But in 53,594 cases he came to Court for execution. What did he get? In half these cases he got absolutely nothing; the execution was "wholly infructuous." In the other cases satisfaction was obtained in full or in part.
Thus out of £1,380,000 claimed how much was obtained? The Report does not give figures, but the reader can judge for himself it wasn't much. And to get even this little, what was the cost to the litigants, that is the public? No one knows. But there are a great many lawyers of kinds in Burma, and a good deal of money goes into their hands.
I do not think it would be an over-estimate to say that for every pound originally in dispute two pounds were spent in costs and only ten shillings recovered, and to get this, think of the trouble, the worry, the indignity, and the self-contempt involved. Besides, think of the waste of time—to say nothing of truth.
In the Report from which I take these figures the Judges of the High Court point out that the Courts are yearly becoming less and less used by the public. They can't think how this can be; but they suppose it is due to years of prosperity. That it should be due to anything wrong about the Courts never occurs to them. Yet perhaps the reader will see reason to doubt if the system of Civil Justice is perfect.
There is an Indian proverb that it is wise to go to law once, foolish to go twice. I asked an Indian about this.
"Why is it wise to go once?" I asked.
"Because," he answered, "you learn a great deal, quite a great deal, which you never forget. You learn, anyhow, not to go twice."
"But," I objected, "suppose on a subsequent occasion money were due to you which you couldn't get, would you sit down under the loss?"
He looked at me and laughed. "Well," he said, "if it were a small debt I should let it go. If I thought the man could not pay I would let it go, big or little; but if I thought he could pay and wouldn't, I wouldn't sue him; no, but I wouldn't put up with him either."
"What then would you do?"
"Well," he answered reflectively, "I think I should rob him."
"But that might bring you into a Criminal Court," I remonstrated.
"So it might," he replied; "but the Criminal Courts can't be worse than the Civil; and, anyhow, it would be a change."
As to the Insolvent side of the Civil Courts, perhaps if I say that it is no nearer the people than any other side, enough will have been said, and later on I shall have a story to tell of some of my experiences, but this is not the place.
What is gained by imprisoning a man for debt? Nothing that I ever heard of. It is not required to deter him from being ruined again; he probably won't get the chance, and if he did the fact of having been sold up once is quite sufficient deterrent from wanting to be sold up again.
Will it deter others? People don't get ruined for the fun of the thing. It is a dreadful thing to be sold up; in itself that is quite enough. Then what good does imprisoning the poor devil do? It does none. It does harm, and nothing but harm. It hurts the debtor and prevents his recovering himself; it panders to the desire of society and of creditors for revenge. There is an idea abroad that when anything untoward happens somebody should be punished, and then society will have vindicated itself. But the duty of society is to prevent crime, not punish it, and it cannot whitewash itself in this way. It merely condemns itself more even than it condemns him it punishes.
Moreover, the ability of creditors to imprison debtors is misused in a way that is almost criminal. The creditor will imprison the debtor with the hope that the debtor's relatives and friends will subscribe to save him and them from this disgrace. That is to say, the law allows a creditor to put improper pressure on totally innocent people in order to get his claims satisfied. Think of the iniquity of a law like that!
And what are these claims? Are they just claims? They are legal claims, but are they just?
For the most part they are claims of money-lenders. The Courts act as collecting agencies to the most oppressive system of money-lending that can be imagined. Two and a half per-cent per month is not unusual.
Government has shown its recognition of this danger by creating Co-operative Credit Banks, which are a great boon. But it has not thought of revising its Civil Court procedure. As in most other matters, it recognises something wrong, but attributes it to the people, not to the Courts and the law; therefore it does nothing.
But at all events imprisonment for debt should be abolished. There were eight hundred unfortunate debtors imprisoned in Burma in 1910.
Do you wonder that the people dread and hate the Courts?
Civil law embraces a great variety of suits besides suits for money, and includes a great number of special laws. The harm that has been done by fossilising Hindu, Mohammedan, and Buddhist law and custom has been already mentioned; to enter further into these matters is unnecessary. Once it is clearly recognised that the law and the Courts require amendment, not in details but in fundamental principles, there will be many better critics than I am. For although I have been obliged to learn some law in order to do my work, I was never an apt student of it. Humanity and justice are the only studies I really care for. Law is mainly a denial of both. Therefore if the Government of India and the local officials will but give up thinking that where law and human nature disagree it is so much the worse for human nature, they will soon find out where the present laws are wrong. But before I close this chapter there is one further point I wish to mention, and that is the trial of Burmese divorce suits by our Courts. Now that is wrong, absolutely wrong, and indefensible in every way. The Courts are not concerned with divorce. It is by Burmese custom and common sense a purely village matter. Divorces can be given by the elders, and they alone should be allowed to pronounce them. For they are sensible men, and in such cases they act not as judges, but as neighbours. They will grant no divorce till they have exhausted all means of conciliation. They know the parties as no judge can know them; they know who is to blame, how he or she is to blame, how the difference can be adjusted. It is to their interest to smooth things down and prevent their getting worse. Theoretically the breakers of marriages, they are in fact the preservers of marriage. It is by their tact and common sense that couples are kept together, and that only when matters become impossible divorces are granted.
But a judge is different. He knows nothing, cares nothing, can do nothing but listen to the complaint and grant the divorce. It must legally be granted at the request of either party, remember. To allow a judge to try divorce cases is a violation of Burmese law and custom, and is another and deep injury to the village community. How and why it was ever allowed I don't know. I suppose no one ever thought about it. Divorces in England are granted by Courts according to English law, therefore in Burma divorces can be granted according to Burmese law. I suppose that was the argument—if ever there was any argument at all.
In any case it is wrong. Divorces are properly granted by the elders acting on behalf of the community, and by no one else. Therefore the interference of the Courts should be immediately stopped.
But apart from this, the questions of marriage and inheritance are very difficult. No alien Government can solve them. They must await a real Council that can deal with such matters with knowledge and responsibility.
But of all the errors of Indian government, none is so serious as their destruction of the Village organism throughout India; none has had such an effect in the past; none is likely to have such bad consequences in the future.
It is the Village policy of government that has created for it the most difficulties, and which is at the bottom of the most serious unrest. For it touches not merely a few as criminal law, but practically all the population; it affects not only a part of the life of India, but it has injured it in its most vital point. In the whole history of administration there is nothing I think so demonstrative of the ignorance of government as the Village policy.
