand for the beautiful brocaded silks worn
at Court functions has almost disappeared. There are
no Court function.s. Japanese silks arc greatly cheaper,
and for ordinary use are quite serviceable. The silk
embroideries are gone. The silversmiths no longer
find a full demand for bowls, for drinking cups, and
those plain vessels they make so well and ornament so
deftly. Instead, ihcy turn out wcirtl monstrosities of
teapots, trays, and other imitations of European utensils,
which they cannot make and which they over-ornament.
The carvers make clumsy chairs and ugly tables, pain-
ful as furniture, and on which their carving, so suitable to
facades of monasteries, looks crude, unfinished, dreadful.

I do not mean that the Hurmese should never
receive new ideas in art, in dre.ss, or in manners. I do
not mean that the old fashions were perfect and there
was nothing more to be done. I do not infer that
socks and shoes, for instance, are not an improvement
on bare dusty feet or sandals.

Neither do I mean that in the old days there were
no changes, no importations from other countries.
They were always going on. What I want to convey
is, that tlic Burmese, while adopting faster than ever,
have apparently lost their ability or desire to adapt.
Under the kings they conveyed an idea or an article,
and thereupon made it their own. They put their
stamp upon it, they took it into their life and made it
conformable to that life, part of it.

CH. XV TFIK ORIHNTAL MIXO 175

So did they do with the coloured silk head-cloths
which are new in Burma in the last forty years and arc
all imported from abroad. Yet they are like nothinj^
else. The colours, the knots, the methods in which
they are worn arc purely Burman. They adopted and
adapted because their taste remained national. They
were not at the mercy of the taste of foreign weavers
far away, but dictated to them. ' Make my handker-
chiefs in such colours and such sizes and I will bu\',
but not otheru ise.' But now there is never an)' effort
to so nationalise anything. If he wants a shoe instead
of a sandal, he takes our cheap importations just as
they are ; he takes the hideous cotton umbrella from
Japan ; he wears cotton clothes of dreadful patterns. if
he wants to sit upon a chair instead of a cushion, he
buys our chairs. They do not suit him, being too long
in the leg and too upright ; he never thinks of modifying
the design, or making a Burman chair that a Burman
likes, that suits a Burman's house, a Burman's dress,
and a Burman's habits. And the reason, of course,
besides the loss of a Court and native official dress, is
that he has to a great extent lost his pride in being a
Burman. He has been humiliated. And ever since
he has been told to learn. He has been shown mam-
things, how far the world is in front of him. how much
he has to learn. The West has been exalted and he
has been told to accept the West as an example. He
has been told he cannot improve upon what the West
knows. He is being con.stantly urgctl to forget his
Burmese ways. Yet when he docs so we cry out. Wc

176 A PKOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. 11

abuse the Burmaiis in Burma, the Itidians in India for
losing their national characteristics, their national art.
We lecture them. Then we try to teach them. And
when we see the result of our teaching, we are in
despair. Though I do not know why. Could anything
else be e.xpccted ?

But, after all, such matters arc but the polish, the
ornament. They are in truth indicative of much, but
not of all. The great thing is, what lies beneath,
what are the changes that are growing in other ways
in the fibre of the national character. What is the
effect our rule is having. When a whole people is put
into the melting-pot, the outside form must change, to
be reformed again only when the metal has again
crystallised.

And, meanwhile, how is the substance changing,
what new alloys are coming into their lives ? For the
fire is hot. It is not only that the old substance melts
and changes, but that new elements come in. There
arc new combinations and changes of the old ideas,
there arc new ideas that come from far away. There
are even new peoples who come in. But with all
strangers, men, or manners, they will live or die
according as they can blend with the rest. F(jr what
will not blend must in the end disappear again. It
will be thrown off as a crust when the people crystallise
again into a nation. Or, to use another metaphor, the
country is like a garden where the old indigenous
plants are being harrowed, ploughed up, and changed,
and where new importations are being planted. What

CH. XV Tin-: ORIENTAL MIND 177

changes arc coming over the native plants, which of
the importations is Hkcly to adapt itself to the soil
and climate as to thrive when the foreign gardener is
gone ?

I do not imagine such a task can be an easy one.
I do not imagine even that it can be possible to see
more than a very little. For if an individual be never
fully understood, even by his brother, how shall a
nation ? And if no one has ever fully understood
even his own people, how shall he do that which is a
stranger ?

Yet something, I think, we can learn. It is not
difficult to learn to understand even an Oriental people
to some extent, if we keep certain points in view, if we
remember certain facts.

An Indian or a Burman is a man just as you and I
are men. In all essentials their bodies are the same,
their passions are the same, they desire and hate just
as you and I desire and hate. Their minds arc just
the same, they put two and two into four exactly as
you do. There is no such thing as an Oriental mind.
It is only an excuse of Occidental dulness. Remember
that in all es.sentials man is the same as man, and
woman as woman, all the world over.

Now, as to the differences. Ask a physiologist
what is the difference between the body of a Hindu, a
Burman, and an Englishman. He will answer that
there is no real difference. The Englishman's skin is
fairer, the Burman's darker, the Hindu's darkest, but
the structure and functions are identical. In one the

17H A PKOPLH AT SCHOOL pt. 11

skull is a little thicker, the shapes differ slightly in
each nationality, but that is all. The Burmese race
is a youn^ one, the other two older, and so on. It is
a variation of detail, and that is all. It varies according
to the history, the environment, the age of the people.
But the essentials are always the same. And so it is
with their habits, with their minds and thoughts.
There is a variation caused by circumstances and age
and climate, but never a difference.

As Shylock would have said had he been an
Oriental, as he was a Jew :

' Hath not an Oriental eyes ? Hath not an Oriental
hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions ?
Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,
subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer
as an Occidental is? If you prick us, do we not bleed ;
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us,
do we not die ? And if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, shall we not
resemble you in that ? '

Where are the differences ?

Let us give symbols to the qualities of which we
men are composed. All men are the same in this,
that all the qualities that exist in one man exist also
in all other men. Where they vary is in the relative
importance of each quality. Circumstances, climate,
and that subtle influence which we never understand,
but which we call ' race,' govern the size of each
quality. Some qualities arc more developed, others

cH.xv THE ORIENTAL MIND 179

are less so. Thus, if an I^nglishman be expressed
by A'*, B', r, D'", K', and so on, a Hindu ma)-
be expressed by A^, ]V\ C*, D"', r . . ., and a
Burman by a, b, C", D*, and so on. But whatever
quahty an Englishman has, every other person has too.
There are never any omissions, there are never any
additions. What you find in one you will always find
everywhere. There is no such thin^,' as a quality,
whether physical or mental, peculiar to East or
West, or to any race within them. Whatever exists
here exists there also. Whatever has once existed
will always exist ; whatever exists now in one man has
existed and will exist for ever in every man who has
come into the world. The degree varies from man to
to man, from race to race, from time to time, from
place to place, but that is all.

Whatever you will find here in the I-'ast you will
find also in the West. Take caste. It is generally
assumed that caste belongs to India, that it is purely
Indian, never found outside. It has been a mystery
to the West, a wonder and astonishment. It has been
discussed and studied and argued about as if it were
some peculiarity of India. And yet of course the
instinct of caste lives in every man, in the West and
in the Hlast. The need for its exercise sometimes
almost disappears and its existence is forgotten, but
call up again the circumstances that rccjuirc its exercise,
and there it is.

It has been discovered in India after great labour,
great research, and great dispute that caste arises in

i8o A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL im. ii

three ways. Caste may arise from race, from occupa-
tion, from religion. These arc the three waj's it rose,
they tell us, in India.

They might go further. In these three ways has
caste arisen all over the world, among all peoples,
greater or less according to the times.

Were not the Normans a caste in England, a caste
of race ?

Were not the trade guilds castes of occupation ?
Were not the Quakers a caste of religion ?

Are not the Jews a caste of race and faith, and
to a great extent of occupation ?

Is any caste in India more stringent than that of
the German nobility to-day ? Caste is universal. At
times circumstances develop it to a great extent, as
with tiic Hindus to-day ; at times it greatly disappears,
as in England or in Burma to-day. But the instinct
of these three castes is in every man, in every race.
Some have it more, some less. Some periods raise it
into prominence, some render it unnecessary. Still it is
always there, always ready to leap into prominence if
necessity call. Americans say they have no caste.
Ask them about Dr. Booker Washington and the
President.

And so it is universall)'. A man is a man
composed always of the same materials. There is no
Oriental mind. A Burman differs from a Hindu as
much as a Hindu from a Greek and a Greek from an
Englishman. It is a phrase invented to cover a
vacancy of understanding, and to give a semblance of

CH. XV THE ORIENTAL MIND i8i

substance to absurdities. If you once accept such an
idea, you had better give up trying to understand
anything about other men at all. F(jr whenever you
come to a difficulty, you will jump over it.

The main things to remember are that an Oriental
is essentially the same as you are, that there are
peculiarities to every race that affect the proportion of
these essentials permanently, and that environment
again affects them in a measure which varies from time
to time and place to place.

And as a consequence remember that an Oriental is
as sensible as any one else. He acts from motives
just as you do. If you at any time think his action
strange, it is simply because you have failed to
understand him, not because perfectly sane and
reasonable motives do not exist.

CIIArTl'.R XVI

THK VILLAGE COMMUNITY

The King is gone with his Court his Council and his
ministers. The local Wun or governor is gone, and
with him all his machinery of government. We have
replaced them by our own officials and our own
methods. But the village communities remain, the
village headman is with us still, and much of the
village organisation is left. It is in fact necessary to
us, and upon it is based to a great measure our own
rule. I have already explained in the early chapters
what the village community was like in Upper Burma
before our arrival. It was a community to a great
extent self-contained and self- governed. It had its
own territories, its communal rights and privileges and
duties ; it had its own headman, who was supported
and controlled by an informal council of village elders.
It must be remembered that the word 'village'
denotes more than an assemblage of houses. It may
contain several of these. It may spread over a wide
area and form in certain cases almost a small county.
It corresponds more to the English 'parish' than to
the English village.

182

cH.xvi VILLAGE COMMUNITY 183

These village communities arose just as such
communities have arisen elsewhere all over the world.
There was first of all the camp of the original settlers
who cut down the forest, planted crops, and built a
village. They were isolated may be five or six miles
from any other village, and had room to grow. Hut as
they grew, and their cultivation increased, the hamlet
became too small for them. Their new clearings were
too far away to walk to every day, their cattle
pasturing in distant woods could not be herded back
each night. Thus a new hamlet was formed, distant,
may be, a couple of miles from the old one.

But although a separate hamlet, it remained within
the parish. Its headman was still the headman of the
mother village ; he usually appointed an agent in such
sub-village, called a ' gaung ' or head. But the
headman was still the only authority. The gaung was
but his nominee, and was not recognised by the higher
powers. He drew no commission on the taxes
collected, and had no powers. There was, as a rule, no
division of the community.

Of cour.se there were exceptions. A distant hamlet
might become in time the larger of the two, .iiul might
by weight of population and prosperity outweigh the
mother village. It might get a headman of its own or
it might attract the headman of the mother village to
live in it.

Again, in times of trouble, headmen who wore
strong and ambitious might broaden their boundaries
by annexation, and in the succeeding times of peace

i84 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL it. ii

such annexation might for one reason or another still
prevail.

But such were the exception. The village com-
munities were a natural growth out of circumstances,
and though they varied in difTcrcnt places, the main
principles were always the sainc. The headmen were
usually hereditary. Not that there was any law or
rule to that effect. As far as the government was
concerned, it w as indifferent usually who was the head.
Headmen were confirmed and might be dismissed by
the government. But except in cases of rebellion
such power was rarely exercised. And again, a weak
or stupid headman might be forced aside by some
more powerful villager. But the recognised succession
was by inheritance, and many lines of headmen go
back for long periods of time. In a valley in the north
of Burma there are headmen called ' pot headmen,'
who are the descendants of heads of companies of
colonists sent there some five hundred years ago by
the Tagaung kings. They received the title ' pot '
because, until the colonists were able to support them-
selves, the captain drew rations for them from the
king's treasury.

The idea of the headman was that he was the
representative of the villagers, that he was to express
their desires and wishes and to be responsible for them
to the central government. He had certain power and
certain duties both to government and his villagers.
But he was not a government official. He drew his
authority not from government but from the villagers.

cii. XVI VILLAGE COMMUM IV 185

he was responsible not to government but to his
community.

Government held not the headman but the com-
munity responsible, and the community fulfilled their
duties through their headman. As long as taxes were
paid and evil-doers not harb )ured, government would
never interfere. And as the headman gained his
power from the community, and as his power of useful-
ness both to the government and the community
depended entirely on his solidarity with his people, the
appointment could never be bought or sold or become
the appanage of any higher authority.

Such was the village community then. How is it
now ? What are the changes that arc come to it ?
These changes are many, and the)' may be divided
under two heads — changes in the community, and
changes in the status of the headman. The causes of
the changes were also twofol 1, for they are due either
to the direct action of our system of government or to
that stir and ferment which has followed in our wake.
Sometimes the two causes have combined, but some-
times, strangely enough, their influence has been in
opposite directions, h'or while government has .sought
to maintain in many respects the communit\- in its old
rights, the trend of events has made that more ami
more difficult.

The community was in the old da)s ver}* self-
contained. The villagers all knew each other well,
their fathers had li\ed together for generations. The)*
were very much related, and in some villages almost

i86 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL it. ii

every one was cousin to the next. There was occasional
emigration to now lands in the delta, but even then
family ties were never for-^ottcn. The wanderer looked
always to return some day. His claim in the family
land existed always.

Hut there were few settlers in a villat^e. Outsiders
came in rarely, foreigners were few. For it is the
demands of trade that bring in strangers, and their
trade was very limited. Now all this has much changed,
and changes fast. With the demands of trade has
come a movement and a disturbance. Men go freely
to and fro. Merchants come and settle, agents come
and go. New occupations arise, new wants require
fulfilment. Men do not stay at home anything like
they used to do. In every village there are new-
comers, not many, but enough to change the straitness
of the village bonds. They arc new to the village
customs, they are sometimes impatient under the
village conventions. The solidarite has lessened. It
is still strong, of course ; the strangers are few and must
always be but few. The peasant will not sell his land
even if a stranger wished to buy, and tlic village fields
will remain in the same hands, but it is not so strong
as it was. It is feeling the effects of change, it is
going through the evolution that all such institutions
experience. Life has become wider, has become freer,
and at the same time, in a sense, it is lower. The
peasant has become more of an individual, with less
sense of his duty to his community and fellows. United
action by the village has become more rare. In the

CH. XVI V'lLLAGK COMMLWnV 187

old days a village would combine to build a bridge, a
road, a well, a monastery. They hardly ever do so
now. The majority cannot impose its will on the
minority as it used to do. The young men arc under
less command, they arc more selfish, each for himself,
and let the community go hang. Hence the community
•suflfers and the individual also. All morality and all
strength depend on combinations ; the higher the
organism, the better the morality aiul ;hc greater the
strength. With the loosening of this comes weakness, a
deterioration of mutual understanding and a lower ethical
standard. Both these are noticeable to all who knew
the villager twenty years ago. The new yeast begins
by shaking the old bonds and forming no new one.s.
The people arc not able to retain all that was good in
their old system and at the same time accept the new.
They think that they arc antagonistic. Japan, however,
knows they are not so. As I said before about clothes,
the Burmese adopt and cannot yet adapt. The conflict
of the old and new is seen continually. Vet must the
village system still endure, as without it there would be
only chaos. It is the one real and living organism
that exists, that belongs to the people and which thc)'
understand. 1 am sure they will not let it go entirel)*.
Yet it has had rude shocks. Many of the old com-
munities have been broken up. They were too large for
our administrative needs. The headman has now so
many duties to perform, he cannot fulfil his duties over
any wide area. Their village lands arc broken uj), and
new communities are formed over which we apiK>int

I 88 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

new headmen. But an administratively formed com-
munity is not like one that has grown. There is a
rending asunder, and it will take long for such broken
parts to form themselves into new wholes. The new
headmen have not the prestige of the old men. The
villagers care little for them. And in small jurisdic-
tions the position is felt to be rather onerous than
honourable.

Besides, the position of the headman has changed.
He was never an official, now he is so. He was never
responsible for the village, but only its spokesman.
Now he is held to be responsible for it. The
people managed themselves through him, but now it
is government who rules the community, and the head-
man is its officer.

