There had been hitherto no leisure and no need to give much thought to the tribes of Chins and others inhabiting these hills. It had been suggested at an early period that Burma should send a party through the Chin country to meet another from the Bengal side, with the design of opening up communication from east to west and making a through road.
I was opposed to this project, and besought2 the Viceroy to disallow3 it. I looked upon it as a certain way of rousing the Chins before we were ready to deal with them. A few days before the end of 1887 Lord Dufferin telegraphed his agreement with my view. In a letter which followed, he wrote: "When the idea was originally proposed, I allowed the matter to be taken in hand with some hesitation4, as I felt that it would probably prove a premature5 endeavour, and I saw no special reason for embarking6 on luxurious7 enterprises of the kind while the main work on which we are engaged is still incomplete. For God's sake let us get Burma proper quiet before we stir up fresh chances of trouble and collision in outlying districts."
Of the wisdom of this doctrine8 there was no doubt. And no one could have been more anxious to avoid new difficulties than I was. The Chins, however, forced our hands, and before the rains of 1888 it was clear that it would be impossible to ignore them. It was foreseen from the first that the occupation of Upper Burma must bring us into conflict with half-savage9 or altogether savage tribes who occupied the mountains on three sides of the province; and no doubt when it was decided10 to annex11 the kingdom the responsible authorities had this matter in their minds.
From the first occupation of Mogaung the isolation12 of that post and the difficulty of reinforcing it, especially in the rains, was a source of disquiet13. I had lost no time in asking that some mountain guns should be attached to the Mogaung battalion14 of military police, and that a survey for an extension of the railway to the north of the province should be undertaken. The guns were readily granted. To give life to the railway project several departments in India had to be persuaded, notably15 Finance and Public Works. When their consent had been obtained the Government of India had to move the Secretary of State to sanction the work and to grant the money for it. The survey was started in 1890, and some progress, which may be characterized without injustice16 as deliberate, had been made before I surrendered Burma to my successor in December of that year. The line to Myitkyina, three hundred and thirty-one miles, was opened in 1895.
These frontier matters have been dealt with in separate chapters of this book. They are referred to here to show the change which had come over the province. The area[102] of administration was extending rapidly—more rapidly than our resources in men.
Before the end of 1888 the interior of the province ceased to give much cause for anxiety, although it cannot be described as altogether restful. Daylight had appeared in the districts of the Northern and Central Divisions, where the outlook had been darkest. And in some of the southern districts, Minbu and Myingyan (in which was now included Pagan), and in Pakokku, as well as in the whole of the Eastern Division, the disturbances17 had ceased or were confined to difficult forest tracks in which the remaining gangs had taken refuge.
The Magwè district, as it was now called (the township on the left bank of the river, which had before belonged to Minbu, had been transferred to the Taungdwingyi district, and the headquarters moved to the river town of Magwè), was a source of trouble and sorrow. Nothing seemed to succeed there. Sir Robert Low's warning that this would be the last stronghold of dacoity or organized resistance was justified18 by events.
The British public were becoming very weary of Burma and even of the abuse heaped upon the local government of the province. Tormented19 by the questions in Parliament, the Secretary of State would order us every now and then to report how we were getting on, like a child that has planted a flower and pulls it up occasionally to make sure that it is alive. Nevertheless those on the spot were not disheartened. The work had to be done, and all were determined20 to do it. Personally I had encouragement from every one in the province, civilian21 or soldier, for whose opinion I cared. Lord Dufferin's kindness and support were never wanting. He understood well the nature of the task. He was satisfied with the work done, and his confidence in our success was firm.
Writing to me on April 2, 1888, he expressed his satisfaction with our work and with what had been done, in terms which are too flattering to be repeated by me.
The constant recurrence22 of small encounters, small successes, and occasionally small disasters, was very wearisome at the time to all of us, and would be as fatiguing23 to the reader as to me to relate. I will give the history of some[103] cases, which will be enough to explain how the province settled down. It will be remembered that the Village Regulation became law in October, 1887. It took some time to get the district officers, magistrates24 as well as police, to make themselves acquainted with it, and still longer to induce some of them to make use of its provisions.