The foundation on which not only all government but all civilisation rests throughout the world is the village. As this is contrary to the usual idea that civilisation rests on the family it will be convenient to shortly show how this is so. The village is the microcosm of the State, because it includes within it divers trades and occupations and races and religions and castes in one community. A family does not do so. A family is by its nature of one blood, it is almost always of one occupation. There are families of cultivators, merchants, priests, lawyers, smiths, and so on. It is of one religion, of one caste, of one habit of thought. A family is narrow and a village is broad. Families divide; villages combine. Societies organised on the family, or clan, or tribe principle have always failed—by the very nature of things they must so fail. The Jews are a race, or tribe, and not a nation. They have no civilisation of their own, but adopt that in which they live. The Highland clans had to be broken before the Highlands could be civilised. The caste system in India ruined its old civilisation, and is the bar to any new civilisation. The Turkish Empire is dead because it was based on a religious caste divided from all others by a mutilation, and its people could never amalgamate with others. There is a continual flow of peoples to and fro upon the earth, and village communities absorb the new-comers and thereby acquire new blood, and, what is far more important, new ideas, to add to the old and leaven them. Families, classes and tribes cannot do this. They become stereotyped, and dissolve or die. Thus the basis of all civilisation has been the village, or in later times the town. The decay and death of all civilisations have been preceded by the death of the local unit. Thus imperial Rome was itself doomed to death when it destroyed local life; and a new civilisation could not be built up till the local communities had attained a fresh life. Florence, Genoa, Milan, Pisa, Venice, and many others made the civilisation of the Renaissance. So in England, a free Parliament was made up of representatives from free cities and counties. These have been destroyed, and the present constituencies are merely so many voters. Policies are no longer decided in Parliament, but in secret party conclave. Members are the nominees of that conclave, not of free local organisms, and Parliament has become a machine to register its decrees. So are free institutions passing away.
There is no lesson of history more true—more certain—than this, that the village or town is the unit of all free life and civilisation. It contains all classes, different races, religions, castes and forms of thought, and is therefore a real unit.
Now these units have existed all over the world, and when civilisations and governments have disappeared they have been built up anew from the villages. In India the village system was the one organism that survived the long years of anarchy and invasion, and it was in full vigour when we conquered India. Those who care to read up the subject can see it in Sir Henry Sumner Maine'sIndian Village Communities.
In Upper Burma, on its annexation in 1885, the village community was strong and healthy; it alone survived the fall of King Thibaw's Government. Then we deliberately destroyed it, as we had destroyed it before all through India.
Now this is an instructive and interesting fact, for it was destroyed in ignorance, not bymalice prepense.
Throughout India—and especially in Burma—you will find Government reiterating its conviction of the importance of preserving the village organism, repeating the conviction of its absolute necessity, and at the same time killing it. This is but an instance of much of the action of Government. It means well; it does actually see the end to be attained—it has no idea how to attain that end; but, instead, it renders it impossible.
If I explain what happened in Burma, the history,mutatis mutandis, of what has occurred throughout India will be clear.
In the first place, a "village" does not mean only one collection of houses; it is a territorial unit of from one to a hundred square miles. Originally, of course, there was in each unit one hamlet; but, as population grew, daughter hamlets were thrown off. They still, however, remained under the jurisdiction of the mother hamlet, and they all together formed one village. In each village there were a Headman and a Council of Elders. The headman was appointed or rather approved by the Burmese Government for life or good behaviour; the council was not recognised by law. Notwithstanding this, the council was the real power. It was not formally elected, it had no legal standing, but it was the real power. The headman was only its representative and not its master; he was butprimus inter pares.
This headman and council ruled all village matters. They settled the house sites, the rights of way, the marriage of boys and girls, divorces, public manners; they put up such public works as were done, they divided the tax amongst the inhabitants according to their means, and were collectively responsible for the whole. There was hardly any appeal from their decision, but the power not being localised in an individual but in a council of all the elders, things went well. The village was a real living organism, within which people learned to act together, to bear and forbear; there were a local patriotism and a local pride. Within it lay the germ of unlimited progress.
The English Government on taking over Upper Burma recognised the extreme value of this organisation. In Lower Burma much of our difficulty arose from the fact that the organisation was wanting and that between Government and the individual there was no one. So one of the first efforts of Government in Upper Burma was to endeavour to preserve and strengthen this local self-government. Unfortunately every effort it made resulted in destroying it rather than consolidating it. A wrong view was taken from the beginning.
The council was ignored. How this happened I do not know, I can only suppose that it arose from ignorance. The only man recognised by the Burmese Government we replaced was the headman. They dealt directly with him and not with the council. They did not appoint the council or regulate it in any way. In law no council existed. Therefore, when we took over, the law was mistaken for the fact—a common mistake, due to seeking for knowledge in papers, and not in life—and the council was ignored. The following seems to have been the argument: Government appointed the headman, therefore he was an official. Government did not appoint or recognise any council, therefore there was no council. Anyhow, that was the decision arrived at and enforced.
There is on record a circular of the Local Government in which the headman of a village is described as a Government official; to be to his village what the District Officer is to his district. That is disastrous. A headman is not an official of the Government. His whole value and meaning is that he is a representative of the people before Government. He expresses the collective views of the village and receives the orders of Government for them as a whole. He istheirhead, not a finger of Government. He corresponded almost exactly to the mayor of an English town, who would be insulted if you called him a Government official. Yet this mistaken view was taken of the village headman, and this error has vitiated all dealings of Government with the village organisation and its headman. He is appointed by Government instead of being appointed by the people and approved by Government. He is responsible to Government, not to his village—as he ought to be—for the use or abuse of his powers. He is punished by Government for laxity. By the Village Regulation he can be fined by the District Officer.
There has grown up among Europeans in the East a custom of imposing fines. They fine their servants for breakages and innumerable other small matters, and then complain how scarce good servants are. The clerks in Government offices used to be subject to continual fines until Lord Curzon stopped it. Now headmen of villages can be fined by the District Officer; and they are fined; the proviso is no dead letter. It is a mark of the "energetic" officer to use it. Can there be anything more destructive? Imagine the headman, the mayor of a community of three or four thousand people, fined five shillings for the delay of a return, or set, like a schoolboy, to learn a code—with the clerks. I have seen this done often. What respect for Government, what from his own people, what self-respect, can he retain after such treatment?
Again, by ignoring the council and making the headman an official, Government set up a number of petty tyrants in the villages, free from all control but its own; consequently it has been forced to allow great latitude of appeal. This still further destroys his authority. He is under old custom, legalised by the Village Regulation, empowered to punish his villagers who disobey him in certain matters. The punishments are, of course, trivial. When approved by the council, as in old days, they were final; but now they can be appealed against—and are. A headman who endeavours to enforce his authority runs the risk of being complained against and forced to attend Headquarters, to waste days of valuable time and considerable sums of money to defend himself for having fined a villager a shilling for not mending his fence. One or two experiences of this sort and the headman lets things slide in future.