In the old days all a headman had to do was to
collect and jjay in taxes for which not he but the
community was responsible, and to keep the peace
within his boundaries. If he failed, not he but the
community was reprehended. It was the community's
look-out if their headman was inefficient. The elders
must help him, or make him rcsi^^n.

But now he has innumerable duties for which he
and not the community is responsible. He must
count the houses correctly for the taxes, he must
arrest bad characters, he must help the police, he must
trace stolen cattle, he must keep up the village fences,
he must register deaths, he must provide supplies for
officials, he must try certain cases by our authority,
given to him by government, according to laws framed

CH. XVI VILLAGE COMMUNITY 189

by government. He is no longer the representative
of the village to the government, but the representative
of government to the village. He is personally
responsible, and he is dismissed or suspended or fined
for every dereliction of dut)'.

Thus his position is very difficult, his authority is
greatly gone. Villagers have little respect left for their
headman after he has been fined or scolded or sent for
to sit in a court house and be taught his duty like a
schoolboy. Frequent changes of headmen leave each
newcomer with less authority than before. If he does
not fulfil his duties, government punishes him. If he
does, he may become unpopular and his life be made a
burden to him. For, after all, his life is amid his
people, he cannot be indifferent to what the)' think of
him, as a higher official can. Besides being headman,
he is a cultivator or trader, and half the village are
his kin. A strong headman, of old family, may have
of himself enough power anil tact and authority to
maintain his dual position, a newcomer rarely can. He
often degenerates into a mere government hack, cjuite
apart from the people he is supposed to represent.

That is, of course, the inevitable result of a strong
central government. It tends to absorb all authority
into itself. And if, as with Dur goNcrnment in the
East, it is ahead of the people iti civilisation, in power,
in organisation, it cannot leave the people to themselves.
The old headinan and the old community if left alone
would never progress. They would remain as they
were, aiul the intluence of the government can act

I90 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL it. ii

upon the people onl)' throuf^h the headman. He must
become its voice to all the people.

And it is further inevitable that in many ways this
function of schoolmaster is very hanl for him. For he
is not a schoolmaster by nature, he is one of the
people. He is a pupil too. Now a si.xth form boy,
who was also a master, able to punish the rest of the
school and liable to be punished for their faults, would
find it hard, I think.

This is the position, difficult for all, for the district
officer, not less than for the headman and his villaf^ers.
A death return is not sent in. What shall the district
officer do ? L^ine the headman? It may not be the
headman's fault. The villagers may have never told
him of the deaths — may have neglected to report.
Then the headman should have fined his villagers. It
is so easy to say so. He has the power by law. Yes,
by law, but what of fact. The villagers who have not
reported are his relatives, and wealthier men than he
is. May be one is his landlord, another his creditor.
Any headman who fines his people often will soon find
his position untenable. He will be avoided, boycotted.
He will be harassed by incessant complaints made
against him to higher authority for abuse of his powers.
Say he can rebut these charges, still they cause him
trouble.

What is the district officer to do ? Never mind the
report ? He cannot do that. The report is ordered
by government, and it is a report that is necessary to
the well-being of the people. He must have these

til. wi VILLAGE C().MMl'X^^^' J91

figures, in order to combat disease, to stop epidemics,
to protect the country. What does he do ? Well,
each District Officer acts, I suppose, as best he can,
always reinembcrinfj that controlling officers above
him will want full explanation for any leniency he
may show.

That under these difficult circumstances things go
so well as they do is a tribute to the district officer's
ability and to the general good sense of the headman
and the people. I'Vir it must be remembered that the
village system does still work, that it works well and is
the foundation of our rule. We could n(5hdo without it.
Where it fails or is weak, as in some newly settled
parts of Lower Burma, crime increases, disorder is rife,
influence and authority and even power go for little.
If Upper Burma is so free from crime as it is, if the
people are easier to^ rule, arc more susceptible to
command, and at the same time better than those
below, it is mainly because ihc ct)mmunit\- exists and
holds together. It has vitality and strength despite
the inevitable shocks it has had to suffer. There is
nothing so important to the people than that it
should continue. It has new conditions to face, and
these must be faced. It must change in ways, it
must adapt itself to the times. In some jilaces it is
doing so now, but the process is slow and hard. Bonds
are relaxed, but are not let go.

The place the headman used to hold as head of the
community where he is weak or new, is now passing to
the elders. He used to re|)resent these people to the

192 A PEOPLK AT SCHOOL pi. ii

government. But now that he is of the government,
the elders represent the people to him. The place he
has perforce vacated is bein^ filled. It must be
filled, for as years go on he must become still more
and more the official, and the people will have no
head. They will never in the little village matters
take an official to be their arbitrator. They must
have one of themselves.

I do not know if it will be thought by those
accustomed only to later forms of society that I am
laying undue stress upon the village system. I am
sure that no one acquainted with the people will think
so. It manifests its power in many ways, and nearly
all of them for good.

I will mention a case in point.

I have been recently directed by government to
initiate societies, on somewhat the model of the
German rural banks, in the villages of Burma. The
object is to free the people from usurers, and to enable
them to bind their individual weak credits into strong
co-operative credit societies.

I have societies in work both in Upper and in
Lower Burma. And there at once the influence of the
village community appears.

In Upper Burma it is still strong ; in Lower liurma it
is weak. And in Upper Burma when a society has been
founded, the directors chosen, and the applications for
loans of the subscriber and government-granted money
come in, the intention of the directors is as follows : —
• We will first lend to those amongst us who are poor

cH. XVI VILLAGE COiVLMUNITY 193

and must want the money, for wc arc one community
and they have first call upon us. What helps them
helps all, and the richer can afford to wail.'

But in Lower lUirma it is different. The feeling of
community is weak, the claim of others is not recog-
nised. There is a strong tendency to keep the society
among the better off, to deny its advantages to the
poor. There is a distrust of man and man which the
village community when strong knows not of. The
society picks and chooses its members. It docs not
hold that fellow-villagership is any claim. Kach man
is for himself

Thus while a village of a hundred houses will, in
Upper Burma, give forty members, in Lower Burma
the society requires five hundred households to pick
and choose from. It would rather go far afield to take
in a man known to be fairly well off than accept a
poorer villager from home.

This will, I hope, right itself in time, it is part of
the object of these .societies to so right it ; but it
illustrates the power for good a community has when
well established. It means mutual help, mutual con-
trol, mutual trust ; it gives a pride and confidence worth
more than any money.

Some countries have grown out of it. In Kngland
feudalism replaced the village by the manor, a change
but not a difference. Men of the same manor held
together as had men of the same village. To the
manors succeeded counties. I rcnicnibcr when a boy
in Yorkshire that to address a public meeting with

194 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pi. ii

success you had to begin, ' Fellow Yorkshircmen,' and
that brought down tlic house.

.And now industrialism has destroyed the manor
and the county. The tie has broken, the sentiment,
the pride. Men play for counties and for cities, not
because they are of them, their sons, their children,
but because they have been bought. in municipalities
alone some little community of feeling still survives.

But there is always left the nation. An English-
man is still an Englishman, still willing to suffer and
to die that his nation may survive.

Is it nothing, think you, for us exiles in the East,
far from home ties, forgotten by our people, to rise
when wc hear ' God save the King,' and remember that
our country still remains to us ?

And remember for the Burman there is no nation.
Municipalities are exotics, they are inconsistent with
the ideas of the people, they are impossible. The
village is all the Burman has. In that alone he can
learn self-denial, self-control, the necessity of men
cleaving to one another. If that fail, then he will fail
in all the qualities that are great. He will become but
a man, alone ; and how can a man or ten million men
face the world by ones ? They are but sand before
the wind.

CHAPTER XVII

MATERIAL PROSPERITY

' In those days.' said an old Burman, speaking of the
time of the Burmese kin<^s ; ' in those days there was very
little money. And what little there was did not appear.
Men had no use for money, and if it accumulated, they
buried it. Every man grew enough grain and vege-
tables for himself to eat, and beyond that, he only
wanted salt fish. The dress of himself and his family
was woven in the house, and he had no desires beyond
these ; except in a few large towns there were no rich
men, and except again in those towns there were no
very poor. There was plenty of food, and as the
surplus was not readily saleable, there was often more
than was necessary, and no man carcil to grow too
much. Silks and shoes, even coats and headcloths,
were rarely worn in the villages. Everything was very
simple, and life was very quiet and very pleasant.
Every one was for himself There were no employers
of labour, and no "coolies." Now it is all changed.
Brokers come up from Ragoon and Mamlalay and buy
up all they can. If a man has more rice than he can
eat, or more maize or more beans or more flour, he
sells it. V'cry often he sells it bef(^re it is reaped ;

•95

196 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. 11

sometimes before it is sown. Cultivation has increased
immensely, and yet the price of everythin<^ is three
times what it used to be. You could ^et a yoke of
oxen for fifty rupees, and now you pay as much as
two hundred for a good pair. A pony cost from fifty
to sixty rupees. Now you cannot get any good pony
under two hundred and fifty or more. A really good
pony that can amble fetches from four hundred to a
thousand. Even in distant villages men arc no longer
content with simple necessaries. Every one wears a
coat nowadays. He wants matches instead of a flint
and steel. He wants European and Japanese cloth,
and woollen blankets, and foreign umbrellas, and strange
foods ; and he wants to travel by steamer and railway,
instead of walking or going in a cart or boat. They
used to stay at home a good deal ; now every one
wants to travel. There is continual use for money,
and every one has some. They no longer bur}- it, but
it comes and goes. P^very village has several rich
men, and also several poor men. Instead of each man
for himself, the rich employ the poor, and there is
now growing a class called " coolies " ; that is, labourers
who have no land or occupation but hire themselves
out. This class has arisen in two ways, from men
who have lost their occupation, and from men who
have borrowed and been sold up. Many of the old trades
are now dead. The silk -weavers have been ruined
by the import of cheap silks, and by the want of
demand for the old embroideries. The silkworm
breeders have had to stop ; the steamers have ruined

CH. XVII MATERIAL PROSPERITY 197

the boatmen who in old days did a great carrying
trade on the river. The umbrella-makers, the dyers,
the saddlers, the ironfounders and blacksmiths, the
coppersmiths, almost all handicrafts have suffered from
the import of machine-made goods.

' The people who have done well arc the cultivators.
But even in Burma every man was not a cultivator,
and every man had not got land. In the towns there
are now many " coolies," whose fathers were well off in
different handicrafts. Then again, because of the
import of cotton goods, the women of the family find
it hard to earn money. A girl cannot by weaving
now earn enough to eat. This hurts all the poorer
class, for women are born to spin and weave, and if
they cannot do that, there are few things they can do.
They can sell "bazaar," and that is about all. In the
rice villages they plant the rice, and in the cotton
villages they can pick the cotton. There is little else.
Some even are coolies.

' There is perhaps ten times as much money now as
there was, but it is not so well divided.'

Something like this is what any Burman who
remembers the old years would tell you. Wealth has
greatly increased, the change, looking back, is astonish-
ing, and progress grows faster, not slower. Although
our taxes are heavy, and arc three or four times more
than in the king's time, and also steadily incrca.sc,
they in no way retard the general prosperity. The
revenue is raised quite casil\-, and probabK* the people
at large pay a less percentage on their incomes than

198 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL i>t. 11

in the kind's time. The standard of living amongst
the people is far higher than in any other part of our
Indian Empire. Imports and exports have increased
by leaps and bounds, the traffic on the steamers and
the railways is heavier yearly. There is a stir and
ferment that spread always farther, and grow intcnscr.
The country is alive with traders and brokers, buying
and selling, stimulating new cultivation, opening out
new markets.

And it must be remembered that the prosperity is
real. It is not fictitious in any way. It is not the
result of any speculation, any undue inflation of prices.
It is not transitory. It is that the Burmese peasant
has had suddenly opened to him a field for his energies,
and a market for his produce, and that he has taken
full advantage of both. The increase of cultivation of
rice in the delta, due to emigrants from Upper Burma,
is enormous. Populations have doubled in a few years,
and the yield of rice has increased in still greater pro-
portion. The Burman is a superb cultivator, thoroughly
inured to the climate, hardy, active, and with a pro-
found knowledge of how best to make u.se of the
varieties of soil and climate. He accepts at once new
staples that will succeed, and avails himself to the full
of every market change. Does cotton rise, he extends
his cotton fields ; does se.samum oil offer a better
market, he displaces the cotton for the oil seed. Is
there a boom in beans, he doubles his export in a year.
Should the price of cattle be high in one place and low
in another, the breeder and the broker know at once.

en. XVII MAIhRlAL PROSPLRl'l V 199

The hii^h dcm.'incl is met, and the poor market left to
right itself. He knows when to hold and when to sell,
and he is well enough off to be able to do this. He is
not at the mcrc>- of every ring. New facilities for
carriage or for sale arc at once used. He docs not
dislike an idea because it is new, all he wants to be
sure of is whether it will be profitable. If it is, then
that is what he wants.

The theme of the prosperity of Burma is so
often in the lips of speakers, the press is so full of
it, and the ordinary book of travel is so fond of it,
that it is not necessary to enlarge. The general
wealth has largely increased, and that increase is due,
first, to our government in opening the country, and
secondly, to English merchants for creating the demand.
For it must not be forgotten that this demand for
Burma's surplus products is made by English trade ;
the rice is milled in English owned and managed mills,
and shipped to England and the Continent in P2nglish
bottoms. It is the same partnership I called atten-
tion to before. Without English government, English
trade, or in fact any great trade, could not e.xist ; with-
out English merchants there could never bo enough
revenue t(j enable an English government to pay its
way. As in the old days with the Crown and the
Company, so now with the Crown and the merchants,
they depend each on the other.

The prosperit)-, therefore, of Burma is great, antl it
is due to ICnglish governance and English trade ! It
is no doubt a matler to Ix: proud of And yet it is

200 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

easy, I think, to exaggerate its importance, to give it
greater value than it deserves. For though money is
a good thing, trade also a good thing, they are not
everything. The life of an individual, still more of a
nation, depends on more than its success in following
the golden calf Life is a very complex matter, and
money influences it only to a small extent. Until a
man has enough to eat and drink and wear, it may
be the most important thing in life ; but after that,
its importance decreases rapidly. Moreover, even
prosperity has its drawbacks and its failures. Let us
consider some of them.

Our system of free trade, letting in the products of
machinery controlled by great capital, has killed all the
handicrafts of Burma. It may be admitted at once
that none of these were large, they were the simple
village industries of a simple people. Again it may
be admitted that the imported goods are as a 'rule
better than those locally made, in many cases much
better. The carpenter's tools, the steel axes and
knives, the cotton cloth, are instances ; and they are
cheaper. Moreover, a Burman can, even as a coolie,
earn more money now than he did in his old handi-
craft. He is more productive. If the production of
wealth were all a man had to do, if it were his end
and aim, then there would be no more to be said.
But pace the Cobden Club, a man and a people are
more complex, and are capable of better things than
even the finest minting press. Their value is to be
reckoned not in terms of what they have, but what

CH. XVII MATERIAL PROSPERITY 201

they arc. In the end, it is the man who counts and
not his money.

How are men made? How ilu you brin;^ up your
boys to be useful to the nation, to be men you can be
proud of, to live lives that they can take a pleasure in
living ? Do you say, ' The thing you can do best and
which you can make most money in is, say, electrical
engineering, therefore stick to that, do not bother about
anything else. Give your whole time and effort to it.
Every hour you devote to anything else is a waste of
money. Read no books except on that subject, take
no interest in anything but that. You say you have a
hobby for photography? That is a sheer foolishness,
if you want photographs, buy them. The photograph
specialists will sell them to you much cheaper than
you can take them. You want a day off now and
then for volunteering ? What is the use of a volunteer ?
Make money and buy the soldiers necessar)' to protect
you. You want to plaj' football. There again a
waste of money and energy and time. Take an hour
occasionally and see a cup tie. That is better footb.ill
than you can play.'

Do you say that ?

No.

* Be a master of one subject, but Icarn something of
many.' In fact, to be a master of one subject you
must learn something of many. Specialism carried to
excess becomes short sight, and then blindness ; and if
it is .so with individuals, is it other with a whole people?
In England wc excel in so many ways that we have

202 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL it. ii

never been iiarnnved in our clioice. Vet, even in
England, men have their doubts.