In the summer of 1888 the country generally had improved much. Few of the big Bos, or leaders of gangs, were left. But in some districts there was not merely a system of brigandage26; it was a system, a long-established system, of government by brigands27. The attacks on villages, the murder and torture of headmen and their families, were not so much the symptoms of rebellion against our Government as of the efforts made by the brigands to crush the growing revolt against their tyranny.
Hence it came about that in districts where there was little activity on the part of British officers, and where the chief civil officer failed to get information, very little was heard of the dacoits, simply because the people were paying their tribute to the leaders, who did not need to use coercion28.
Sagaing was one of the worst districts in this respect. It had been under the domination of brigands for years before Thebaw was dethroned. It was held by a score of dacoit leaders, who had a thousand men armed with guns at their call. Each had his own division, in and on which he and his men lived, leaving the villagers alone so long as they paid their dues, and punishing default or defection with a ruthless and savage cruelty that might have made a North American Indian in his worst time weep for human nature. It was brought home to us by hard facts that the question was whether the British Government, or what may be called the Bo Government, were to be masters. The people were, everything considered, wonderfully well off. They found our officers ready to accept their excuses and to remit29 taxation30, or, at the worst, to enforce a mild process of distraint or detention31 against defaulters. On the other side were the Bos, with fire and sword, and worse if their demands were refused or if aid in any form was given to the foreigners. If the people would have given us information, the dacoit system could have been[104] broken up in a very short time. As they would not, the only course open was to make them fear us more than the dacoits.
In Sagaing no measures hitherto taken had made any visible improvement. Persuasion32 had been tried. The display of a strong military force occupying the country in numerous posts had no effect. The soldiers seldom saw or heard of a dacoit. The experiment was made of allowing influential33 local Burman officials to raise a force of armed Burman police on whom they could depend. This succeeded in some cases. But on the whole it failed. The Burmans gave up their guns to the first gang that came for them, or allowed them to be stolen. We could not afford to arm the enemy. I came to the conclusion that the Deputy Commissioner34 would never get his district into order.
Colonel Symons, working with Mr. Carter, had done very good service in reducing the troublesome country of Pagyi in the Lower Chindwin into order (see p. 85). I asked Sir George White to let me have Colonel Symons's help again. He readily agreed. I sent him, with Mr. Carter, to put Sagaing in order, giving Mr. Carter full powers under the Village Regulation and ample magisterial35 powers, but reserving the ordinary administrative36 work to the Deputy Commissioner. At the same time, Mr. Herbert Browning, Assistant Commissioner, was posted to the Ava subdivision to work with Captain Knox, of the 4th Hyderabad Cavalry37.
The Sagaing military police battalion was placed under Colonel Symons's orders, and thus unity38 of command was assured.
Captain Raikes was at this time acting39 as Commissioner of the Central Division, in the absence of Mr. Fryer, who had taken leave. Captain Raikes was a man who knew Burma well, and was keen and energetic in his work. He came to the conclusion, and Colonel Symons agreed with him, that the severest pressure must be put on the villagers.
A great obstacle in our way was, as has been said, the refusal of the villagers to assist us. But an equal obstacle was their zeal40 in giving assistance and information to the[105] brigands. The powers of the Village Regulation had been used elsewhere, under my instructions, to remove persons who gave assistance in any way to the dacoits, and with excellent effect. The proposals now made to me by Colonel Symons and Captain Raikes went beyond anything hitherto done. They represented that so long as the relatives and sympathisers of the brigands remained in their villages, no progress was possible. The gangs would be fed and furnished with immediate41 news of the movements of police or troops, while no assistance would be given to us. The people themselves told our officers that they could not help us. If they did, the dacoits' relatives informed against them and their lives were taken. Hardly a day passed without some murder of this kind.