Thus interference with the village is constant and disastrous. Headmen are bullied, fined, set to learn lessons like children, all in the name of efficiency. And Government wonders why the village system decays. A continual complaint of Government is that headmen are no longer the men they used to be, that they have lost authority. The best men will not take the appointment—and who can wonder? Here is a story in illustration:
There was a small village in my district, on a main road, and the headman died. It was necessary to appoint a new one. But no one would take the appointment. The elders were asked to nominate a man, but no one would take the nomination. I sent the Township Officer to try to arrange; he failed.
Now a village cannot get along without a headman. Government is at an end; no taxes can be collected, for instance; therefore it was necessary a headman be appointed at once. I went to the village myself and called the elders and gave them an order that they must nominate someone. So next morning, after stormy meetings in the village, a man was brought to me and introduced as the headman-elect. He was dirty, ill-clad, and not at all the sort of man I should have cared to appoint, nor one whom it would be supposed the villagers would care to accept. Yet he was the only nominee.
"What is your occupation?" I asked.
He said he had none.
"What tax did you pay last year?" I asked him this in order to discover his standing, for men are rated according to their means.
He told me that he had paid five shillings—less than a third of the average.
"You are willing to be headman?" I asked.
"No," he said frankly. "But no one would take the place, and the elders told me I must. They said they would prosecute me under the 'bad livelihood' section if I didn't. I could take my choice between being headman or a term in prison."
This was, of course, an extreme case, but it illustrates the position. The headman is degraded and all administration suffers.
It is the same in municipalities. The work is done by the District Officer because it is easier for him to do it than to instruct and allow others to do it.
The people one and all hate this. The headman hates it, because though he is given much greater power nominally than he used to have he dare not use this power. He is isolated from his villagers, and so often becomes an object of dislike to them. Through him orders are enforced which are not liked by the people, and he has to bear all the brunt. His dignity is gone. Sometimes he is murdered.
The elders hate it. They have been ignored. They are placed under a headman who may or may not attend to what they say. They have lost all interest—because all power—in their village affairs. They have no responsibility.
The villagers hate it. A council of their own elders they could respect and submit to; a one-man rule they detest. Their appeal to the council on the spot (who know) has been lost; and in place of it they have an appeal to a distant officer who, with the best will in the world, cannot know. An appeal costs money, and even to win may be to lose. They all want to manage their affairs; they can do it far better than we can, and there is nothing they so much appreciate as being allowed to do so. Here is how I learnt this:
Some eighteen years ago I was leaving a station where I had been for a year as subordinate officer, and had to cross the river by launch to the steamer station on the other shore. I went down to the bank to get the launch, but it was late. I saw it three miles away, and so sat down under a tree to wait.
Presently two or three elderly Burmans came and sat down near me. Then came others, till maybe twenty elderly men were there. I recognised two or three vaguely, but none clearly. I wondered at their being there, and asked:
"Are you crossing over too?"
They shook their heads.
"What are you here for, then?"
They looked embarrassed, and at last one spoke. "We came to say 'Good-bye' to you."
I stared. "But I do not know you, except that I suppose you are elders of the town."
"We are," they said, "and you do not know us because you have not ever worried us in any way. When we had business together you did it quickly and decisively; otherwise you left us alone. You did not treat us as children. Therefore we are sorry you are going."
I laughed. I could not help it. To come and express regret at a man's leaving on the ground that they knew next to nothing of him and did not want to know more seemed unusual.
But it was true. And often, after, did I think over that "send-off" and take the lesson to heart.
Now what is true in Burma is true over all India. The local circumstances of course vary. A lumbadar in the North-West, for instance, does not quite correspond to a headman in Burma. The actual form in which the village was organised differs from place to place according to local needs. Even in Burma it differed a good deal. But the differences were only of form. In all India there were self-contained village communities within which, to a certain extent, caste, religion, and race were subordinated to local communal feeling.
And everywhere Government has killed it by turning the village officials into Government officials, responsible to Government and not to the village.
Thus there is now absolutely no organism a man can belong to. There are three hundred and fifty million individuals in India, and that is all. They are divided laterally into strata by caste and religion, and there is no influence to draw them together. All organised life is dead. Government by means of its official—the headman—interferes with almost every detail of life, regulating his conduct by rules drawn up in Secretariats by men who never knew what a village was, and the appeal is to another alien officer.
Further, all morality and all conduct are the outcome of corporate life, that is to say, of the village or of a larger unit. Morality is, in fact, where it is useful and true, the knowledge of how to get along with your fellow men and women, what conduct offends them and leads to the injury of society, what pleases them and tends to harmony and mutual happiness. It is not fixed, but adapts itself to changing circumstances of the society, and it is enforced by the opinion of that society.
But injure the society and both manners and morals are shaken. It is a common complaint of India to-day that the bonds of morality have greatly slackened and that manners have almost disappeared. This is attributed to the waning influence of religions. But, generally speaking, religions have not waned in India—on the contrary, their influences have increased. The people have become more and more in the power of religious systems. Therefore the cause given is absurd and untrue. It does not exist. Further, neither morality nor manners are the outcome of religion. On the contrary. Religions claim them to be so, but the claim is false. Manners and morals may be said to be the gravity which binds individuals into a community. They make the community and are themselves the outcome of the community. Destroy the community and you have destroyed the source from which manners and morals arise.
That has been done all through India. In another book I have pointed out how disastrously this has acted in Burma and how much the people feel it. I do not want to repeat myself. But if those officials who deplore the frequent cases of young girls running away with boys, of seduction, of adultery and other offences, of immature marriages, and other mistakes, would but realise that all these arise from the injury we have caused to society, there might be a change. All the human virtues, with no exception, either arise from or are increased by the aggregation of men into communities, and it is very difficult to keep them alive where no organic communities exist. Consider the words humanity, civilisation, patriotism, urbanity—their derivations and their meanings—and you will see this.
I do not think I need say more. I have tried to set out the facts as clearly and dispassionately as I can. I have omitted much that I might have said. I have tried here, as throughout, to understate difficulties rather than exaggerate them, because exaggeration defeats its own ends. But I think if the reader will try to realise to himself the state of affairs where no village has a say even in its simplest affairs, and where everything is under the eye of a Government official, where all initiative is forbidden and where the best men stand aloof from all interest in village affairs, he will have some idea that unrest is not unreasonable.