There is no advice so frequently given to the
Burman as that he should not put all his eggs in one
basket. Me grows rice and rice and more rice ; he
ought to grow many other things, and take up many
other trades. But, as usual, the advice is given without
knowledge. The Burman does not put all his eggs in
one basket because he wants to, or because of want of
pliability, but because circumstances force him to do so.

In Lower and parts of Upper Burma rice is the
only crop that will grow on most of the land ; it is far
the most paying crop, and it is in demand by the
merchants. It is the only basket that will hold his
eggs, therefore he is obliged to use it. No other grain
will grow, and for fruits the market is small and the
demand already fully met. He cannot take to handi-
crafts, because he cannot compete .with the capital and
machinery of the West. He cannot ^row silk for a
like reason, nor can he weave it. ' The imported
European shoes and umbrellas, and other such articles,
have killed the home product, partly because they are
cheaper, partly because natural taste is dead. Where
are the other baskets ? As matters stand, he can
make a great deal of money out of rice, and so where
it will grow he has abandoned every other occupation
for that. Yet the people, though making much gain,
makes thereby also a loss. The life of the villages is
duller. There is too much sameness about it. There
is no scope for variety of ability or taste. A man

CH. XVII MATERIAL PROSPERITY 203

wants to be an artisan, he has the hands and brains
of an artisan, he has not, perhaps, the constitution
for the very heavy field-work. He cannot be an
artisan. He may be a clerk, a trader, or a cultivator.
That is about all. Villa,^es now consist of traders and
cultivators, with, on the river, some fishermen, and that
tends to narrow their minds and their outlook. They
are too much of a muchness, as Alice w^ould say.
There is not the varied interest of other days. They
cannot talk or think politics, because there arc none ;
there can be no intrigues, such as cheered up the
monotony of old days, because there is nothing to
intrigue about. There can't be any adventures, because
the only adventure possible is to commit a crime. No
one can exercise his brain by thinking out improve-
ments in looms, or embroideries, or lacquer, or iron-
work, or boat-building, new designs for shoes, or even
new toys, such as they used to invent. They can
discuss crops and manures, and the rise and fall of
prices, and that is all. And that does not, I think,
tend to brightness of mind.

Moreover, there is, of course, the economic danger,
far off perhaps, but always possible.

Suppose the rains failed for a couple of years, suppose
the rice developed a blight, or an insect pest or other
disease ; suppose a widespread epidemic among the
buffaloes and cattle. There is nothing to fall back on,
at least in Lower liurma. In the dry lands of Upper
Burma the crops are so much more varied, that gener-
ally a season that hurts one crop suits another, and a

204 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pi. ii

disease that injures one spares the rest. Still, in
Upper Burma the want of any resource but agriculture
still remains.

I iiope it will not be thought for a minute that I
wish to in any way undervalue the great prosperity we
have brought to Burma. It is a great and valued gift,
and one they needed. The people have been made
richer, their lives have been made, in some ways, wider ;
their horizon, if narrowed in some ways, has been
broadened indefinitely in others.

On account of their prosperity, they can have
steamers and railways, roads and bridges, greater
comfort and security of all kinds.

If in some other ways they have lost, that is inevit-
able. Every medal has its reverse. And I think we
are strong enough and courageous enough not to keep
our faces always turned to the bright side of our rule.
A just relief of shadow is not only inevitable, but it
makes the .sight clearer and better. A dead level of
brightness is apt to tire one, and, in the end, to render
one somewhat sceptical, may be.

CHAPTER XVI n

CRIMINAI. LAW

The law that was in force in the lUirmcsc kinrjdom
was founded on the Laws of Manu. Wlio was Manu ?
I do not think any one quite knows. The laws arc
probably not the work of any one man, but arc a
collection of customs which obtained some three
thousand years ac^o in Northern India. They embody
the ideas and necessities of a simple race living in a
quiet time. There is no di.stinction between criminal
law and civil law, nor is there any distinction between
those ofTences which are public offences, that is to say,
against morality at large, such as theft, and those
against private persons, such as as.sault. The code
is very mild, and almost all offences can b<.' paid
for. It docs not seem to contemplate any machinery
of judge and magistrate as necessary. The accused
person could agree with his adversary quickly without
any intervention. Onl)' in case of nfiisal would :\
resort to authority be necessary.

The criminal law generally in force in Hurm.i was
this code of Manu, modificil by the necessities of the
times and by local custom .Almost all small offences

205

2o6 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL it. ii

were dealt with in the village. There was but little
crime, and the community controlled it. The repres-
sion of the bitjger crimes, such as murder, robbery,
and dacoits was under the control of the local
governor. But as he had no organised police, this
was frequently neglected. A murderer or roblxrr
would be pursued and killed by the relatives of his
victim, or the village community would arrest him
and hand him over. When so handed over, the
alternative punishments were death, flogging, or fine.
In the absence of any prisons, nothing else could
be done. If a localit>' became too disturbed, the
central government might send down a special officer
with troops to restore order. On the whole, in the
very primitive state Burma was then in, the .system,
if not quite adequate, did not glaringly fail. Burma
was probably quite as peaceable as England a hundred
and fifty years ago, when we had two hundred different
offences punishable with death and the country was
dotted with bodies hung in chains.

To this has succeeded that complete system of
criminal jurisprudence which has been perfected in
India, and is founded on English law.

Civil and criminal laws are divided by a strict
demarcation. Tiiere are different courts for each,
different codes, different procedure. Criminal law deals
with offences against public and private morality ; civil
law with inheritance, transfer of property, and such
matters.

And again, criminal law is divided into two codes.

CH. XVIII CRIMINAL LAW 207

There is the Penal Code, which enumerates arul
defines each offence, and allots to it the limits of
punishment which may be awarded. And there is
the Procedure Code, which establishes the different
Courts, and directs how offences arc inquired into
and tried. It is convenient to speak of these
separately.

It is probable that the conception of what con-
stitutes an offence is the same with all people. What
is a murder, what is a robbery, what is breach of
trust, what is mischief? The)* are tiie same all the
world over. When has a man the right of private
defence, and to what extent may it go is another
matter that with slight modifications all people would
agree on. That murder is more heinous than causing
death by accident, that robbery is more heinous than
theft, and forgery than misappropriation, are also
matters of general consent. A penal code is in
fact only a clear and very careful summary of the
different offences a man can commit against persons
or property or the public peace, and these are the
same all the world over. There is nothing in the
Penal Code which is in substance new to the Burmese.
It is only a very clear, a very careful, a very concise
scries of definitions of principles common to all man-
kind.

With the "System of procedure it is different.
Every country has its own ideas on this point, and
they differ very considerably in liiffcnnt peoples and
at different periods. Speaking general 1\-, the idea of

2o8 A PROPLE AT SCHOOL rr. ii

a youii^ people such as the Hurmese is as follows.
They lo<3k upon the State as the dispenser of justice
both to the complainant and to the accused, as the
power whose duty it is to ascertain the truth, to
protect the innocent, and to punish all crime. The
State through its representatives is the father of the
people, to whose justice and to whose power resort
may always be had, and it considers that it is the
duty of the State to use all its power to brinpj the
truth to light.

And therefore they look to the Courts to do a great
deal wliich, as civilisation progresses, no Courts can
perform. No judge, no magistrate can be father to the
people in the way a simple people want, in the way
that patriarchal Courts might be. He cannot listen
to all complaints, he cannot have all statements investi-
gated, he cannot personally guide and direct and help.
He could never do a tenth of the work even if it were
desirable that it should be done at all. That the work
of Courts may be done, that the machinery of justice
may move forward, it is necessary to define and to
restrict, and mainly to make the people help them-
selves.

So it happens that as civilisation progresses, the
functions of Courts insensibly alter. The judge be-
comes less and less of an adviser, of an active power,
who docs things, and grows more into an umpire whose
duty is not to do but only to hear ; not to act, but to
judge the acts of others. The litigants, whether
criminal or civil, fight before him with advocates for

CH. xviri CRIMINAL LAW 209

their champions, and evidence for their weapons, and
the jud^e marks the points gained or lost.

This gradual change can be traced in the histor)- of
the development of all peoples. The judge is, to
begin with, the father to whom the chiUlren come and
demand justice, and whose duty it is to investigate all
complaints, to find out all the evidence, and to decide.
The suppliant has n<jthing to do but to demand justice ;
the judge does all the rest. But, little by little, this is
found to be unworkable, and the Courts more and more
demand that every litigant must get up his own case.
He personally knows what he wants to prove, and he
must find his witnesses and bring them to the Court,
instead of asking the Court to get them for him.

Now this is a very great change. It is not perhaps
a change of principle, because the object of all Courts
is to administer justice as quickly and as well as
possible, and the change of procedure is merely to
meet changed circumstances, and when the change has
come slowly, has developed pari passu with other
things, it is not noticed. But it can be understood
that to a simple peasant {xrople it may seem that the
alteration has been very great. It may appear to them
that the very foundation of justice has been moved,
and they may feel bewildered and at sea.

It is true that there is one large exception to this
rule of the Courts, that complainants must protluce
their own cases. Whenever a serious crime has been
committed, the Government, through the police, docs
make inquiry, does get up the case and prosecutes it in

210 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL it. ii

the Courts. Hut tlic defence is left to the accused
person to find himself, and in smaller criminal cases,
and all civil cases, the Court is not concerned at all
with the production of evidence. It judges, and judges
only.

it seems thus to the villager that justice has gone
farther from him. He forgets how much better our
system works than his did, or could ever do ; he does
not realise that if he would but learn to use our Courts
aright, they would give him all he wanted. What does
he know of this ? He has no knowledge and he can-
not reason. But he feels dimly that whereas he ought
to find a help and comfort in our Courts, he finds only
justice — and that to get that justice he must himself
work and help. The Court is not a paternal dwelling
where he can ask for bread and get it, but it is a mill
wherefrom, if he require flour, he must himself bring
the wheat. He must provide the evidence for his
side, as the other party does for the other side, and
the Court then will sift and grind it.

If he bring nothing, he will get nothing. To ask
and pray, unless he has been the victim of a criminal
wrong, is of no use. The litigant must fight, and if he
is not skilled — as how should he? — he must hire a
champion to fight for him. He must spend money.
Justice is not free, it cannot be free. Law is the most
expensive thing the world knows of. But how should
he understand these things, jumped as he has been
from one era to another.

Therefore, of all our machinery of rule, of all our

CH. XVIII CRIMINAL LAW 211

institutions, there is none, I think, the people under-
stand less than they do our Courts. There is nothing
they so misuse, there is nothing they so little respect.
The)' lie in our Courts as they would never do outside,
they make false charges, false defences, they forge
documents, the>' produce false evidence. Whereas wc
have provided fur them honest Courts, they have
turned them to dishonour ; whereas we have provided
mills to grind their wheat, they bring us chaff. And
when we reproach them, they say, ' Wc look to you for
help, and you do not give it. You tell us to help our-
selves. Why do you then object when wc do so? Is
not all fair in love and war, and are not the Courts but
lists that you keep that wc may wage our private
wars ? ' And when wc object and say, ' But there are
rules ; our lists have laws, and one of these is that those
who come therein should speak the truth,' they laugh
and say, ' If that be so, why not puni.sh those who lie?
' If we lie, as you say we do, why not put us in
prison ? ' And to that we have no answer. For, in
fact, that goes to the very root of Courts. There may
be punishments provided for those who swear falsely,
who make false charges, who write forged documents ;
but by the very nature of things they can very scldcun
be awarded. There is nothing on earth so difficult to
prove as that a man has deliberately lied. For a man
may be mistaken, he ma)' have forgotten, he may have
mixed up two persons or two events or two dales, or
he may be speaking the truth though it seems a lie.
How can a judge ever be sure that a lie is really a lie ?

212 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt.ii

AikI if you once bct^iii punishinfj men for mere mistakes
or errors, you would empl)' your Courts in no time.
No one would come, truthful or untruthful, unless
great latitude were allowed to all people to say what
they would. You cannot purge your Courts by penal
laws against falsehood. You cannot force a man to
tell you the truth any more than you can force him to
honour and respect you. Public opinion outside the
Courts will do it, never penal treatment within. But
of the untruth within the Courts, public opinion takes
no note. It does not reprobate it, does not condemn
it, does not consider as a rule that a man has departed
from the path of honesty and rectitude because he lies
in Court. If he lied outside, it were another matter.

Thus a man will admit to you without a blush that
he has lied in Court ; but if you say to him, ' How then
can I tell if you are speaking the truth now ? ' he will
be very angry. ' A man to man speaks truth,' he will
reply ; ' but in the Courts, well, it is different.' Why ?

CHAPTER XIX

COURTS AND PEOPLE

There could be few studies, I think, more fascinating
than that of the relationsliip of people to their Courts,
of their respective morality without them and within.

In no Courts anywhere in the world is the morality
within as high as that without. Not though the judge
represent authority and justice, not though each witness
speaks upon his oath, not though there are penalties
for falsity and fraud, is truth .so often found within
the temple of justice as in the ordinary walks of life.
Even in England of to-day the judges from the bench
refer from time to time most bitterly to the perjury
they hear. And in the old times it was worse. Pro-
fessional witnesses could be bought for a song to swear
to anything, and few men, however strict, would have
hesitated to perjure themselves for any cause they
thought was right. The trials of a hundred years ago
teem with false evidence of all kinds.

In other countries it is no otherwise. The standard
varies, from what causes we know not. If all we hear
of some of the United States Courts be true, it is there
very low iiuK-L-d. It is perhaps higher in bVaiice th.m

2«J

214 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

ill an)' other threat countr}-. Bui 1 liavc never been
able to find that anj' one has cared to know tlie
causes of these things. Of law, of equity, o{ personnel,
of procedure, the lawyers of all ages have written
and write interminably ; of the relationship of peoples
to their Courts no one has ever cared to know any-
thing.

Yet there is nothing so vital to the due adminis-
tration of justice as this, that the people should honour,
should understand, and should deal rightly with their
Courts, should observe in them the same high standard
of morality that they observe without. For justice is
the result of a partnershi}). Be the judges ever so
honest, the Bar ever so acute, the law the clearest and
best in the world, these alone cannot succeed. They
are as a mill that turns. The quality of the miller's
output depends on what is put into his mill. The
quality of the output of justice depends on what the
litigants and their witnesses say. No mill, however
perfect, will make good flour if chaff and stones be
largely mingled with the wheat ; no Courts, however
good, can be a success unless the evidence given there
be honest.

Therefore it is most essential that both parties,
the Courts and the people, should work together to
the same end.

Yet they never do so fully. Nowhere in the world,
at no time in history, have people and Courts ever
pulled perfectly together in double harness. Some-
times the division is very great, sometimes it is less.

CH. XIX COURTS AND PEOPLE 215

It is always there. A perfect understanding has never
existed. And of the qualities in either that must go
to the good understanding no study has ever been
made. It has been answered that clear law and honest
judges should and will ensure justice ; that if the
people respect the personnel of the Courts, all will
go well. You might as well say that uprightness in a
husband and respect in a wife will ensure happiness in
marriage. The only sure bond of happiness is sympathy
and understanding ; of that alone confidence is born.
I do not entirely know why this is wanting between
our Courts and the people. Our objects are the same.
There is nothing political about our Courts ; we have
no axes to grind in them. We try always to hold
the balance even, never to allow ourselves to be led
away b)' anything but what we think is righteousness.
Our law is very much the same for all. Such differences
as exist arc the result of different circumstances, and
are an attempt to make law nearer to justice, not
farther from it.

If the Courts wish to give justice, the people want to
receive it, and their desires and ours are the same, and
our ideas of justice differ very liitle from theirs. We
would that they could help us instead of so often
hindering us.

I have said Ih.il I know little of the reasons why
the people misuse our Courts, and in any case it is
not a subject that one could iliscuss in a chapter. It
would require whole volumes to itself. I'erhaps some
day some lawyer will think it as witith)' of study as

2i6 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL ft. ii

ihc barren fields of law. Ami meanwhile we must get
on without. Hut there arc one or two points that arc,
1 think, obvious.

For one thing, Courts established by an alien ruling
jx)wcr have never had the confidence of the ruled to
the extent that native Courts have had. It was not
till the Saxon people of England gained control over
the procedure of the Courts that there was any rest; and
even then, and even now, there is indeed from time to
time a latent antagonism between Courts and people.
In Ireland the difference was and is even more marked.
In the I'rance of two hundred years ago the people
disliked all men of ' the long robe.' There is always
a hidden distrust, and, as far as I can learn, this distrust
has never been founded on any other ground than a
sentimental one. Courts have not succeeded simply
because they were good, or failed because they were
weak or even corrupt. The difference is one of
temperament and outlook and origin. The people arc
the people, and the Courts arc representatives not of
them but of the ruling power.

Still I am quite aware that this is not a full ex-
planation, there must be much else. For if it were even
the main factor, it would follow that executive officers,
who represent Government far more fully than judges
do, would be even more apart from the people than the
latter. P>ut they are in fact much nearer. I have
found, as I suppose every officer has, that a man will lie
to me when I am a judge in Court, yet will tell me the
truth outside when I am an executive officer or a

CH. XIX COURTS AND PKOPLK 217

private individual. IVrhaps, aj^aiii, personality has
something to do with it. A Court and a judge aic
impersonal, whereas an executive officer is much of a
personality. He is concrete, whereas the Court is
abstract. He is a man of flesh ami blood, whereas law
and judges are merely principles. And people, all
people, but especially early people, like and respect
and honour men, but fear ant! distrust principles. For
if men can never live up to principles, neither can they all
live down to them. Suvdiiuvi jus, summa injuria. Men
also respect force, but have little admiration for umpires.

There is again the fact that the people generally do
not admit the authority of our Courts to administer oaths.
For our Courts are English and Christian. Even if the
judge be a Buddhist, he is there as representative of an
un Buddhist authority and power, and how can a Court
of one faith administer the oath of another? Can a
Buddhist administer a Christian oath ? can a Christian
administer a Buddhist oath ? .\iui if so, is it a sin to
break it ?

Who shall answer such questions ? Who, if he
answer them, can make others believe what he says ?
Bui I have .seen that whereas a Burtnesc considers the
oath he makes to his own monks and to his own
pagoda to be a sacred thing, he often holds the oath
he takes in our Courts to be a negligible matter. And
of course there are other reasons, very many of them,
all true more or less. The only reason that is never
true being that usually given, that the Burman is in
essence untruthful. For tiiat is not so. Neither is

2i8 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL it. ii

there iuu' truth in that facile explanation of the un-
seeing, ' the Oriental mind.'

I do not know if it will be thought that I have
overdrawn the picture. It has not been intentional.
All Burmese do not lie in Courts. Very many, certainly
the majority, still tell the truth as they understand it,
very many do help us as best they can. Burma has
not fallen to the level of India. It can never do so.

And although the perjury and untruth do hamper
the wheels of justice, they do not clog them. In every
case there are some witnesses who speak the truth,
there are some facts that guide the judge. He can
generally be fairly sure of main events. He can sift
the chaff and the dirt from the grain. And if his flour
takes much longer to grind, and if the mill suffers in the
toil, still is the out-turn good.

Therefore justice does not suffer so much as might
be thought. And in the future we must all hope that
as the years go on the sympathy between the people
and our Courts, the mutual understanding and the
knowledge, will increase, and that then we shall get
nearer to each other. For that is what we both need.
Then will the work be easier for us both.

There are one or two main points connected with
our Courts that are worth considering. No one who has
had much to do with revising the judgments of Burmese
magistrates will have failed to note how different in
some matters are the Ikirmcse ideas of the gravity of
certain offences to our ideas. They will award heavy
sentences for what to us appear trivial offences, and

CH. XIX COURTS AND PEOPLE 219

they will let off very lightl)' other offences that seem to
us heinous. They have in some matters a different
moral scale. Thus to us ordinary assaults are very
trivial matters. They arc seldom worth bringing to a
Court at all, they are best settled between man and
man. Our average Englishman of the working classes
would be ashamed to be always running into Court
because of a blow. Me would return it and the matter
then would end, I^oys fight, men fight, and the matter
ends. Complaints in such matters would be laughed
out of Court.

Yet in India and even in Burma men rush into
Court for the slightest causes. A word of abuse, a
threat, a slap, a blow, such things furnish a very large
part of the litigation in our Courts. And if Burmese
magistrates were allowed their will, they would deal
with them in the most serious manner. A fine of six
months' earnings for an insulting word, a month's
rigorous imprisonment for a light blow between man
and man, such are sentences I have often had to
revise.

While for offences against property, for theft, or
misappropriation, they will give sentences that seem to
us totally inadequate.

Of course this all comes from the different outlook
on life, the different histories of two peoples. We who
have fought our way all our lives, as bo)'s, as men, as
a nation, are accustomed to the rough and tumble.
We are harder, stronger, more reail)- to strike, more
ready to accept blows. We figiit and we forgive.

220 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL i>t. ii

They do not fight and do not forgive. Their tempera-
ment is, in a way, more like that of the Latin races of
Europe. They are hot and sensitive and fiery. Their
passions are quickly roused, and then they forget them-
selves. They cannot fight as we do, so they use the
knife to revenge themselves.

They set a higher value on personal dignity than
we do, but on property they set a lower.

Very often a man who has lost property will not
complain at all. The thing is gone. Why bother ?
After all, he thinks, what docs it matter? Money is a
smaller part of life t<j tiicm than it is to us. They
have not the use for it, they do more easily without it.
A man will often chuckle as he tells you of some
unfortunate speculation of his own, as if it were a good
joke, or of a theft from his house as a witticism of fate.
Though I think, of later years, they have begun to
V due property more.

Therefore sometimes they do not understand the
way or the outlook that we take on life. They think
that we are harsh in places and unduly lenient in
places, just as we think of them, liut as our higher
Courts are all English, our view of life and punishment
must prevail. It must be remembered that the weight
of a sentence is not and cannot be a question of law.
No law could lay down exactly any scale of punish-
ments. Theft is of all kinds, and the law says it may
be punished with an hour's detention or lifelong
imprisonment. A man who strikes another may by
the Code be fined a penny, or sent to gaol for seven

CH. XIX COURTS AND PEOPLE 221

years. What is an offence and what is not the Code
can say, but what in each case is a fit retribution for
the offence no Code could tell. It depends on the
details and on the outlook on life that the judges have.
Our outlook is the Enjijlish outlook, theirs is the
Burmese. For our sentences to give full satisfaction,
either the Burmese must adopt our view of life or we
must adopt theirs ; but whether any approximation
will occur only the future can tell. I think, perhaps,
they may approach us slightly. But the difference is
at heart so radical, so engrained in the natures of two
nations, that a close agreement can never come. An
Englishman will never become a Burman, a Burman
will never be an Englishman ; we come from different
pasts, we live in different presents, and we go into \cr\-
different futures.

There is one other point.

I read and hear continually that many of our native
magistrates and judges and police are corrupt. I am
told that they take bribes, that they falsify cases, that
they make right into wrong.

I wish to say that I have no belief in such charges.
Exceptions there may be, but that the mass of our
Burmese fellow-officers are honest I have no tloubt.
All my experience has tended to support that view.

Flvery one in this world requires looking after
requires check and supervision, requires that protection
between himself and harm that onl)- a watching eye
can give, and in liurma these safeguards hardly exist.
It inust be remembered that official Hunn.i has no

222 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

press to criticise it, no native society to give it tone,
no organic community to help the individual in the
right path. He has many temptations, and a fall is
easy, unless the precipices have guard-rails. Thus the
only real help a Burman official has against a fall is
the constant supervision, advice, and assistance of his
superior officers, and if that is duly given, he is in the
main quite honest, quite honourable, quite as free from
stain as the official of most other nations.

I have known ' sportsmen ' who never lost money
on a race but what they declared the horse they
backed ' was pulled,' and I have known litigants and
advocates who never lost a case in Court but what
they were sure the judge 'was bribed.' It is so easy
to say, it is so absolutely safe, so consoling. It is such
an excellent cloak to cover one's own wrongheadedness
or stupidity ; and it is from people like these, or from
people who speak out of pure ignorance, that the
charges of corruption come.

I have as Deputy - Commissioner investigated
hundreds of such charges. Very rarely have I ever
found the least foundation for them. They are the
outcome of disappointment and ignorance and malice.
We give a policeman in England a shilling, or some
beer, and we laugh. We do not call the whole force
corrupt because he takes it.

But in Burma, if a constable takes a free breakfast,
' he is bribed,' if a head constable accepts the loan of a
pony for a journey, ' he is corrupt,' if a Burmese
magistrate has a friend to spend the evening, ' he is

CH. XIX COURTS AND PEOPLE 223

touting for money ' ; very often when he only demands
the regular Court fees for Government, he is accused of
private extortion. Here is a story in point. A non-
official European once told me in Sagaing that my
clerks took bribes. ' No one can approach you unless
they pay,' he said. ' Your clerks keep complainants
away unless they pay. You think you sit in open
Court and any one can approach you freely. It is
not so.'

' Can you give me any single case,' I asked, ' to
support such whirling accusations ? '

He said he could.

I said that I awaited the instance with curiosity
and incredulity. He said it was an employee of his
own. ' I sent him to you,' he said, ' with a note from
me three days ago. Don't you remember ? '

1 reflected. ' Was it a man who wanted a gun
licence ? ' I asked.

' It was,' he answered.

' Well,' I said, ' go on.'

' I gave him a note to you personally,' he continued,
* so that he might reach you, and despite that, he had
to pay.'

' What did he pay ? '

' He paid twelve annas ' (a shilling).

' Who to ? '

' Your clerks.'

' For what ? '

' As bribes, no doubt.'

I laughed, for I had guessed. He sent for him, and

224 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

then it all came out. Reluctantly he admitted that he
knew that the twelve amias was rightly demanded.
Eight annas vv.is for the stamp on the formal application
he had to make to my Court (private notes, I may say,
are of no use, and are often only an impertinence), and
the four annas was the writer's legal charge for engross-
ing the application on the stamped paper. The charges
were not made b)- the clerks at all, they were the
Court fees demanded by Government ; and that was all
the foundation this European ever had for traducing
my whole office.

In such ways do these absurd accusations take
their rise.

Our native officials are the cock-shies for all the
misrepresentations that ignorance and malice and
foolishness can invent. They have no redress. They
may be splattered from head to foot with mud, and
they have no revenge. There is nothing safer than to
traduce native officials.

If one-millionth part of what is said were true, our
government would fall from the very rottenness of its
native personnel. Tiiat our government does well and
is strong is the best possible testimony to the general
uprightness of its native servants.

CHAPTKR XX

CIVIL LAW

It is probably two thousand five hundred years now
since Manu Hved, and the laws in his books are older
far than that. They were but the compilation of
customs that had grown up, of the manners that had
been evolved in the generations that came before.
They contain the laws of marriage and inheritance of
a people who were still primitive, yet of a certain culture
that developed sides of their character and left others
untouched. It is strange to think that these laws,
which were evolved so long ago in such another world,
should be those that govern a people of to-da>-.

And yet, I suppose, the Burmese are not older
really than the people who evolved these customs.
In some ways they are not, I think, even so old.
Their civilisation is even )'ounger and narrower than
that of those peoples of Northern India so many
centuries ago.

That those customs suitetl the Hurmcsc under their
own kings there can be no doubt. They were in
accordance with thrir wants ami with their wishes ;
they were natural to the sheltered lives they UhI. They

2ZS Q

226 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL it. ii

fitted in with their other customs — with their village
systems, with their religion, with the ordinary life of
the villager. The laws were old and yet not old, for
they were living forces. If they had not existed, the
Burmese people would have themselves evolved some-
thing very similar, no doubt. And those laws, in all
matters that concern marriage and divorce, the custody
of children, the divisiiMi and inheritance of property, are
those that our courts administer to-day.

For it must be remembered that civil law is not
like criminal law. In the latter there are fixed
principles common to all the world. We have elabor-
ated them into codes, and they apply, with hardly an
exception, to all the peoples of our empire. The
Englishman, the Hindu, the Mus.sulman, the Burman,
the wild dweller in the hills, have all the same law of
crime. But in social matters it is different. Each
people has in time evolved its own marriage customs,
its own ideas of the relations of husband and wife and
children. The Hindu of Madras has one law, of
Bengal another ; the Mussulman has his Koran ; the
Parsec his own special code. No two people arc alike.
Now to each our courts administer their own law — to
the Nair of Malabar the local custom whereby property
descends through the female line ; to the Burman the
law which is written in the Dhammathats. Thus those
old laws — laws which were made before Rome was
founded, which were written and followed for two
thousand years before we became a nation — arc those
of a people of to-day.

CH. XX CIVIL LAW 227

They arc the laws and customs suited to a people
who live amonf^ their fields, depending on the soil--
where waste land still remains all round to be taken
up, where wcakli is not pursued, where the struggle
of life is not severe, where wars and invasions are
brief, and where the stranger docs not come. There is
no sign in them of such pressure as gave rise, for
instance, to primogeniture, where the family property
and power must be kept whole and in one hand. They
are laws for a peaceful people living in safety, for
women share equally with men. The prime necessity
of defence has left no mark upon them. They are for
a people whose central government was weak, and
local organisation strong ; for all depend on the
maintenance of the community, and not the State.
They tend to bind people to the soil, and arc not for
wanderers. Although now given under the guise of sacred
books, there is in them no sign of declaration of faith.
They are in no way religious, in no way connected with
Buddhism, though in accordance with its precepts. They
would be just as well in accordance with the precepts of
other faiths. Buddhism has not gathered into its hands
the control of the people in these matters. Marriage
is no sacrament, as it became in luirope in the seven-
teenth century ; nor are there any ecclesiastical courts to
decide such cases. Budiihism is unconcerned with them.

Marriage in Burma is a status. A man and
woman are married or are not married according to
whether the)' live as luisbaiui and witr. or ni)t. .\ man
may have several wives, though in practice he rarely

228 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL ii. ii

has more than one. A woman ma)- have only one
husband. Divorce is a matter for the village ciders.
No court is necessary, no decree, no appeal to legal or
ecclesiastical authority. Divorce is but the breaking
of a status. A wife retains control of all her property
when married ; she has a half-share in all property
acquired during marriage. If she is divorced, she takes
her own property and half that jointly acquired.
There is no blending of her authority with that of her
husband. She may do what she will with her own.
And all the children inherit equally. No Buddhist
may make a will. Whatever a man or woman dies
possessed of must be divided according to the rules of
consanguinity. There is no preference of one sex over
another. All children arc equal in this matter. The
eldest son shares alike with the youngest daughter.

Among a people living as the Burmese did under
their kings such laws worked well. Arc this man and
woman married ? The whole village knows them,
knows how they came together, knows how they live.
There can be no doubt. Are they divorced ? The
elders know, and every villager besides.

Who is entitled to their estates ? The claimants
are on the spot, their claims arc manifest, there can
hardly be any dispute. Is not every man's relationship
known cxactl)- by every one ? There can be no
mistake, no trouble. The fields arc there, every one
knows them, how broad they are, where they extend
to. The cattle arc known to every herd-boy. Nothing
could be simjiler than to settle all these questions. No

CM. XX CIVIL LAW 229

court was necessary. The parties could decide them-
selves. And in case of dispute there were the village
elders, who knew everything about the case and could
give a judgment at once. In the (jjd times the laws
worked well.

But now so much has altered. Such a strong new
leaven has come in, that the old laws are t>eing felt
inadequate to meet the new state of things.

The people have taken to wandering a great deal.
The astonishing development of Lower Hurma has
been caused by immigrants from the Upper Trovincc.
Out of the dry zone of Upper Burma hundreds of
thou.sands of people have, in the last twenty years,
gone down to the delta. Hardly a famil)- but has one
or two members in a distant district. And even in
Upper Burma itself there has been much change.
Men come and go. Traders establish themselves in
other villages. Men used to marry always within the
village circle, now they often go far afield. The
frequent transfer of all government officials has in-
creased this sense of change. They come and go,
here to-day and gone to-morrow. The old stability
of established things has passed away.

Thus matrimonial cases grow and come into the
courts where formerly they went to the village elders.
Now there is often no village council which could
know. The husbaiui is from the north, his wife is
from the west, they live in a central ilislrict. How
can their marriage be proved ? Who can jirove a
continuing status where the people change so much ?