The village organism was the one vital institution left to India; it was the one germ of corporate life that could have been encouraged into a larger growth. It has been killed. It will have to be resuscitated before India can cease to beIndia Irredenta.
I will begin what I have to say about this by telling a little story about what happened to me when I was a Subordinate Magistrate—some sixteen years ago now.
A Burman was brought up before me charged with possessing opium. A Sergeant of Police had met him at a rest-house in the jungle the day before, and had entered into conversation. The man was sickly and told the Sergeant that he was on his way down from the Shan States, where he had gone to trade. But he had caught the prevalent fever, had then lain ill and lost his money. So he was going home again to his village about fifty miles away, where he hoped to recover his health. Meanwhile he took a little opium for the fever, for in the Shan States opium is not contraband.
"Oh, you have opium?" asked the Sergeant.
"I brought some down with me," the man said, producing it. Then the Sergeant, as in duty bound, arrested him and brought him into Court.
The case was quite clear. The man admitted the opium, urged that he was ill, also that he did not know—neither of which is a defence in law—and I passed the smallest sentence that I thought the High Court would allow to pass without a reprimand. I fined him ten rupees or in default ten days' imprisonment. Then I went on to other cases and forgot about it. At four o'clock I left the bench and went to my private room to sign papers before leaving Court. There was a pile of them. I signed, the peon pulled away; I signed again, he pulled; and so on till I looked up. There in the doorway stood the Sergeant. He seemed embarrassed. He smiled an awkward smile, saluted, and then stood doubtfully on one foot and the other.
"Well?" I asked, surprised. "What is the matter?"
"Nothing," he replied.
"Then you needn't stay," I said suggestively, and went on signing. He didn't go. He smiled again and swallowed. I signed a dozen sheets or more and then looked up, and there he was, still smiling.
"Well," I asked, "what is the matter? Out with it."
"We are all poor men," he said.
"Who are?" I asked carelessly.
"All we police," he said. "I gave a whole rupee, but the others could give but a penny or twopence each because they are only constables. We could not afford more. We are poor men, your Honour."
I stopped my signing. "Sergeant," I said, "come here. I don't know what you're talking about. What is the matter?"
"There is a little girl," he answered, coming up to the table. "That's the difficulty."
I held my head between my hands. I had no idea of what he could be talking about. The syncopated method of beginning a conversation which Burmese often use made my head ache. I stared, he stared. At last I said:
"Sergeant, I'm going home," and rose. Then it all came out.
It was the opium smuggler. He could not pay the fine, for he was penniless. He had no friends this side of fifty miles away, and he had with him a little daughter aged ten years or so. This was, of course, the first that I had heard of her, but it seems that she was just outside when her father was being tried, and when she heard he had to go to gaol she was in despair. They wept together.
Therefore the Sergeant whose zeal had caused the trouble repented of his work and took up a collection. In the police-office and among my clerks he got five rupees. That was but half, and they did not know where to get the rest. Then someone had a brilliant idea. "Go," he said to the Sergeant, "ask the magistrate." "Therefore," said the Sergeant, "I came in to your Honour."
"For what?"
"The other five rupees."
I laughed. How could I help it? The audacity of the demand, that I, the magistrate, should pay half the fine that I had myself inflicted!
"Sergeant," I said severely, "what have you and I to do with offenders who break the law? Are we to pay for them? What is the good ofyourarresting them and my fining them if we afterwards pay their fines for them? We make a mockery of the law and ruin ourselves."
He did not answer.
"You see the point?" I asked.
He did.
"Then I am going home."
The Sergeant saluted. "I didn't suppose your Honour has the money in Court. Shall I come for it or will your Honour send it over?" he replied.
"Send what?"
"The five rupees."
I sent it over.
This story, besides illustrating the kindheartedness of the people and their quickness to see the injustice of a law and try to remedy it, shows the difficulty Government have in this matter of opium.
Now I do not intend to go into this very controversial subject. I have read the evidence and the Report of the Opium Commission some years ago, and I have my own opinion about both. That I will keep to myself. All I have to say here is that opium in reasonable doses is a most valuable drug—the most valuable we have. It is in fever-haunted districts the best friend of the people. Some of the best fighting men of the Empire take it and demand it. In its time and place it is no more harmful than liquor, and I have no belief in putting the world into an iron case of everlasting "Don'ts." People should be made temperate by training and judicious restriction of opportunity, and not made the slaves of laws. I don't believe in slavery of any kind.
But opium can be and is abused, and there is no doubt that amongst the Burmese generally there is a desire that its use be totally prohibited. A general opinion like that should be respected whether it is right or wrong.
There comes the difficulty. Take Burma as a whole and consider it. The vast majority of the inhabitants are Burmese, but in places in Lower Burma there are large colonies of Hindus and Mohammedans. There are, moreover, many Chinese traders and carpenters spread about all over. They are accustomed to use opium, were so accustomed before they came there, would not have come if they could not have got their stimulant.
Then, again, Burma is bounded on the east by the independent Shan States, where there is a great deal of fever, where opium grows, and the people use it. Beyond these States is China, where opium is grown largely. Moreover, there are in Lower Burma one or two districts where fever is very deadly and opium is used by the Burmans with the consent of public opinion.
Now sum up all these factors, and see how complicated the problem is.
The Burmans generally want opium prohibited. "Very well," says Government; "we will prohibit it for Burmans; but what about the rest of the population? They want it; their public opinion does not forbid it. They are immigrants, and would not have come if they had been unable to get it. Therefore there must be opium shops for them. But Burmans shall not be allowed to buy."
So far so good in appearance. The Burman may not buy from the shop, and doesn't. He buys from a friendly Chinaman, who for a little commission buys the opium at the shop and hands it over outside.
But this trick was discovered, and Government did its best. It allowanced all Chinamen. They could buy so much and no more, just enough for their own use. If they sold to Burmans they had to go without themselves.
That was excellent, only there were two ways round. One was for Chinamen who did not use opium—not all do—to act as honest broker; the other was smuggling from the Shan States. The quantity of opium smuggled down from the Shan States cannot be estimated, nor can it be stopped. How can you guard five hundred miles of frontier all mountain and forest, intersected by forest paths? Opium is light, compact, easily concealed. Government does its best, but it cannot do the impossible.
Therefore the Acts are widely evaded, which is always a bad thing; but there is a worse effect than this—there is discrimination by nationality.