230 A PEOPLP: at school pt. II

There is no ceremony which could be registered, or at
least remembered and noted. The absence of all
ceremony has become a defect, when formerly it was
an advantage. A ceremony marks a fact. A status
that has no determining point is often very difficult to
prove. A man runs away with a girl. Are they
married or arc they not? In the simple village life of
other days such a matter would be decided at once.
The elders would determine it. They would not
tolerate any connection that was not a marriage, but
now who is to settle it among strangers ?

The better class of Burmans feel this already, and
thc\' have evolved a sort of ceremony. Strangely
enough it is a religious ceremony, where the officiating
priest is a Ponna, a Hindu. The Ponnas were, in the old
days, the Court astrologers, soothsayers, and prophets.
Buddhism is not concerned with such matters. And
now the Ponnas are the marriage priests.

It will be interesting to note what happens in
the future. Some ceremony, I think, there is bound
to be. The circumstances call for it. What will it
be? Will the government institute civil marriage
offices as in Europe, and if so, will the people like
them ? Will Buddhism awake, and leaving its aloof-
ness, become more concerned in the social life of the
people and fulfil the duties that all faiths have found so
necessary? Or will the Ponnas extend their influence ?
No one can say. But a change there is bound to be.

Again, in the division and inheritance of property
new difficulties have arisen. In the old days of the

CH. XX CIVIL LAW 231

simple life there was little wealth. Men lived and
worked contented with very little, never acquiring riches,
spending as they went. They died and left little behind
them. What they left was mostly land. There were
hardly any merchants, or mechanics, or people who
lived by their brains. Money was never accumulated.
If a man had some money, he spent it before he died.
He built a pagoda or a rest-house. The division of
the land was easy. The claimants were there, often
indeed the land was never divided. It remained
ancestral property, one or two of the heirs might
work it, the others clearing new lands elsewhere.
Estates were often undivided for a hundred years or
more. The heirs might be very many^ But land
was not saleable. It had hardly any money value.
The fields might be too small to divide even amongst
a few. They were, perhaps, just what one man could
work. So they remained in one heir's hands, or per-
haps a few heirs worked them alternately. But the
right was never forgotten.

And now that the value of land has increased by
leaps and bounds, these old claims are revived. Heirs
turn up sometimes from the ends of Burma and claim
their shares. So begin interminable lawsuits, and no
one is benefited but the lawyers.

When there is a business or money, it is, in a wa)',
worse. True there cannot be ancestral funds. Money
does not descend like laiul. There cannot be dormant
claims to cash. If a man tlies, no one can claim a
share but his children or their descendants. But all

232 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

children claim alike. A daughter shares with a son.
Grandchildren inherit from their deceased parents.
Families in Burma are very large, and if a man lives
long the claimants are man)', especially if there be
more wives than one, as is frequently the case with
rich men.

Then the law is uncertain. The Dhammathats do
not agree. There are lawsuits. The fortune dis-
appears. In recent meetings held by the Burmans in
large towns, it was bitterly complained that it was
worth no one's while to be rich, as the lawyers always
got his money when he died. No Buddhist can make a
will or influence the descent of his property after death.

Thus no Burman can build up a large business that
endures. However successful he may be when alive,
it must dissolve at his death. Even if there be no law-
suit, it is broken up and gone. There can be no
Burman firms of any kind that endure, they come and
go like phantoms. The European firms endure and
grow, the Chinese, the Indian, but not the Burmese.
They arc handicapped in the race, and as the province
develops the handicap increases. The Burman cannot
be rich, cannot be influential, cannot acquire firmness
and solidity. As a cultivator or a petty trader it does
not matter ; but a merchant, a mill-owner, a contractor,
a banker cannot build up a business. How can they
establish a connection and a standing, how can they
gain experience and confidence, when they come and
go from day to day? In the old days it did not
matter, but now it is felt bitterly.

CH. XX CIVIL LAW 233

Again, if Burma was for the Burmaiis alone, it would
not matter so much. There is much to be said in
favour of the division of property. There is much to
be said against accumulations, against money and land
getting into few hands, against the injustices to younger
children, against the rise of a proletariat. That money
should be widely divided is good in many ways. It
docs not breed so fast, but its influence is better. If
Burma were for the lUirmans, there need be no change,
or that but slight.

But Burma is not for the Burman onl)-. It is
flooded with outsiders. There are English and German
firms in every large town. There are numerous Jew
firms. There arc Chinese and Hindu and Mohammedan
firms, great and small, everywhere. But there arc not
and cannot be any Burmese firms.

Thus the higher trade and higher finance of the
countr>- is debarred to the people who are the natives
of that countr}'. They arc in a position of inferiority,
and they feel it. No work, no intelligence, no honesty
of purpose can stand against such a handicap.

It will be said, 'Then why not change it ; why nut
remove the handicap ? '

Who is to do it ?

Is it Government ?

One of the foundations of the success of our rule,
one of its absolute essentials, is that we respect in these
matters all the customs antl traditions of the people.
We never interfere. We cannot interfere. The law
that they accept, that is what we administer. No

234 -^ PEOPLE AT SCHOOL i>r. ii

Government that interfered with the customs of the
people against their wishes could endure.

But if they wish it ?

Truly, if they wished it and were unanimous or
nearly so, and could express their wishes, it were
another matter. But how can this be ascertained ?
The Burmese have no organisation, no method by
which to concentrate opinion and express it. The
only organisation in Burma is the monkhood, and that
is not concerned with such matters. There are the
better-off traders and Government servants and such
like in the towns, but they are a minority, a small
minority. The bulk of the people arc peasants living
in villages.

What would they think of change ? To say that
change would be for their good is little. Would they
understand it ? They have never known other customs
but those, they are ignorant of the world without.
How would they accept a change ? No one can tell.

Yet you could not have one law for one class and
another law for a different class.

For myself, I think that the people generally would
resist any change if that change applied to land. No
people are more attached to their ancestral fields than
they are. No one feels more the dignity of being a
landowner, if it be only of a hundredth part of a field
from which he can never reap any benefit. He has a
stake in the land. He has a village he can call home.
He has a focus for his hopes and wishes, and if in the
struggle of life he comes to grief, he can always go to

CH. XX CIVIL LAW 235

the relation who has the family field and sa)-, ' Give
me a little help. After all, I have a share in that field.
We arc co-heirs.' He gets it. They would never
consent to any change in the law of realty. They
would never consent to a man leaving his fields by
will or to them being sold. In no way would they
surrender their birthright.

But with money, or a business connection, or a
trading concern, or a mill, it is otherwise. These are
new things. They are not ancestral. They belong to
the man who made them. They have in them none of
the sentiment of land. It may be that the Burmese
would agree and even welcome some change in that
direction.

But prophecy is a bad business, and only the future
can tell what will be.

CHAPTER XXI

HONESTY AND IRUTII

Where every prospect pleases,

And only man is vile.

Tha T is. I suppose, what most Englishmen think about
the East, that man is vile, and notably, that he is very
much t^ivcn to untruth. It is so much taken an
accepted fact as part of the ' Oriental mind ' that no
one takes any further trouble about it. ' The Oriental
is untruthful, every one knows that, therefore there is
no use considering that question, and his untruthfulness
is ingrained and part of the " Oriental mind." Now, no
one can understand the Oriental mind, so why bother
about that ? Let us accept the fact as it is.'

Well, as to this, I have two remarks to make. I am
in considerable doubt as to whether the alleged general
untruthfulness of the Oriental does exist to the extent
asserted. And if it does so exist, there must be an
explanation. I have not, as I have said before, any
h)elicf in the Oriental mind as differing from other
minds in essentials. If sometimes the result seems to
be different, it is becau.se the circumstances are dif-
ferent. That is all. Let us therefore consider the

236

CH.xxi HONESTY AND TRUTH 237

question. And as all questions have two sides, let us
first consider that side that lies nearest to us. Let us
consider ourselves first.

We come out to this country young. We come
out from school or university full of instruction, but
without any knowledge of men or things. Of England
we know only our school life and our family life, not
usually a very broad one. The great world of men
that extends from the Court to the field-labourer and
mill-hand is utterly strange to us, as strange as that of
the East to which we come. Therefore when we come
to judge the East, wc have as measures of that East
onl)' ideals which are necessarily of the narrowest.
Wc think we can compare the East with the West, but
in fact wc cannot do so. We think, for instance, wc
can partly compare a Burman peasant to an English
one. But in fact we know nothing of English peasants.
Wc have no real knowledge, but only imaginary.

For instance, we imagine that every Englishman in
every walk of life invariabl\'

(i) speaks the truth,

(2) is honest.

(3) is incorruj)tiblc,

(4) knows how to govern,

(5) can combine,

(6) is clean,

(7) is clever,

and that lu- has alwa\s been these things. The
Corrupt Practices Act, the Secret Commissions Hill.

238 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. 11

the chicanery of trade, the badness of much local
government, the impossibility of getting the country
people to combine (as they do in Denmark, for instance),
the hopeless stupidity, the uncleanliness and frequent
untruthfulness of the poorer classes, are things that we
know nothing of. In school life, in university life, and
in the home life of the middle classes, which is all we
know, the standard of all these things is very high and
we take them for a rule. To begin with, then, our
measures are wrong. We have no just measures to
measure the East, because we have no real knowledge
even of the West.

Then our experiences in the East are unfortunate.
When we come out, we are cheated by our servants.
Indian and Burman servants, like other servants, prefer
good masters to bad, and the newcomer is usually a
very bad master. He has no knowledge of the language,
the people, or the customs. He has never had servants
before, and does not know how to treat them. He
comes out as conqueror to a conquered country, and
he acts accordingly. He gets the sweeping of the
bazaar, is cheated, and denounces all Orientals as liars.
Later on, when he knows more, he gets good servants,
and when he at last goes home he never forgets them.
It is the one luxury of the East that he regrets — the
willing, honest, kindly service he has grown accustomed
to. Every one will sj:)cak as he finds. For myself, I
too was robbed and cheated years ago. My servants
came and went, but now for twelve years I have always
had the same. I hope that as long as the East keeps

CH. XXI HONESTY AND TRUTH 239

me, we may be together. I trust them as they trust
me, and they never deceive me, never lie to mc.
Whatever their failings, they are not wanting in honesty
and truth. Most men learn this in time.

But in other matters we are not .so fortunate. Is
the Englishman a merchant, all he knows of the people
of the country is when one of them tries to evade a
bargain or an agreement. That the agreement may
have been an unfair one to the native, may have been
in fact impossible to carry out, he docs not ever
realise. He knows nothing of the circumstances or of
the people, and can never judge. When an agreement
is broken, he attributes it to dishonesty at once. He
is apt to take advantage of his strength and, innocently
of course, to drive bargains so hard, that they cannot
be fulfilled. I will take an instance. A certain
European bought a small estate cultivated by peasant
cultivators. The agreements were that the tenants
should pay the landlord half the crop as rent. For a
year or two all went well. Then it appeared that the
crops grew shorter and shorter. His share was smaller
and smaller, and on inquiry at last, he came to the
conclusion that he was robbed. The tenants them-
selves stealthily removed from the fields by night a
portion of the crops, so that when they came to be
reaped and divided, they were not what they ought to
be. He denounced the dishonesty of the people.
' They are all alike,' he said, ' robbers, thieves, and
liars.' Then his good sense came to his rescue, and
he inquired more.

240 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pi . ii

He found the following facts. Within the two
years the Government assessments on the land had
increased, the local i)ricc of all necessaries of life had
risen. The little industries by which the people had
made money when there was no field-work had died.
In fact, the people were hard up. They could not
pay the same rent as formerly and live. There was
no other land to be had. Therefore to keep themselves
alive they cheated. He revised his rents, and the
people were honest as before. There are always two
sides to every question.

But if the merchant is liable to see little of native
life, and that the blackest side, the official is still worse
off. He sees, it is true, much of native life, but that
is all the evil side. He is concerned with crimes, with
difficulties, with disputes of all kinds. Whenever he
comes in contact with a native, it is because .something
has gone wrong. He judges by his experience. He
knows nothing of the comparative crime of European
nations, especially when they were in the same stage
of civili.sation, because he has never seen it or realised
it. He sees little crime among the English in India,
who are all of the middle class, and well-to-do, and
that is his standard. But the Burman, he .says, is
very criminal. ' Why, half my day I am trying
criminal cases.' That, taking into account the stage
of civilisation and the condition of the country, the
Burman is extraordinarily law-abiding, he does not
even guess. Yet there is no doubt about the fact to
every one who cares to stufly figures.

CH. XXI HONESTY AND TRUTH 241

The parties in the law courts make false complaints
and false defences, the witnesses lie, revenue defaulters
run away, clerks, suddenly thrown into hopeless debt
to help a relative, embezzle, — here is our everyday
work, and what we see. Such events make their mark
on us. The men who never come into courts, those
who speak the truth, who pay their debts, and are
honest, have no occasion for us. If a Burman seeks
us, it is to ask a favour, perhaps an unfair one. Those
who want no favours do not come. The real life of
the country passes us by. We are not concerned with
it, nor it with us. Although we affect it profoundly,
it is indirectly, and not directly. Therefore we forget
it. Is it not most natural that men should judge by
the exceptions they see and not the rule they do not
see ? For their exceptions are our rule.

The mass of mankind is honest and truthful. Nay,
all mankind are so when they can. No normal man,
East or West, cheats or lies because it gives him
pleasure, because he has a bent to it. If he does so,
it is because he must, because he has a choice between
two evils, and he takes the less. He lies, as the leaf
insect lies by imitating a leaf, tt) save his life ; as the
wren when he dissimulates his nest ti) save his famil)' ;
as the wild creatures imitate shadow and lights and
inaminate things to get a meal. Do not you think
they would rather not have to stoop to this if thc\'
could get on openly ?

All savages arc honest, absolutely honest, because
they are free, because they are strong, because they

242 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

have little desire for money. And as these qualities
of strength and freedom and indifference to wealth
obtain, so is honesty and truth. The strong man
takes what he can get because he is strong, the weak
man lies because he is weak, and if he did not, the
strong would destroy him from the face of the earth.
It is his sole protection.

If a man lies to you, it is often because you have
forced him to. If, for instance, you fine your servant
out of his meagre pay for every glass he breaks, he
will never tell you when he breaks them, and when
they are missing, he will lie. But if you understand
that breakages must occur sometimes, he will tell you
honestly of what has happened, and if he is really to
blame, he will generally offer to replace if he can what
you have lost by his fault. In fact, truth and honesty
are not absolute qualities. They are relations between
man and man, between nation and nation. Where
these relations are good and natural, there is truth
between them. If one lies to the other, it is because
there is something wrong, and the fault is generally on
both sides. If the weak lie, it is for the strong to see
if he has not by misuse of power forced him to it.
And be sure such lies are not debited in the eternal
reckoning to one side only.

As to the truth and honesty of the Burman, I would
say this. He is like all people of his stage of civilisa-
tion and of his position, frequently inaccurate, or seems
to us to be so. We ask him a question and he gives an
answer. We find out afterwards that the answer is

CH. XXI HONESTY AND TRUTH 243

wrong. But this is due generally to two causes which
have nothing to do with truthfulness. Very often
we ask him a question which he is quite unable to
answer at all. We ask a carpenter, who rarely leaves
the village, what game there is in the neighbourhood ;
we ask a teacher about crops ; we ask a cultivator
about fisheries. He answers because he sees we expect
an answer, and probably because it would be dis-
courteous to say 'I don't know.' If you ask, he must
answer to the best of his ability. The answer is a
guess. If we understood the facts, we should know it
was a guess. We take it as a statement of knowledge.
Even of facts within his knowledge he will be inaccu-
rate. So are most people, unless they are trained
observers. Any man is inaccurate just in proportion
to his ability to observe and to remember correctly.
In a peasant this is often small.

Again, in dealing between government officials and
the people, there is, of course, sometimes a want of
truth. There is evasion or deceit.

This is due mainly to two causes ; because you,
being the strong and the punisher, he, the defenceless,
has but his dissimulation to save him. But in cases
where this does not apply, there is another reason.

You are a foreigner. Now no people can or will
have the standards to outsiders that they have to
their own.

Every man has many standards. He has one for
his family, one for his friends, one for his own class,
one for his own nation, and a last for all outsiders.

244 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

No man considers a foreigner entitled to the same
openness and truth from him as his own people. The
Burmese say \vc have quite a different standard towards
them than we have to ourselves. Naturally. Is
not then the converse natural also ? A friend may
ask a question and deserve a reply. A foreigner has
no such right. If he will ask, then he must be put off.
As the old nursery proverb says, ' Ask no questions,
and you will be told no lies.' Now it is our business
to be always asking questions, sometimes very embar-
rassing ones, and we insist on answers. Thus we reap
many lies.

The relation between two peoples, especially a
strong and a weak, is never very high. The only
way to estimate a people truly is to know how they
treat each other, and how they estimate each other.
Does each Burman consider all other Burmans liars ?
Does he refuse to trust them ?

The astonishing thing is how greatly they trust each
other. Amongst themselves, in all their dealings, their
standard is very high. They will trade together for
years and have no bonds and no agreements. They
will lend money on a word. They will rely that when
a man has promised he will perform. They will, for
instance, take back goods that are found to have some
unknown flaw. Caveat emptor is an English proverb.
It obtains in our law courts because they are English,
but not in native usage. If the Burman trader now
notes it, he has learnt it from his English confreres
A seller guaranteed his goods. This is the custom

CH.xxi HONESTY AND TRUTH 245

always in the East. We are proud of our integrity.
But a Burman would always rather trust another
Burman than a European. He considers his own
standard higher. The whole volume of petty trade
and credit in the country is done by word alone. It
is the Indian money-lender who introduced written
documents.

I should say, from what I have seen, that between
Burman and Burman the standard of honesty and
truth is very high. And between European and
Burman it is very much what the European chooses
to make it.

Fate, for her reasons, has called us to the East.
She has made our empire here. Our lot and that of
these Eastern peoples is bound together for who can
say how long. We are companions on the road of life.
If we squabble as we go, then will the road be rough
and long, and when we part, it will be as enemies.

But if we can be friends, then will the miles go
pleasantly and fast. And when, in the end. Fate shall
sever us, we shall go our ways with mutual regret,
with mutual respect, with warm memories of the past.

And there is nothing that can more conduce to this,
than that we should believe in each other's honesty
and truth. Nothing can do more harm and raise more
bitterness than the wild and whirling accusations that
are made. Men are very much what they are made.
They act up not to their own ideals, but to that con-
ception their neighbours form of them. Tell a boy
you know he is honest, and he will be honest. Tell

246 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

him you believe him to be a thief, and he often will be
so to you. Why not ? And the Burmese arc our
children, in our school.

The truth is there. Burman to Burman is as
truthful as we are to each other. Why should not
they be so to us ? They would like to have it so, and
I think they would answer that it lay very much in
our own hands. Trust is the reward of trust, and of
that only.

CHAPTER XXII

BUDDHISM

In the Burma of the Burmese there was nothing so
prominent as their rehgion. In those days it dominated
all things. What was the first thing you saw as you
approached a village ? It was the spires of the pagodas
and monasteries rising amid the trees. From their
height, their beauty, their situation on all the highest
elevations, on all the bluffs beside the river, they
dominated the view. They were the highest, the
greatest, the most frequent expression of humanity.
It seemed as if all the people's lives lay under their
shadow and influence.

And in reality it was so. Buddhism had come into
the life of these people as religion has rarely come into
the life of any other people. From the cradle to the
grave it held them, not in bonds of discipline but of
influence. It penetrated their lives with its subtle
currents, leading them whither it would — softening,
sweetening, weakening. It might have been some
strange lotus-eating song sung beneath the palms and
flowers. ' Life is not good. Death is the best of all.
Learn to forget. Tut aside life and struggle and

247

24S A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

weariness, that you may come at length to the haven
where there is always peace.'

Its teachers reigned alone. There were none others
there — no strange religions, no eager science, bringing
discords to their ears, doubt into their hearts. There
was no noise and bustle of the world to drown the
long, low song. There was no fight, no race and
struggle to distract men. Ambition had no goal, and
fear no abyss. There was no triumph of the proud,
nor cry of those who fall beneath their chariot wheels.

In all Burma the monks held highest rank. There
were no hereditary nobles, no wealthy class to patronise
them, to use them, to assist them. There were no
poor to gather round them, and give them temporal
power and responsibilities. They lived alone, on
charity, without rank, without wealth, without power —
the most powerful, the highest in rank of all men in
all Burma. They educated the youth accepting them
into religion ; they spoke as superiors to kings and
governors. Aided by the seclusion of the country, by
the bounty of the soil, by the disposition of the people,
they denied nature. They taught that life was never
good but always evil, that money was harmful, that
the cardinal virtues were compassion, gentleness, charity.
And the people believed.

Into this country has come the British Government
with sword and rifle, preaching another faith, not newer
but older, the oldest in the world.

For before all prophets and all teachers there lived
on earth the God Necessity. Before all evangels, older

CH. XXII BUDDHISM 249

than all faiths, older than mankind, older than life,
co-equal with the world, was his gospel of efficiency.
He lives still and his gospel endures. The world is to
the man who can best use it. She is not a dull world
but a beautiful one, she is not to be despised but to be
striven for, she is not a sad world but a happy one.
But her beauty, her wealth, her happiness are for those
only who know how best to use them. She is not for
the weak, the foolish, the idle, the dealers in ideals, the
dreamers of dreams. Especially she is not for those
wiio deny her. She never yields her pleasures, her
glories, her perfect beauty to those who scorn her.
Like a fair woman, she is to the man who woos, who
fights, who will if need be carry off and defend by
force. Life is to the strong, the brave, the doers.

None bill the brave, none but the brave,
None but the brave deserve the fair.

The world is not a hospital but a battle-field, no
garden of the lotus-eaters, but of very stern realities.
Necessity is the maker of men. That is the lesson
the world has to teach. It is the first of all lessons,
and the truest. It is the most beautiful. It is the
gospel of progress, of knowledge, of happiness. And
it is taught not by book and sermon, but b\' spear and
sword, by suffering and misery, by starvation and
death ; not by sorrow imagined in the future, but very
imminent to-day.

This truth, that the world is to those who can
best appreciate her and use her, the Burmese had

250 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

forgotten. In tlieir great valley between the mountain-
ranges and the sea, secure from all invaders, with a
kindly earth yielding food in ample quantities, it had
fallen into the second place. The manly nature had
sunk into disrepute, rusted by disuse, unsharpcned by
the clash with the weapons of others. Religion, which
is true only when second to the truths of life, was
exalted into the first place. The greater truth may be
when rightly understood, the more false its falsehood
when it is misplaced. And in Burma Buddhism had
risen to that place.

A very beautiful religion, full of great thoughts, full
of peace and beauty, it was born to be the helpmeet to
the stronger knowledge. It is the softener of life, the
sweetener. It gives solace to the fallen, to the weak,
a safe asylum for the broken in life. It guards the
bays where the storm-driven souls put in to refit. It
is the gospel of the sick, the wounded, the dying.

But it is not the leader and the guide of men. Its
teachings in themselves, as those of other faiths, tend
to discontent with the world as it is, to dreams and
fancies, to seclusion and idleness, to cowardice and
untruth, to neglect of all the world gives. Neither are
women the safest leaders, nor their ideals the gospel
of mankind. But in Burma both these things had
happened.

I do not see wherein the Burmese, in so far as
they are Buddhists, have matter for complaint that we
have conquered them. They had made their leading
tenet that war was wrong. They believed or tried to

CH. XXII BUDDHISM 251

believe that the world is very unhappy. They said
there was nothin<; in it worth having. All was
illusion and despair, and release was the h)cst for all.
If then we have conquered them, what harm have we
done ? We have taken from them what they declared
they despised. We have relieved them of the functions
of government, and government, they said, was one of
the great evils. We are developing the wealth of their
country for both ourselves and them, but they say that
wealth is evil. We interfere not at all with their
faith. They may under our care cultivate it to its
uttermost.

Will they ? What is the future of their religion here
in Burma? What has happened since we came
thundering in with the strong wine of our new gospel.
What arc the tendencies in future ? Will it die ?
I do not think so.

Why should it die ? It is not untrue. It is as
true as any faith can be — truer to them than any other.
It is certainly more akin to them than any other faith.
It is a very beautiful faith. No greater disaster could
be imagined to them than that they should forget it or
disown it, that they should become without religion or
adopt an alien one. This one has in many ways
grown into their hearts, it should never be removed.
But it should take its place below the greater truths.
If it is to live, it must adapt itself and incorporate itself
into the national needs. It must put a national truth
above a scripture reading. It must remember there
are higher truths than religion. It must do as ours

252 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

docs. When tlic missionaries from Europe tell the
Burmese Buddhists that our success is due to our faith,
the Burmese Buddhist laughs. He reads the Sermon
on the Mount and reflects. He turns upon the
missionary and says, ' Your faith denounces war, but
you attack and subject us ; your faith denounces riches,
but you pursue them all day long ; your faith preaches
humility, but there are none so proud as you. You
succeed because you do not believe, not because you do.'
Yet the missionary is not entirely wrong.

Considet an army. Its duty is to kill, to maim, to
wound, to destroy by sword and fire. It is the
assertion of strength. Its mission is to destroy the
weak and effete, the useless and the cowards. Its
watchward is death. Yet if the army is to be efficient
it must be followed by its hospitals, its surgeons, its
nurses. And their watchword is life. Their duty is
to cure, to tend, to help, to comfort. They are the
antithesis of the fighting strength. After the army
has done its work, they are to revive and strengthen.
And though army destroy army, no army strikes at
the hospitals even of its enemies. Yet is the hospital
part of the army a very necessary part too. Though
army and hospital flaunt banners that are blazoned
with two opposing words, they act not in opposition
but in concert. Each is imperfect without the other.
It is not untrue to say an ajmy kills and destroys best
because it has the best hospitals. Yet the army is
less dependent on the hospital than the hospital on the
army. The surgeons and nurses exist for the fighting

CH. XXII BUDDHISM 253

man, and not the fi^^iting man for the surgeons.
There would be no greater absurdity than to aboh'sh
your army and keep only your hospitals.

So have we made it in our national life. In Europe
there is a belief that is akin in its moral teachings to
Buddhism. It is as true to the Far West as Buddhism
to the Far East. Its teachers and preachers tell us
that it is the One the Only Truth. But the nations
never entirely believe this. The first and greatest
truth is to make the best use of this beautiful world
God has given us. The greatest sin is to be useless,
to cumber the ground. It is our duty to sweep away
the cowardly, the inefficient, the weak, who misuse it,
and put in their place the strong and useful. But we
are not to make the world a hell. Religion is to be
with the hospitals in the rear, to temper and mitigate
and restrain the soldiers, to help and console, to pick
up the wounded and those who have fallen by the
way. And the churches in Flurope accept and know
that this is so. It is because we know the relative
position of truths that we succeed. Therefore the
missionary is right, though not perhaps in the way he
means. What the Burman wants is not Christianity
or any other faith. He already has too much faith.
He has been nursed and cosseted and preached at too
much. He must get up and fight. He must not
shrink at the blows of the world and seek seclusion
from it, but go out and affront it. He must throw off
his swaddling bands of faith and find the natural
fighter underneath. Ik- must learn to be savage if

254 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

necessary, to destroy, to liurt and push aside without
scruple. He must learn to be a man.

But he must never forget his faith altogether.
No greater calamity could come to him. He would
be as an army without restraint, a mere savage
crowd. He would be an army without hospitals,
fighting every day, with the sick and wounded clog-
ging its fighting ranks, men dying in terror and agony,
terrifying the fighting men. Let him never forget his
faith.

That is what all friends would wish for the Burmese
people and the Buddhist faith, that they should recog-
nise the higher truth, that the Church should learn to
come into the national life. Is there any sign of this
happening ?

At the time of the annexation of Upper Burma it
was believed by Christian missionaries that the end
of Buddhism was near. Mandalay, the stronghold of
Buddhism, had fallen and there were many signs, they
said, that Buddhism was tottering to its fall. The
Burmans would soon be all Christianised.

They were but vain imaginings. There has been no
falling off from Buddhism since then. There have been
no conversions. Christianity finds a place for itself
among the Karens and other wild tribes of the frontier.
It brings to them a civilisation and help out of their
barbarism, and they accept Christianity with the other
blessings. To the Burman they have been always
inferior and subject races, and it is natural to them to
try by the assistance of the missionaries to maintain

CH. XXII BUDDHISM 255

their position and improve. They were never Buddhist,
and had in fact no religion.

Amongst the Burmese Christianity makes no
headway at all. It has, in fact, in many places actually
declined. And though the total Christian population
of Burma has increased, that is by the immigration of
native Christians (servants and others) from India and,
as above explained, by the adherence of wild tribes.
To the Burman the Christian theory and the Christian
priest has no attraction.

His distaste is deep-seated ; there seems no reason to
expect any change.

Of other faiths, Mohammedanism makes no converts,
and Hinduism is a non-proselytising faith. Burman
and Buddhist are convertible terms, and will remain so
as far as any one can see.

From creeds Buddhism has nothing to fear.

But in its battle for supremacy with the new thoughts
and ideas that have followed the conquest it is different.
With our rule came roads, security, trade. With trade
has come an awakening, desire for wealth and what
wealth can give. The keen fresh wind of winter has
blown into the lotus garden, bringing with it movement
and unrest. Yet Buddhism is in its way unshaken.
It is the one and only religion that appeals to the
people. There is even a revival of Buddhism, an
increase in sacred thought and energy. There has
been of late years extensive reformation in many
monasteries that have grown slack, and a keener
supervision. Learning has become more common, and

256 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

the standard of religious duty is hiejhcr. There are
societies for the propagation of the faith, and there is
far and near a keener apjireciation and knowledge of
the doctrine and belief

Yet it is true in a way that Buddhism has declined.
It is no longer supreme. It is no longer supposed that
its teachings contain all truth. With the awakening
has come a keener desire for life, and all that life can
give. The horizons have broadened, and the Burman
thinks that what he sees beyond is good. He, even less
than other men, never really believed in his heart that
life was evil. But he was always told so, and no doubt
it was often rather slow. There was no use for money,
and therefore nothing to be gained by being rich. But
now he sees that money can buy many things, and he
likes his purchases. When the monk said to him in
the old days ' My son, wealth is a snare, use yours in
charity,' he thought ' Well, why not ? There is
nothing I can buy with it of any use. And I can
always get as much more as I want.' But now he
says, ' I am sorry. If I spend all my money, what am
I to do? I\Iy neighbour has built a big house with a
verandah. My rival has imported a dog-cart and pony.
Am I to be inferior to them ? My wife likes European
velvet ; my son wants to go to the English school. All
these are expensive. Yes, I know charity is good, and
I will give freely of what I can afford. But I must
think of myself first. Charity begins at home. It
shall not end there, but it must begin there.'

In a hundred ways the new spirit begins to show.

CH.xxii BUDDHISxM 257

It was immoral to take life, wicked to eat meat and
connive at butchery. Beef was unknown in the old
days, or got by stealth.

But nowadays, with the increasing work and hurry
of life, the necessity of animal food is being keenly felt.
To work harder and quicker you must have more than
rice and vegetables. Meat must be had. Therefore the
sale of beef is becoming common. Village after village
in the districts is asking to have slaughter-houses built.
There are few places now where )'ou cannot buy beef
or pork once a week at least. Yes, it is irreligiou.s.
But what can one do ? Usually the difficulty is got
over by hiring a Mohammedan to be butcher. No
Burman will be a professional butcher even yet.

But every one eats meat, even the monks. It is a
step in the right direction. Religion was made for
man, not man for religion.

The higher education is also passing out of the
hands of the monks. But this may possibly be only
temporary. Even so the higher education now is arti-
ficial. A real education is an incorporation into the
life of the nation, and that is not yet even in sight.
Perhaps it would be more correct to say that a demand
has arisen for a new and special education for govern-
ment officials and clerks which is not supplied by the
monks. This is not really a matter of much im-
portance, for those educated in our schools are not the
leaders of the people. They become in a way de-
nationalised, which the people never do.