I do not think there can be anything worse than an Act that says such and such an act is right and proper for people of one nationality but wrong and penal for people of another. A Chinaman may walk about and do openly what if a Burman does he goes to gaol for. What difference is there between the natures of the two people to make such a difference? There is none. Therefore the effect of this law, although it be according to the general desire, is to make the Burman feel that he is a child not to be trusted. This is a bad feeling. If opium were totally prohibited in Upper Burma for everybody except Indian troops or officials sent there by Government, and therefore not free to stay away, this feeling would not arise. If local option is to have effect it should be by areas and not races.
The same thing applies to alcohol. An Indian coolie can go and buy some liquor and have a drink with his friends. A Burman may not. At least not of licit liquor. Therefore a great deal of illicit liquor is distilled.
Try to see how demoralising all this is. Take a town like Sagaing, my last head-quarters, which is really only a big village, and note the results. There is a liquor shop where European liquors, beer, and spirits are sold, and there are several shops where native spirits are sold. A European, or half-caste, or Hindu, or Mohammedan of the better classes could go and buy a bottle of Bass or of Dyer's ale at the European shop and take it home for dinner. The Burmese magistrates, inspectors of police, and so on could not—legally. My Treasury officer, being a Burman, was debarred; his subordinate, a native of India, was not debarred. What happens? Well, I don't know. But I bought a pony once from a very respectable and able Burmese Inspector of Police, and the first morning I rode him he took me gently but firmly to the back door of the liquor shop. That gave me an idea, but I kept the idea to myself. I have often had ideas of this nature.
Then take the poorer classes. Is it good for one race of people to see another making merry with a glass while it is illegal for them to do so? Does it not create bitterness, to say the least? Does it not perpetuate differences that must disappear if self-government is to succeed?
Here, again, if laws are to succeed they must be in accordance with the desires of the people. Only the people at large can stop smuggling. Read the history of how English smuggling was stopped; it was because no one could smuggle without being informed on—that is to say, public opinion had turned against them.
But that is not so in Burma. Were prohibition of opium or spirits by localities where all were treated alike, you could ask the people to help you to enforce their wish. But for opium and liquor to be sold to some and refused to others is not a local option. No one likes it, and no one will help to stop smuggling. That is human nature.
Government has been and is greatly abused for its opium and liquor policy, but I think if facts are looked at squarely it will be seen that the situation is very difficult. The only way out that I can see is through local self-government. If the scheme that I sketch out at the end of this book took form there would be local option eventually, and people will submit to what they themselves enact, whereas they chafe against the same thing when imposed from above. That is human nature, and it is a very valuable trait of human nature. It is the revolt against subjection, and the declaration that the objective of life is to be free. The only morality of any value comes from within; that imposed from without may improve the body, but it enervates the soul. Now the body is temporary and the soul eternal.
Here I may end my criticism of the machinery of government. Not that any of the other branches of the administration are better than those I have written of. The land laws are, I think, worse, because they are based on imported fixed ideas and not on any careful investigation of facts and the underlying causes of facts. The police administration is bad; the village administration worse than bad. But I do not want to criticise; I want to establish my point, which is that the unrest in India is a legitimate unrest, that it is not factitious or political, but based on very real grievances that must grow till they are relieved.
I have picked out these four branches of the administration: the Criminal and Civil Courts, the Villages, and the Opium and Excise, for specific reasons. The reason I chose the first two is because no one ever seems to have suspected before how bad they were. Everyone has gone on the fixed idea that because the magistrates and judges are honest and the law up to date there can be nothing to complain of in them. The fault must be in the people.
Only as I write I get a letter to this effect from an officer of long experience. He had "never seen anything wrong with the Courts." Therefore I have set out the facts to the best of my ability. I want the reader to see for himself. I don't want him to accept my authority that they are bad; I don't believe in authority. I want him to think over the facts I have laid before him and frame his own judgment. I think that he will see that the Courts which have been declared impregnable are very vulnerable indeed.
The reason I chose the Village is because it is the unit of self-government.
The reason I chose the Opium and Excise was different. Whereas Government has never been criticised for its Courts and its law, which are bad, it has received unending criticism for its Opium and Excise policy. Yet, mistakes apart, I don't see how it is much to blame. The difficulties are inherent. They are the same in nature as those that beset liquor legislation in England. The question has not been solved here; far from it. In fact, it is insoluble by Act; it is only soluble by education of the individual. The right and temperate use of alcohol and drugs is a personal, not a State question. Therefore where Government could have been criticised it was not, and where it did its best in great difficulties it was abused. This will give a key to another difficulty in India: Government receives hardly any good and useful criticism from any side. It is abused and praised, but that understanding criticism which is of the greatest value to individuals and Governments is wanting. The Indians are feeling serious unrest, and they cannot diagnose the cause—no one can diagnose himself—so they strike out at random against Government measures and officials. They are like a certain party in England who also are unhappy with things as they are, and who express their dissatisfaction at, say, the marriage laws—which were made not by man, but by Churches, whose great supporters were and are women—by smashing the orchid house at Kew. It reminds me of Andrew Lang's ghost. What he wanted to say was that the drains were out of order and a danger to all the inhabitants of the castle. But he suffered from aphasia, and the nearest he could get to an indication of his meaning was driving round and round the castle at midnight in a hearse and four.
Most changes arising in societies are incoherent in the same way, but it must not be supposed that because the expression is irrelevant there is no real and serious cause beneath it. When an overboiling kettle spills and scalds the cat who never did the kettle any harm, it is hard luck on the cat, but it is not unnatural in the kettle. And it would be dangerous therefore to stop up the spout. Later on the kettle might explode and damage the cat's master.
The English papers in India want to support Government, which is right; but the best support they could give would be to point out where Government goes wrong and help it to go right. They never do that, because the editors live in towns and know nothing of the country. Moreover, they too suffer from fixed ideas.
It is the same with the criticism the Indian Government gets from England. There are here practically only two parties. One says, "Sit tight on the safety-valve and shoot anyone who comes near you"; and the other says "Give government to the people." Now there is no organised Indian people as yet to give it to.
No Government has ever had so little help from intelligent criticism as the Indian Government; none ever needed it more. No Government in the world is more sincerely desirous of the good of the people it governs; none knows so little how to secure it.
You cannot have any work done efficiently unless there is honest and understanding criticism. No sensible person objects to it if it is given sincerely and fairly. But that is not so in India. Considering how unfair most criticism of the Indian Government is, it shows great self-restraint in the consideration it accords to it. And you can't expect Government officials to criticise themselves. It isn't part of their functions and it isn't fair to ask it. Their duty is to carry out the laws and orders they receive. They have neither the time nor the attitude of mind to be always criticising them.