Other ways in which the monks have lost influence

258 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL it. 11

is this. They no longer act ever as intermediaries
between the people and the government, or between
the criminal ami justice. In the old days they had a
right of asylum occasionally exercised, and they would
frequently head a deputation for mercy to some rebel,
or for pity in reduction of taxes. All this has now
disappeared. A monk has become more strictly a
monk, and meddles less with the world than ever.
He never did so to any great extent. And therefore
while Buddhism seems to me more strongly and
securely established than ever, it has lost much of its
former position. It is becoming to the Burmans what
Christianity is to Europe, the second truth of life.
With its feminine ideals and its cult of peace and
beauty, it was never fitted to be leader of a race. The
process must yet go much farther. There arc too
many monks, they must be reduced ; there are too
many monasteries, they should be grouped into larger
units. Nearly all the best sites are occupied by
pagodas, old and fallen into decay. The builders are
dead very long ago and their names forgotten. No
one repairs the pagodas built by another ; each builds
his own. The land is cumbered with old piles of brick.
All the best sites are taken, and are lost to all use.
Yet it is profanation to touch one of them. The living
are cramped because of the forgotten dead. Animals
must be killed for food, in defence, for sport. It is not
the truest humanity to let a maimed bullock live, to
allow thousands of dogs to be born into misery, to let
a cobra go away unharmed that may to-morrow bring

CH. XXII BUDDHlSiM 259

mourning to a household. And it must be remembered
that money is a good thing ; if rightly used, it is one
of the best of things.

For Buddhist and Christian ideals are to the
stronger virtues what a wife is to a man. They are
the complement, the half-truth, and with the others
make up the whole truth. They are the refuge in dis-
tress, the help in difficulty, the consolation in despair.
And in recognising her proper position, Buddhism will
not fall but rise. She will but abdicate usurped and
unnatural power to take one that is secure and per-
manent. She will cease to be a hindrance and become
a helpmeet. She will become a national faith where
no^v she is opposed to light and progress. She must
enter into the national life and become one with it.

CHAPTER XXIII

WOMEN

Very closely connected with religion is the position of
women. Here in Buddhism, as in Europe with Chris-
tianity, women arc its chief supporters. For its tenets
and beliefs are women's tenets ; they come easily to
women's hearts, who believe by nature in the milder
virtues ; religion such as Buddhism is to them an
evident truth. In Burma here, living their sheltered
lives, never forced back by the rude blasts of an
invading world, women gained a great ascendency.
They assumed a freedom unknown elsewhere. They
knew no limits but their own disinclination, and their
weaknesses were little handicap to them. They came
and went as freely as the men did, seeking for escort
only where there were dangers to be feared, wild beasts
or floods ; of men they had little fear. The dangers
that await women elsewhere when alone in fields or
forests were small in Burma. The men respected the
women, and the latter could defend themselves. And
in addition, the administration of the law in these
matters was very strict and very feminine. A man
who even touched the hand of an unwilling girl
suffered severely for it. That she tempted him was

260

CH. XXIII WOMEN 261

nothing. A girl might tell her lover to meet her in the
forest, and if he but kissed her, and she unwilling, he
could be severely punished. Men learned sometimes
to fear woman as one fears a nettle that has a deadly
sting. Such a freedom may sound ideal. It was not
then. It is not so now, for all is not yet changed. A
Burman magistrate will still inflict unheard-of penalties
for slight offences. He will believe all that women tell
him. He will condemn at their word. And, alas ! their
word is often false. More than half the complaints
that are made are openly palpably false, and of the
rest more than half the story is so. For women are
very tenacious of reputation, and they will give away a
lover quickly to retain it. Feminine influence and
feminine ideas pervaded all things. I have already
written of the civil law of marriage and inheritance.
It is a woman's law. Such customs of division could
only exist where man was less necessary and woman
more important. It is pleasant for a girl to be the
equal heiress of her brother. But it is not the way to
make the best either of law or money. Nor does it
make the best men or women. It is not good for a
man to be feminised. It is not good for him to feel
that as he has no greater right than a woman, for he
immediately and rightly infers that he has no greater
responsibilities. It is not good for him to have woman's
ideals. A woman may say ' I am afraid.' It is her
right. Courage is not a virtue that the world wants
from woman. But for a man to be a coward and to
confess openly and without shame that he is so is a

262 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

sad thing. The Burmese generally are not cowards.
They are naturally courageous, active, and daring. But
to declare, as Buddhism does, that bravery is of no
account ; to say to them, as the women did, you are no
better and no more than we are, and should have the
same code of life, — could anything be worse ? No
doubt it is the result of circumstances, of environment.
Women elsewhere do not love cowardice. In them-
selves they condone it as a weakness they cannot help,
as a charm that gives them the protection of man.
But in man they despise it. Yet the Burmese women
did not do so. If a man said ' I was afraid and ran
away,' they only thought, 'quite natural, so should I.'
Men and women are not sufficiently differentiated yet
in Burma. It is the mark of a young race. Ethnologists
tell us that. In the earliest people the difference was
very slight. As a race grows older the difference
increases. I have spoken of the Burmese as children
in a nursery. For in the nursery boys and girls have
not yet learned to differ, not yet learned each their
own strength and weakness. They look alike. Their
dress is not so different. Their codes are still much
the same. So with the Burmese up to twenty, the
boys and girls arc wonderfully alike.

The boys have long hair, small smooth faces, soft
voices. The sex of the girls is not accentuated in
older nations. Their jackets are almost the same as
men's jackets, hang just as straight. Their waists are
broad, their hips no broader. A boy of twenty can
dress as a girl, a 'j^\r\ can dress as a boy and no one

cH.xxiii WOMEN 263

can guess. Tiic differentiation of life only comes in
where necessity has made it. Women cannot plough,
nor fell forests, nor cut firewood ; men do not spin or
plant rice. But the differentiation has not gone so far
as in other nations.

Yet success comes from difference. What man can
do best it is best he should do. If it brings him great
power, greater authority, it also gives him greater
responsibility. Such is best for both. Men and
women are not rivals but partners, and it is best that
each partner .should do what he can do best. So far
.since the annexation I have not seen much change.
The women go about as freely as ever, the law remains
unchanged ; it is still assumed that much the same
code should govern both sexes. The cult of courage
has not progressed. It has perhaps even decreased.
The Burmese armies may have been without discipline,
yet they could at times fight bravely. They notably
did so in 1852. And an army keeps alive the cult
of bravery and discipline, of self-denial, of cohesion.
Now there is no army at all. In the old days a
soldier was to some extent ashamed to show cowardice.
He would and did die for his king. It may be some
explanation of the utlcr failure of 1885 that in fact
it was a woman who issued orders. Soldiers do not
like to be commanded by a woman. And thus in this
direction the annexation has tended to make bad worse,
by abolishing the army and any cult of courage at all.
Even if a man be brave now and energetic, he has no
scope for showing his qualities. To see a brave .soldier

264 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pi. 11

rise to honour, to hear and see brave deeds done by
one's own people is more ennoblini,^ to a nation than
any wcahh or any learning. The Burmese in their
sheltered valleys learnt this virtue very little ; they have
now none of it. It is a loss. I do not see how a
people worth anything can be made without it. Yet
the regiments we have tried to raise have not suc-
ceeded. Perhaps because our gift of leading ends with
the Bay. The natives east of it will not take our
leading. It is a pity. They may, however, succeed
later. I can imagine nothing that could do the
Burmese so much good as to have a regiment of their
men distinguish itself in our wars. It would open
their eyes to new views of life. But their faith stands
in their way, and their women.

In other ways, however, the new conditions of life
are threatening the position of the women in many
ways. Their means of earning a livelihood is being
taken from them. The women were independent and
powerful because they could live by their own efforts.
They inherited property equally, they could equally
with man earn a living. They wove cotton and silks,
and they held nearly all the petty trade of the country
in their hands. A woman could always earn enough
to live on. There were looms beneath every house in
every village. Nearly all the wear of the people was
locally woven. But Manchester and Germany and
Japan have altered all that. The bazaars are full now
of imported goods. The old cottons were thick and
warm and clumsy, the new arc thin and fine and well

CM. XXIII WOMEN 265

finished. They are also cheaper. No one now will
buy a local cloth if he can get an imported one. The
home-weaving industry is dead. Xo one could make
enough to live on by it. You hardl)- ever see a k^om
now or hear the ' click, click ' that used to be so common.
The bazaar-selling still survives, but it is threatened.
As in every country the tendency is for the greater
traders to squeeze out the smaller, the larger shops
to overshadow the small ones. In Rangoon the large
English shops where everything is sold are undermining
the bazaar stalls. They are full of Burmese purchasers,
who in the old days would go to the bazaar. And
although up-country the signs are fewer, still they are
perceptible. Businesses tend to become larger. Now,
large businesses cannot be managed by women. They
have not the wide outlook, the greater knowledge on
which large businesses are built. They must very
slowly but very certainly lose that grip upon the local
trade that they have now. It is falling into stronger
hands, as elsewhere in the world.

There is no doubt, as I have said, that the laws of
marriage and inheritance must be modified. And all
the changes are to the detriment of the position of the
woman as it now stands.

With her power of independence will disappear her
free-will and her influence. When she is dependent
on her husband she can no longer dictate to him.
When he feeds her, she is no longer able to make her
voice as loud as his i.s. It is inevitable that she should
retire. At present to every one who conies to Burma

266 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

she seems the predominant partner. She attracts by
her freedom, her industry, her independence. After
India, she is a very notable appearance. So all men
praise her. They take her for the strength of the
nation. Yet she is perhaps a symptom and a cause of
its weakness. The nations who succeed are not the
feminine nations, but the masculine. Woman's influence
is good provided it does not go too far. Yet it has
done so here. It has been bad for the man, bad too
for the woman. It has never been good for women to
be too independent, it has robbed them of many of
their virtues. It has never been good for men to feel
that their women -folk were independent of their help.
It improves a man to have to work for his wife and
family, it makes a man of him. It is demoralising for
both if the woman can keep herself and if necessary
her husband too. Therefore the peculiar charm that
all travellers see in the women of Burma is bound to
fade. They have their day. They have contributed
to make the nation what it is, gay, insouciant, feminine.
They have brought religion to the pitch it reached.
But the world is a man's world, and now that Burma
has come out of the nursery it must learn to be a man.
That the Burmese woman should understand the
new conditions arising to her is necessary for the future
of the people. I think she will. It will depend on
the man as well whether she does so. For like all
women she does not care for work. She does not
work for work's sake. She works because she must.
If she has held closely to her inheritance, to her work,

CH. XXIII WOMEN 267

it was perhaps because therein lay her only safety.
Marriage was easily broken, a loose tie too soon
unloosed. Unless she had her own property, her own
means of earning a living, she had no certainty. That
most divorces were at the petition of women made no
difference. In such a matter she should be protected
against herself. But if women are to surrender power,
they must receive safety. They must be able to rely
upon their fathers, their husbands, their sons, more than
they do now. If the men are to have more power,
they must be ready to accept more responsibility.
Burma has been the converse of India in this matter.
In India all women except the very poorest are idle,
dependent, secluded. In Burma all are active, inde-
pendent, open. They are the two extremes, and both
are bad. In neither case has either sex learned its
strength, its weakness, its responsibilities. What they
all want is common-sense. Not a new sense but the
communis sensus of the Romans. There are many
senses— hearing, seeing, feeling, tasting, smelling, and
each by itself is liable to err. Common-sense is that
which contains them all, which makes each the help-
meet of the other, which checks all instincts by the
counsel of the senses. It is the knowledge of propor-
tion. So it is in national life. There are many
instincts— for money, for power, for glory, for freedom,
for happiness. They are all good in measure. They
can be reached in their fulness only by the combination
of all power to these ends. All kinds of men— soldiers,
sailors, peasants, merchants, workmen, men of action

268 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

and men of thought, women and priests, all go to a
nation, and the most successful is that where each has
its own place, his own influence.

In the life of a people as in the life of a man
there are two periods when women's power is greatest —
at the dawn of life, and at its close. Women rule us
in our youth, and in our age. Hut in the prime of
life it is the men who lead. It is the mark of rising
nations that men control and women are not seen.
They have their influence, no doubt, but it is hidden.

When nations fail, the women's influence again
appears. She leads, she drives, and the men follow.
It is the men then who are hidden, and their influence
is gone.

But the Burmese are not grown old. They are in
the first stages of a people. They are very young.
Their world is still a nursery, where the woman and
the priest are strong.

When they grow older, they must change. But
the change must needs be slow. What is twenty years
in a people's life ? What is a hundred ?

But still the change is coming. As the people
grow, so will they alter.

CHAPTER XXIV

BURMESE AND IMMIGRANTS

Canon Bardsley, speaking of the first few centuries
after the Norman conquest of England, points out that
the conquest was not limited to William and his
armies. It was not only rulers who came, nobles,
court officers, and soldiers, it was all sorts of people.
England was hailed as a land of promise and of wealth
awaiting the explorer. England, which had been
severed for 700 years, was overrun from all parts of
the Continent,

The Lombard merchant came and traded in money ;
the Jew came with him. Flemish cloth merchants
travelled all over buying wool and selling cloth.
Ironsmiths, goldsmiths, silversmiths, and jewellers,
embroiderers, tailors, tanners, traders, and artisans of
all kinds came and established themselves. For
England was till then a purely agricultural country,
and its people were only cultivators. What little
handicrafts the}- had were local and poor, and dis-
appeared before the wider, stronger art of the Continent.
The Anglo-Saxon sank under a wave of which the
crest was Norman, but the bulk was of all sorts of

269

270 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

people. He lost his government, his trade, such as it
was ; he was shouldered and hustled on all sides. Yet
he retained the land, and because of that he stayed,
while the wave failed and died. England is Anglo-
Saxon still, and the foreign element has been absorbed
or disappeared.

Something like this invasion in a small way has
occurred in Burma of to-day.

Lower Burma, when we annexed it in 1852,
was a rich delta country, sparsely inhabited by a
people who had few handicrafts of any sort, and
who were in all matters of industry in a very ele-
mentary stage.

The Upper Burma we annexed in 1885 was little
different. It had, it is true, more artisans than Lower
Burma, and was in a somewhat more advanced stage.
But compared with either India in the West, or China
in the East, it was still very young. It was almost
purely agricultural, and it had no large traders, no
bankers, no export merchants. Its people were all
peasant cultivators, and of the larger ways of life it
had no knowledge.

Thus in the development of the country since the
conquest, the Burmese have been able to take only
one part. This part is that of the agricultural peasant.
The people from the over-populated arid central tracts
of Upper Burma have poured into the delta, and have
extended cultivation in the most wonderful way. The
area under rice has increased by leaps and bounds,
and Burma has risen rapidly to the head of the rice-

CH. XXIV IMMIGRANTS 271

exporting countries. All this rice is grown by the
Burmese.

But more goes to the making of a successful rice-
trade than merely growing the grain. The cultivators
must be financed. All over the world the extension
of cultivation is dependent greatly on the facilities for
obtaining money on loan. This want could be supplied
to a small extent, and in small sums, by the Burmese
themselves. They had no big capitalists, and no class
with any knowledge or experience of large affairs.
Thus Burma has been overrun by the Chetty banker
class from Madras, who for a hundred years have been
the money-dealers of Southern India. Their rates are
high, and might even be called usurious, but that is
simply because money is scarce. They are honest and
capable, and there is no doubt that, in the absence of
better facilities for banking, they filled a much-needed
want. Nothing like the extension that has occurred
could have taken place without their help.

Then rice before being exported must be milled.
No Burman had the capital or knowledge to build
mills, which are nearly all in the hands of European
firms, and the mechanics and the large quantity of
labour required there have been provided b)' trained
men and imported coolies from Madras.

Then there are roads and railways to be built and
worked, there are steamers to be run, there are innumer-
able trades upon which the rice business depends and
which depend on it. And in all these the Burmese
have little or no part. A civilisation has been suddenly

272 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

sprung upon them as it was upon the English in 1066,
and in each case it has taken long to be learnt. The
Burmese have remained purely cultivators, and have
yet acquired but little of any of the imported trades
and businesses, though they arc fast learning some of
them. They have confined themselves in the main to
growing the immense crops of rice that, increasing
year by year, have made the prosperity of the province.
But the bulk of all the other trades is in foreign
hands. There are hardly any Burmese merchants as
yet. And as the top rungs are occupied by foreigners,
so are the lowest. As the bankers, merchants, con-
tractors, millers, exporters, and so on are all European,
Indian, or Chinese, so the labourer class are im-
ported coolies from Madras. The Burmese are too
busy cultivating the fields, they do so well at it, and
the demand for new peasants to till the newly-opened
areas is so great that the Burmese rarely are reduced
to labourers' work, except, perhaps, for a few months,
when there is no field-labour. Therefore all the gangs
of coolies on the railways or roads, all the mill coolies,
all the durwans and other menials in Rangoon and
other large delta towns are Indians. All the hackney
carriage drivers are Indians, all the railway porters, all
the steamer crews, all the village sweepers even are
Indian. They are imported in tens of thousands from
Madras every November, and nearly all return again in
May and June. They are of great value to the pro-
vince, for without them progress would have been slow.
Without this cheap labour from India, it would have

CH. XXIV IMMIGRANTS 273

been necessary to employ Burmese labour, and this
would have been unfortunate in two ways. It would
have withdrawn the cultivator from the fields, where he
is much better employed, and it would have been so
expensive that only half the work could be done.
Nothing has been more useful to the province in
general, and to every Burmese cultivator in particular,
as this ability of the capitalists to obtain cheap labour
from India. Without the Indian labourer, the Burmese
peasant cultivator could never have extended and
flourished as he has.