But there ought to be somebody whose function is to investigate the working of government, and to suggest and criticise. In England it used to be done—badly—by Parliament and the papers. Now no one does it: everyone now only seeks "party" advantage. In China there used to be censors whose duty it was, I am told, to watch the working of the machine and criticise it. That would be an admirable idea if it could be carried out.
The Government of India should have censors. They should be well paid, and I think their lives would have to be heavily insured. Their reports should not be pigeon-holed, but published.
At present this ill-informed criticism of Government has succeeded in achieving one and is pressing another measure for the alleviation of the unrest which can do nothing but harm. The danger is that Government, not knowing the right thing to do and pressed to do something, will accept these measures rather than be accused of ignoring the unrest.
India is lost to us—lost in spirit, and only awaiting the opportunity to be lost in substance. How shall she be regained?
Government have two ideas. Let us see what these are.
The first step that has been taken with the hope of allaying the discontent in India has been the increase in the Councils of the Government of India and of the Local Governments of Madras and Bombay, with the creation of Councils in the other Provinces which did not have them before.
And as these Councils have been in certain quarters greatly praised as being not only good in themselves now but as containing the germs of great possibilities, it is necessary to consider them carefully.
Councils were first instituted in India in 1861, were enlarged in 1892, and again much enlarged in 1909; thus they are no new thing, and their value is already fairly obvious. Moreover, since the enlargements of the Act of 1909 some time has elapsed, so that I am not here criticising institutions which have not yet had a chance of showing what they can do.
There are Executive Councils for the Government of India and for the Provincial Governments of Bombay and Madras, and there are Legislative Councils for the Government of India and for each Province.
The whole of the law for the constitution of these Councils is contained in the Indian Councils Acts of 1861, 1892, and 1909, and the Rules for the nomination or election of the members are contained in Blue Book Number Cd 6714, published in 1913. I give these references in order that anyone who cares to go into the subject in greater detail than I can in this chapter will be able to find all his material readily. He will be able to see how other Councils than those I intend to deal with here are constituted; also in what way and by what constituencies elected members are chosen. There is a great deal that might well be said on each of these Councils.
But the only Councils I propose to deal with here are those of the Government of India and of the Province of Burma. I would have liked to include the Council of Madras but that I think the subject can be fairly understood without this.
The Executive Council of the Government of India consists of the Governor-General and nine members. These form the Cabinet of India, and, subject to the control of the Secretary of State, it has supreme power. It includes the Commander-in-Chief and members for Finance, Public Works, Home affairs and so on.
The only alteration made in this Council is by declaring that one of the members must be an Indian. So far that member has been the Law Member, and it is somewhat difficult to see how any other post could be filled by an Indian. You can find Indian lawyers, many, perhaps too many of them, but where are you to find Indians with that necessary experience that would fit them to be Finance or Home Members or Commander-in-Chief, for instance?
The appointment of this Indian gentleman to be Law Member has not been followed by any striking results. Law in India is petrified, and until the great reform takes place petrified it must remain. It does not seem to matter very much who is head of it. When reform comes it will not be an Indian who could undertake it.
The Legislative Council is formed of the Executive Council and Additional Members. Before 1909, Additional Members were few, they were nominated and there was always a good Government majority. Since 1909 it has been constituted as follows:
Nominated Members28 officials5 non-officials.
Of these five non-officials one is to represent the Indian Commercial community, one the Mohammedans of the Punjab, and one the landowners in the Punjab. The other two nominated members may be anyone apparently.
Then there are twenty-seven elected members; two each to represent the four large Provincial Councils; one each for the five smaller Provinces, one each to represent the landowners of six Provinces; five representatives of Mohammedans in these five Provinces; one member each to the Chambers of Commerce of Bengal and Bombay; and one extra Mohammedan member. Thus in this assembly there are represented in a way nine Provinces as wholes, the landowning class of some Provinces, one religion and the trade of two cities.
To make it clearer to the reader who has not been to India, let me put it in this way. India is as big as Europe without Russia, and has three hundred million inhabitants, more than Europe. Suppose Europe were conquered and administered by Martians, and they were to establish a Council. If they did it on similar principles to this Legislative Council of the Government of India it would consist of:
Two members each for Germany, France, Great Britain, and Italy, one member each for five smaller nations, one representative each for the landowners in Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Spain, five representatives of Protestants as Protestants, and one each for the Chambers of Commerce of London and Paris.
What would the reader think of this as a Council to make laws for all Europe? What would he say? I think he would say many things. He would also ask some questions. He would ask:
Firstly, how can two members represent great countries—like England for instance? Or one represent another great area and people like Spain? Is it conceivably possible that one or at best two individuals could have the necessary knowledge or impartiality to do this?
His second question would be: How can one man represent landowners spread over a great territory with different forms of tenure, different crops, different climates, different nationalities?
His third would be: Two cities are represented; where are the others?
His fourth would be: At best, all these members can but represent, in even ever so faint a way, their own class who elects them. Say at a liberal estimate that they represent more or less imperfectly half a million people; what about the two hundred and ninety-nine and a half million who are left out? Who are to protect tenants from landlords, the innumerable unrepresented religions from that one which is represented, the voiceless cities from the two which have voices? In fact, who is to protect Europe from these few privileged classes?
That would be analogous to what is happening in India. These questions are being asked.
The answer to the first question is quite simple. The two members do not represent Madras, nor does the one member represent Burma. They represent the non-officials of the Local Council, and that is all; that is to say, ten or fifteen individuals of much their own class and standing. It is not likely that they have any knowledge of the country they are to represent, except the chief town. It is quite certain that they have never even travelled over half their country, nor speak more than one or two of the various tongues.
They have no knowledge of the administration anywhere, nor any administrative ability. If a question vital to their Province arose they would not know what to do; and if they did know they would not dare to do it if it involved any responsibility, because they have no backing in the country supposed to be theirs. They are totally unknown, even by name, to nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand inhabitants. In fact, even this is an over-estimate. They are not only without knowledge of the immense majority of "their" people, but are antagonistic in race and religion to many of them, so that it is only the English Government that keeps the peace.
The answer to the second question is much the same as to the first. Fancy one member representing the Nair landholders of Malabar, the Poligars, the Tamils, the Telugu landholders, and many others. It is absurd.
There is no answer to the third question.
The answer to the fourth is that whatever help and representation and defence the bulk of India can obtain must be obtained from the English official members. They alone are quite impartial; they may be comparatively ignorant, but their ignorance is light compared to that of the native members, for it includes a knowledge of administration obtained by experience, which none of the latter have. It is we alone who have raised the people economically, and have done it often enough against the influence of class.