I said a while ago that I was no believer in the
Oriental mind. Nor am I. But sometimes when 1
hear some opinions expressed by the West upon the
East, I feel inclined to belief in an Occidental mind ;
and a strange and weird mind it is at times. Here is
an instance of it. Because the Burmese have preferred
to remain peasant owners of their own land to being
labourers, because they are able thereby to retain their
family life, to maintain a higher standard of comfort,
and to earn four or five times as much profit as a
labourer can ; because they are, in so doing, better,
stronger, more useful men, they have been lectured and
abu.sed without end. Is a gang of Indian coolies seen
working on a tramway, ' the Indian is ousting the
Burman.' Is a globe -trotter's trunk carried from
steamer to rail by an Indian porter, he writes to the
paper that ' the Burman is disappearing.' Docs a
contractor find it impossible to hire labour locally
amid the cultivation of rice-fields and have to import

274 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

it, he indignantly announces in his paper that ' the
Burman must go.'

It has become a superstition among certain people
that because he is the labourer, therefore the Indian
is a better man than the Burman, and that the latter
is giving way to him. Some announce that the Burman
is disappearing and will soon be extinct. And this in
a country where such foolish imaginings could easily
be checked from official returns by any one who really
wanted facts. I will suppose the reader such a person.
Here are some of the figures from the census of 1901,
compared with 1891.

In 1 891 there were 4,042,000 Burmese Buddhists
in Lower Burma; by 1901 they had increased to
4,597,000, an increase of 555,000, — not bad for a
disappearing people.

In 1 89 1 there were 142,000 Hindus (mostly
imported coolies), and in 1901 there were 241,000.
This is a good increase too ; but it must be remembered
that whereas the Burmese increase is a permanent
settled population, the coolie increase is not so. They
are nearly all males, they come but for a year or two ;
of the total 241,000 in Burma in February 1901,
I 50,000 had not been six months in the country. If
the census were taken in June instead of February, the
figures would be, Burmese, 9,184,121, and Hindus,
I 30,000 in the whole province.

These immigrants die in terribly large numbers,
and they are mostly congregated in Rangoon and a
few other places in coolie barracks. Having no wives.

CH. XXIV IMMIGRANTS 275

they do not breed, and eventually they all return home
when they have made what, in India, will seem to them
a fortune.

The increase in the Indian immigrant coolie class
is simply the result of the increase in the culture of
paddy for export by the Burmese cultivators. It
depends on that purely and simply, and when with
the filling up of the Delta the amount available for
export decreases, so must the import of coolies. In
Upper Burma, where there are few mills, the number
of Hindus is only 43,000 against 4,589,121 Burmese,
and they do not increase.

If indeed the Indian coolie were a better cultivator
than the Burmese peasant, then indeed there might be
danger to the latter. But that is not so. The Indian
cultivator cannot live side by side by the Burman.
He has neither the energy, the knowledge, nor the
physique. He cannot work the hours, he cannot stand
the climate, he has not the versatile intelligence. The
fact has often been proved. When Upper Burma was
first taken, it was the government policy to encourage
settlements of Indians, large grants and great conces-
sions, in revenue and other ways, were made to assist
such colonies. Where are they now ? Not one sur-
vives. The Indians have drifted away to work as
coolies on the roads, and the Burman tills his fields.
Whether in Upper or Lower Burma the story is the
same. Where the Burmese peasant and the Indian
peasant meets, the latter fails. Nowhere is there any
sign on the other side. In Tenas.serim an Indian

2/6 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

colony was founded some sixty years ago in the waste
lands. There was no competition from the Burmese,
who have even now only just begun to spread there
in their migration from the Upper Province. It has
done fairly well. But its increase is decreasing, and
the Burmese are pouring into the division. The
Indians may perhaps hold what they have got, but
they will not spread.

In some of the new delta districts a few Indian
coolies, having saved money, have settled on the land.
Amid the vast extension of cultivation in these rich
swamps it would be very strange if some Indians did
not do so. But they are like black spots on a yellow
wall, noticeable because they are but spots. In one
of these new^ areas a recent report showed that in
eleven years the Burmese, all cultivators, had increased
from 50,000 to 98,000, while the Indians, mostly
coolies, imported to work in mills and field-labourers,
had increased from 1000 to 4000 only. Yet the
report said the remarkable thing was the increase of
tlie Indians. And this reminds me of a conversation
in a train.

He was an Englishman, a contractor on the railway,
and he told me he had contracted for railways in many
lands. He knew, he said, everything that could be
known about labour in India, Burma, and the Straits ;
and the Burman, he said, was no use. ' He is incor-
rigibly lazy,' said my companion. * He does not
know how to work. He is a loafer.'

' He raises a good deal of rice,' I suggested.

CH. XXIV IMMIGRANTS 277

' Does he ? ' said my companion indignantly. ' Well,
I will tell you about that. He raises rice because he
can't help it, and he never works himself if he can help
it. Suppose he only owns a quarter of an acre of land,
he won't trouble to even plough it. He drives his cattle
round it. Then his wife sows it by putting rice on her
feet and treading it in, and when the rice is ripe, he
hires an Indian coolie to reap it. What do you think
of people like that ? They must " go." '

* Tell me,' I said, ' a little more. He is well fed?'
' Fat,' was the reply.

' He dresses well ? '

' Silks mo.stly.'

' He can always read and write ? '

* May be. Can't say.'

' He supports his monasteries well ? '

' Yes, the lazy devils.'

' And I can add that while the land is no richer
than, say Bengal, he pays in revenue twice or thrice as
much as a Bengalee does ? '

' Can't say.'

' Well, the blue books will tell you. Now I will
tell you what I think. If indeed it be the fact as you
say that he can afford, out of the crop of a quarter of
an acre of land, to hire Indian labour to till it, can
dress his wife and himself in silk, can be, for a
peasant, well educated, can bring up a large family,
can pay heavy taxes, can support his church, and re-
main free and independent and happy, he is a genius,
nothing less than a genius, and instead of " going "

278 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

will soon inherit the earth, and we shall ihavc to work
for him.'

My companion said no more, but he was very angry,
and a few days later he wrote to the local paper, and
quoted all the authorities who knew least about Burma
or the Burmese to prove that the Burmese must * go.'

But, in fact, all the supposition that there is an
antasfonism between the Burmese and the Indian
immigrants is wrong. There is no such antagonism.
The Indians, whether traders or money-lenders,
mechanic or coolie, are very valuable to Burma and
the Burmese. They introduce new ideas, new handi-
crafts, new skill. For instance, they introduced the
business of tinsmiths, and the Burmese have learnt it
from them. They have brought in capital. They
have rendered roads and railways possible. They have
only competed with the Burmese where the latter were
inferior, such as in carpentry, where the Chinese are
so good. And the Burmese are learning from the
Chinese, in this way, what they could never learn any
other way.

Near the towns Chittagonians have started gardens,
growing vegetables and fruit the Burmese never heard of.
In a hundred ways the Indians and Chinese are doing for
the Burmese what the French, Italians, and Flemings
did for England. They are educating them in business.
They are schoolmasters, teaching what our government
cannot. But in cultivating the main crops the Burmese
stands easily master. No immigrant can compete with
him. When the push comes the Burmese remain, the

CH.xxiv IMMIGRANTS 279

others go. And as time goes on and the Burmese
learn, no doubt, it will be so in most other matters.
The Burmese are very young, but they learn very
quickly. They arc very enduring, and they have
unbounded courage and confidence in themselves.
They are handicapped by their laws of inheritance, but
not in other ways.

They are extremely prosperous now. There is less
poverty, less sickness, less unhappiness than among
any people I have seen East or West. If there ever
was a people about whom pessimism sounded absurd,
it is about the Burmese.

CHAPTER XXV

CONCLUSION

And what, after all, is the conclusion ? What is it that
we are teaching in our Eastern school ; what is it that
our pupils learn ; what will endure ?

It has been said that if we left India to-morrow, in
a year we should be forgotten. Nothing would remain
to show that we had ever been there ; nothing but the
ruins, perhaps, of an abandoned fort, or the rusting
steel of a silent railway. India would have returned
to what it was, to its own life that we have never
touched.

In a way this is of course quite true.

There is nothing in our rule that takes root, nothing
that has gone into the heart of the East. It is a pro-
duct of the West, its life comes from the little island in
the North Sea. It is as the branch of a great tree
whose trunk is six thousand miles away, whose sap has
come to it from the north. Its leaves die and fall in
the cemeteries of the East, but no roots come from the
branch to enrich the earth. It is of the West, purely
of the West. And when the trunk grows weak, then
will the arms fail. If the English Government grow

280

CH. XXV CONCLUSION 281

old, then will the Indian Government die. It will
disappear once and for ever, and hardly even its
memory will remain. The East will forget, because
she remembers only those things that touch her heart,
that fire her imagination, and we have never done
either. She endures us because she must. She will
gladly forget us when she can. When she builds for
herself anew, she will not take over one brick even of
our institutions, she will not copy even one line of our
facades. Her foundations will be set other than where
we have set them, and as the foundations are laid so the
buildings grow. We cannot teach her, and she will
not learn. Neither now nor ever is it possible that
India should take from us one single political thought,
one institution, one law, one custom. As the Briton
never copied nor adapted from the Romans, so neither
will the East from us. We belong to other climates,
other ages, other ways. The East is very young wine,
and our forms are very old bottles.

What governments the East will have no one can
prophesy, except that, if indigenous, they will not be
like ours.

Have we then no effect ? Do we do nothing ?
Are the people not changing? Will they then be the
same in future as when we found them ?

That is another matter.

A boy when he leaves school may forget his school-
master, may forget his Greek and Latin, may throw
aside for ever all his books, might forget every lesson
he has learnt, yet he would have changed, lie has

282 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

grown up. He has abandoned childish things. He
has come out of the nursery. He has seen how boys
and men live. He has fallen, may be, from his mother's
standards ; he has grown stronger, coarser, harder, a
brave man fitted to face the world. He has passed the
stage that all boys and all nations must pass through
before they are grown up.

Such is it with these people, the Burmese. We
found a child shut in its valley between the mountains
and the sea, unruly, vain, charming as a child is. And
we have brought it into a larger world where other
children live. We have put it into a class with others.
We have tried to teach it somewhat of what we knew.
We have lectured and we have taught, and they have
not listened. We have said ' Follow our way ' ; but they
have never followed. We have said ' Be even as we are,'
and they have turned aside. They cannot learn, nor
can we teach. We know not how to teach, nor what.

And in fact we are not here to teach, but only to
rule. When we have brought our school together, that
is enough. The boys teach each other. That is the
only way that boys can learn ; it is the only way that
peoples learn. As they grow older, stronger, less
strange, they learn from the others. They see what
they do, and they learn. They alone know what
knowledge suits them, what they can learn and what
they cannot, what is good for them and necessary and
what is harmful. There is an instinct guides boys
and peoples for its own hidden ends.

The people are learning fast, they are growing fast.

CH. XXV CONCLUSION 283

What they will become no one can tell. In some
ways it seems as if the change was not all good.
Coming into the world has tarnished some of the
charm that clung to them in their valley nursery. The
boy has learnt to swear. His manners certainly have
not improved. But he has grown. He has forgotten
much. Sometimes it seems as if he had forgotten
more than he had learnt. Well, I suppose that is
always so. Before you can learn you must forget,
before crops can be grown the forest must be cut.
The forest is more pleasant, but the crop more useful,
and to some people beauty will be always more
desirable than mere utility. But in the world this is
not so, or rather perhaps there are, as Solomon would
have it, times and places for one and for the other.
There is a time to play and a time to work, a time to
laugh and a time to cry.

I think, perhaps, the Burmese would say that the
latter time had come to them just now. For they arc
still shy and strange to the new world. They have
not rearranged themselves. They have not learned
to hope, nor what to hope for. The ideals that were
theirs are now impossible, and they have not yet new
ones. They have been scattered and have not yet
again coalesced. They have been defeated, and they
have not yet learnt that defeats arc the gates to
wisdom. They want a direction and a purpose. They
grow fast, and they have growing pains, and think they
are the pangs of an approaching dissolution.

Sometimes it makes one laugh.

284 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

'Our lands all over the provinces,' said one' to me,
* used never to be mortgaged. Now hardly half the
land is free from encumbrances. We are ruined, ruined,
ruined ! Save us ere too late.'

To which the answer is. 'In the old days there
was no trade, no money. No one could borrow if he
wanted. No one would have lent, even if he had the
money, because he could get no return for his capital,
and no security. Land had no value. In the great
prosperity that has come to you, land has become very
valuable. You make enormous profits with your
agriculture. For your continual extensions you want
money, and now you can get it from the Chctties, and
your land is good security. What you want is more
facilities for getting cheap money, not less. The
indebtedness of a country is to a great extent a
measure of its prosperity, not the reverse. The facts
that the money - lenders are foreigners and that
the interest they charge is high arc drawbacks. But
you can remedy that by learning to form banks
yourselves. Cheer up ! '

This is but an instance. There is nothing more
noticeable among the better-class Burmese to-day than
their pessimism. They have become depressed.
They have little knowledge, and that little has dis-
agreed with them. They have got no standards.
They compare a Burmese peasant with an English
merchant. They do not know that in England we
have peasants too who are far poorer than any Burmese
villagers. They have no idea of the poorer English,

CH. XXV CONCLUSION 285

French, or Germans. They arc lost. They publish
papers in the vernacular, which sometimes read like
nursery lamentations over imaj^inary ills. They have
lost confidence and pride and courage. And thou^^h
they would be leaders of the people, they know not
whither to lead them, and the people will not follow.

I do not know whether this class will ever be an)-
use or not. They certainly never will unless they can
get back their Burmanity, to coin a word. A Japanese
can adopt European ideas and remain a Japanese. It
seems that at present neither in India nor in Burma is
this possible.

But this matters little in the end. For the Burmese
people consists of the people, not the few advocates,
officials, and others who have appeared at the surface
under our rule. And the people are not as the more
educated class. They have not lost courage, nor have
they lost hope. They arc proud still, and they arc
Burmese. And they arc sure that the Burmese will
some time prove that they too can grow into a manhood
that the world will respect.

And if I were to offer them my ;ulvicc, it would be
something like this.

Try and understand things as they arc. Try and
accept the present and make the best of it. Fate, who
brought you and us together, knows what she knows ;
she knows what she wants. If she has sent you to
school, it is to some ends that are always good.

Then try to karn and to forget. But do not forget
too much. Knowledge is good, intelligence is good,

286 A PEOPLE AT SCHOOL pt. ii

education is good, money is very necessary. But above
all these things are self-respect, are courage, are hope and
cheerfulness. You used to be proud of being Burmese.
Be so still. It is the foundation of all things. If you
want your own respect, if you want our respect, if
you want the world's respect, that is the very beginning.
What you can adapt then, accept, but never copy for
copy's sake. And be of good courage. There are few
people in the world who have such a happy present,
such a hopeful future as you have. If you only knew
the miseries of so much of the rest of the world, your
lot would seem to you a very fortunate one. Face
always to Fortune with a laugh, for she is a woman
and she likes smiles. You will never get anything
out of her with a tear.

THE END.

Printed by k. ^ k. Ciark, Limited, Edinhurgk.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
Fourth Edition. Extra Crown ?>vo. js. td. net.

THE SOUL OF A PEOPLE

H. FIELDING HALL.

SOME TRESS OPINIONS.

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