Therefore the Council of the Government of India is so constituted that whereas perhaps half a million people are represented directly or indirectly by class and religion, the two hundred and ninety-nine and a half million have no representation at all and must depend on the English officials.
This is no new discovery of mine. Here is what Lord Curzon said in the debate in the House of Lords on this new Act: "I wonder how these changes will in the last resort affect the great mass of the people of India—the people who have no vote and have scarcely a voice. Remember that to these people, who form the bulk of the population of India, representative government and electoral institutions are nothing whatever. I have a misgiving that this class will not fare much better under these changes than they do now. At any rate, I see no place for them in these enlarged Councils which are to be created, and I am under the strong opinion that as government in India becomes more and more Parliamentary—as will be the inevitable result—so it will become less paternal and less beneficial to the poorer classes of the population." It was seen that these Councils were merely by way of handing over the India we have made to a tiny section of privileged classes whom we were to keep in power and support with our bayonets. It was seen and disregarded. Why?
So much for its constitution. Every principle that experience shows must go to the making of a successful Assembly has been scorned. The representation, even such as it is, is by class, by race, and by religion. No assembly where such a method of representation has been adopted has ever been known. Wherever, even in a small degree, such differences have existed it has paralysed all action. Take, for instance, the French National Assembly before the Revolution. Imagine a House of Commons with members for landowners, for the merchants of London and Glasgow, and special members for the Catholic Irish in England and Scotland. Even that would be far less extraordinary than the Council of India.
This Council has no executive powers, but it can ask questions: it can discuss the Budget though it cannot make alterations; it can make laws affecting all India. But all it does is subject to veto by the Government of India—and naturally so. How could you delegate real power to a Council which, the English officials apart, has no representative value of any kind and no administrative experience? The power behind the Government is the power of England—the Army, the Navy, and the wealth of England. It is administered by British officials, and even the native army is officered by English officers. Is this great English organism to be used for enforcing laws passed by such a Council as that I have described? To be at its mercy, to be its servant? Does it enter into the possibility of things?
The Council, the officials apart, is in reality at its very best advisory only. It cannot be more. It has no power behind it and could be given no responsibility. Yet without the fear of responsibility what advice is ever well given? Irresponsible advisers! Of what value have they ever been in the world's history?
"But"—I have been told and have read often enough—"the Council works well, it is a success, it has gratified the educated Indian. Why criticise it, then?" To that I reply, "In what has its success consisted—what has it done?" And to that I never get any answer except that it is a success because it has done nothing. The speakers were afraid, apparently, it might try to do something—to express, for instance, some of the desires and needs of the people, a few of which I have tried to explain in this book; to suggest some new policy to Government, to show how the great and increasing unrest might be guided into safe channels; and it has been a success because it has done none of these things and was capable of doing none of them. It has been as an influencenil. All it has done has been empty criticism. A writer trying to praise it says: "The debates in the Imperial Council are already not unworthy of older and more famous assemblies." If the comparison is with the House of Commons it is not inapt. For many years now debates there have been merely a pretence. The conclusions are already fixed and the speakers know it. They speak to pass time, to satisfy the electors that they are really doing something to justify their existence, and they try to show off—or to score off someone else. Their speeches have no value. They make no difference to the result. And the debates in the India Council are no different. It perhaps gives the members the illusion of power and authority to be able to badger Government and make long speeches, but it can effect nothing. The debates are make-believe. How should they be anything else? The men are not to blame, but the institution.
"But"—again say its advocates—"this is but a beginning. The Council is but in embryo. Wait till it comes to greater maturity."
To what greater maturity can it come? Is there in this Council any true idea that can expand and grow? There is no idea at all. Is it ever contemplated to make it really representative? How many members would it take to represent three hundred millions of people? On the British basis, not a liberal one, it would require an assembly of over four thousand five hundred members. Is that possible?
Is any election possible among the masses of the people?
Is it ever possible that real executive or legislative power should be given to an assembly when it is the English Government and the English people who in the last resort would have to carry out those orders and bear the brunt of their failure?
Think over the facts carefully. Could you make a central Parliament to govern all Europe? No. For a hundred reasons the idea is impossible. It is equally impossible in India. It is even more impossible in India than it would be in Europe.
Finally it is said that this Council has satisfied the educated class in India.
Has it?
And if it had could there be a greater criterion of its worthlessness than such satisfaction?
Let us now turn to the Burma Provincial Council. There is no Executive Council, all executive power lies with the Lieut.-Governor. The Legislative Council consists of seventeen members.
One member is elected by the Chamber of Commerce, and the other sixteen are nominated. Of these sixteen, six may be officials; two experts may be official or non-official; the rest must be non-official; of these, four must be Burmese, one must be Chinese, and one must be Indian.
The Council has power to enact local legislation for Burma only. That is to say it can pass special or local laws. It cannot, of course, interfere with or vary the Imperial legislation, such as the Indian Penal Codes. Its powers are small and are limited. It is, as will be seen, representative of nothing. Except the officials, none of the members have any administrative knowledge; none are known to the people at large even by name. That they approved or passed any Act modifying, say, the Burmese law of inheritance, would be no justification for it before the people. They represent neither people nor ideas. They have effected nothing and can effect nothing because they have no force behind them. What have any of them ever done that the people should repose confidence in them?
For the rest the same criticisms apply as to the Indian Council. The Lieut.-Governor has all the executive power and he has the power of veto over all legislation. Naturally he must have this power. If not, he might be forced into using British power and authority and means for enforcing Acts that he disapproved of and were passed by men who represented at best not one thousandth part of the country.
Yet, as long as he has this power of veto, the Council, like the Indian Council, becomes simply an advisory Council with no responsibility. And, again, of what value is advice that is not steadied by the sense of responsibility?
And with all this talk of self-government, of an Imperial Indian Parliament and local parliaments, of election and representation, there is in no village in the Indian Empire any self-government at all, even in the smallest matters. The villages are one and all under the rule of a Government official, and every vestige of self-government has been destroyed. India may have representatives in the India Council and a voice, even if an impotent voice, in Imperial matters, but it may have no representation in its Village Council, and no voice in the smallest village concern.
The whole base on which any self-government could rest has been destroyed. And instead of building up from below a system of self-government that would proceed from the people and be so founded as to stand any shocks, it is sought to begin self-government from the top, by suspending in the air Councils that rest on nothing, that mean nothing, that have as much solidity and reality as kites would have.
This, too, must have been foreseen, because it is obvious. Why, then, was it done?
Was there ever in any history areductio ad absurdumlike these Councils of Despair?
The next measure which has insistently been pressed on the Government is that far more Indians should be admitted to the Civil Service. It is now composed almost exclusively of Englishmen, and the conditions are such that it is difficult for Indians to enter. This, it is claimed, should be altered, and the Civil Service should be to a great extent Indianised.
Well, as I have said, the Government of India is not Indian, it is English. It is essentially English, the more so and the more necessarily so because it is in India. It consists of very few members compared to the work it has to do, and it is of the highest importance therefore that it be completely efficient. England has made herself responsible for India, and she cannot shirk or divide this responsibility. She cannot say: "I will by admitting a few Indians into the service shift some of the responsibility onto them and so onto India." That is unthinkable. The Government of India is English, and until by revolution or devolution it disappears it must remain English. It is the Army and Navy of England which ensure India's safety. Therefore her first duty, not only to herself but to India, is to enlist in her superior service such men as will govern most efficiently.
Now to govern efficiently we must govern in our own way. There are not for us nor any people two ways of doing a thing well; there is one way only possible at the time—one way in which the genius of the governing race can best express itself. That is the one we must follow, and to ensure its success we must have in the service men who are not merely by education, but by what is far more important, by instinct, best fitted to carry out the ideas of government. You must have officers who will know what to do not only when they are told, but when they are not told, who, being one in race and feeling with the Government, will instinctively do all in accordance with it.
For it must never be forgotten that the government of India is a very difficult matter, and will always be so. It is not plain-sailing, like the Local Government of any self-governing people, or even of Russia. The administration of India is alien. The system is alien; and though it need not be so much out of touch with the people as it is now, alien it must remain. As long as the government is alien the machinery must be so. Englishmen could not work machinery they did not understand.
Even in self-governed countries there is always a feeling against government. Taxes are hard things to bear. This is shown in socialism and many other ways. But in an alien-governed country like India this discontent is much greater. Government has not only to bear the blame for its own faults, but has to vicariously suffer for the shortcomings of the monsoons and the inroad of plague. It is responsible, in the people's ideas, for everything. The internal peace which is taken for granted in most European countries cannot be so assumed in India. We are very often within measurable distance of riot, and an unchecked riot may quickly develop into an insurrection. The first essential, therefore, of government is the maintenance of peace and the immediate suppression of any symptom of unrest.
Now the forces at the disposal of the authorities are not large. For the whole province of Burma, as large as France and England, and with a thousand miles of wild frontier and ten millions of people, there are only four British and eight Indian regiments. There are, or were, besides (I have not the latest figures) some ten thousand military police, who are men recruited in India and officered by English officers from Indian regiments. The Burmese police are only for civil duty and detection. They are not for "keeping the peace" purposes. For the whole of India there are but 70,000 British troops and 140,000 native for a population of 350,000,000, with a difficult and turbulent frontier. There is manifestly no margin to waste; the resources available must be used with the utmost efficiency. There must be direct understanding and co-operation between the military officers who command the forces and the District Officers who supply the information, the intelligence and the direction. Now if the District Officer were an Indian this could not be. It is no reflection on either the courage or the capacity of the Indian to say this, for the quality necessary is neither of these. It is one which he does not and cannot have, but which is essential for the proper carrying out of his duties. It iscamaraderiewith the other officers.
Official relations between civil and military are always difficult. It is impossible to lay down hard and fast rules defining their respective responsibilities. There is a certain antagonism between the objects each wishes to attain and the way to attain them. The civilian wishes as far as possible to avoid bloodshed; to soothe, not irritate, nor threaten. Fighting is the last thing he wants. The soldier, on the other hand, wants to get at his enemy and have it over; to stir him up if he be not already stirred up enough. He wishes action that is short, sharp, and decisive. The civilian is long-suffering. Therefore disagreements arise, and that these conflicts of official opinion should be minimised, something more is necessary than that the men on both sides be good officers. They must be friends. The rubs of official intercourse must be effaced over the mess-table, the card-table, the camp fire; must be forgotten in talks of home, of mutual friends. How often has it not happened that it has been the mutual appreciation of a poet, the remembrance of a charming woman, the admiration of an opera, that has rendered possible that co-operation which is the soul of work. There must be the continual consciousness on both sides that theirs is not a temporary official relationship. They will meet continually hereafter at other stations, at head-quarters, at dinners, races, clubs—in the East and at home. They must be friends all through; there must be a mutual understanding.
Now if the civilian were an Indian gentleman all this could not occur. That Indians are often honourable and cultured gentlemen I know; that in essence all humanity is one I am never tired of affirming. But there are differences of race, real differences, important differences, differences that the Indian himself should be the last to try to ignore. Every nation is given by nature the qualities peculiar to it and which it is its duty to cultivate for the world's sake. To attempt to sink your individuality in that of another is an injury not only to yourself but to the whole world. An Indian gentleman cannot be an Englishman. It is no use his trying. He only makes himself absurd. He can be something quite as good if he will cultivate his own talent; but he has not our talent. He is not an Englishman, and only an Englishman by birth has thatcamaraderiewith other Englishmen that is essential. Even a Frenchman or a German would not have it. Therefore it would be impossible to place Indian civilians in places where co-operation with military or military police-officers would be essential.
Further, it is not the English officers alone who create the difficulty. It is the men—English and native. Men of fighting races in India will not acknowledge the authority of Indians of other nationalities, even if supported by Government.
I will tell a story in illustration.
I was stationed nearly twenty years ago at a district head-quarters in Burma where there was a battalion of Military Police recruited in Upper India. There was also a young Mohammedan civilian who had passed into the Civil Service in London and been posted to Burma. He was an excellent fellow in his way.
It happened one morning that I rode down to the Battalion Commandant's house to see him on some matter. We discussed our business, and after it was finished the Subadar of the battalion, a great soldierly Sikh, came in. He and the Commandant talked for a while, and when he was leaving E. said:
"By the by, Subadar Sahib, we are coming up this evening to the range to do a little firing. Send up the marker and four rifles."
"Fourrifles?" queried the Subadar.
E. nodded.
"For whom?"
"For the four Sahibs," said E.
The Subadar counted. "The Deputy Sahib, Huzoor (E.), Hall Sahib, and who else?'
"Oh," said he, "Mahommed V. Sahib," naming the Indian civilian.
The Subadar turned away with a gesture of scorn.
"A sahib? he?" he growled.
Now suppose this Indian civilian had grown up into charge of a district and had to direct or go with these men into action? What would happen?