It was proposed, therefore, to issue a proclamation to all villages believed to be in league with the dacoits, informing them that unless the men belonging to the village who were out dacoiting surrendered within a fixed42 time, all their relations and sympathisers would be ordered to leave the village and would be removed to some distant place out of reach of communication. At first the people thought this was a mere25 threat, and little notice was taken of it. When they found that it was to be enforced, and that the relations and friends were actually being deported43, the effect was magical. Concurrently44 with this action the dacoit gangs were hunted incessantly45 from jungle to jungle and village to village, and severe fines were imposed on villages which harboured the outlaws46 or withheld47 information regarding their movements.
The results were better than I had dared to hope. Many dacoits surrendered in order to save their people from being removed. The villagers came forward with information, and put police and soldiers on to the tracks of the gangs. Small parties of dacoits could no longer move about without danger of being attacked and captured by the people they had preyed48 upon so long. Whole bodies of men came in and surrendered with their arms. At the end of 1888 few members of the Sagaing gangs were at large, and the district was reduced to order. In Ava the success was similar; and the districts of Yeu Shwèbo and the Lower Chindwin had likewise benefited from Colonel Symons's labours.
[106]
The credit of devising this system is due to Colonel Raikes. I hesitated at first to go as far as he advised. There were obvious reasons against moving people in this manner; but, if it was easy to see objections to it, it was very difficult to devise a milder measure that would be successful. It proved the most effective weapon in our battery for the restoration of peace and order. The people, of course, felt the pressure of these coercive measures. It was intended that they should feel it. One of the most notorious leaders in the Sagaing Division, Min O, after his capture, declared the fining under the Village Regulation had ruined him, because the villagers, finding themselves unable to meet both the Government demands and his, and finding that the Government could enforce payment while he no longer could, turned upon him and refused to give him asylum49. The moving and grouping of villages made it difficult for the gangs to get food, and compelled them to disband or surrender.
The Gazetteer50 of Burma, in the article on Sagaing (vol. ii., p. 188), published in 1908, records that "the strict observance of the Village Regulation ... gradually led to the pacification51 of the country. By the end of 1888 no less than twenty-six dacoit leaders, including Shwè Yan, had been killed and twenty-six captured, and most of their followers52 had come in and were disarmed53. Since that time the district has given no trouble."
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1 isolated | |
adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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2 besought | |
v.恳求,乞求(某事物)( beseech的过去式和过去分词 );(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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3 disallow | |
v.不允许;拒绝 | |
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4 hesitation | |
n.犹豫,踌躇 | |
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5 premature | |
adj.比预期时间早的;不成熟的,仓促的 | |
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6 embarking | |
乘船( embark的现在分词 ); 装载; 从事 | |
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7 luxurious | |
adj.精美而昂贵的;豪华的 | |
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8 doctrine | |
n.教义;主义;学说 | |
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9 savage | |
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
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10 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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11 annex | |
vt.兼并,吞并;n.附属建筑物 | |
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12 isolation | |
n.隔离,孤立,分解,分离 | |
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13 disquiet | |
n.担心,焦虑 | |
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14 battalion | |
n.营;部队;大队(的人) | |
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15 notably | |
adv.值得注意地,显著地,尤其地,特别地 | |
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16 injustice | |
n.非正义,不公正,不公平,侵犯(别人的)权利 | |
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17 disturbances | |
n.骚乱( disturbance的名词复数 );打扰;困扰;障碍 | |
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18 justified | |
a.正当的,有理的 | |
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19 tormented | |
饱受折磨的 | |
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20 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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21 civilian | |
adj.平民的,民用的,民众的 | |
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22 recurrence | |
n.复发,反复,重现 | |
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23 fatiguing | |
a.使人劳累的 | |
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24 magistrates | |
地方法官,治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
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25 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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26 brigandage | |
n.抢劫;盗窃;土匪;强盗 | |
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27 brigands | |
n.土匪,强盗( brigand的名词复数 ) | |
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28 coercion | |
n.强制,高压统治 | |
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29 remit | |
v.汇款,汇寄;豁免(债务),免除(处罚等) | |
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30 taxation | |
n.征税,税收,税金 | |
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31 detention | |
n.滞留,停留;拘留,扣留;(教育)留下 | |
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32 persuasion | |
n.劝说;说服;持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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33 influential | |
adj.有影响的,有权势的 | |
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34 commissioner | |
n.(政府厅、局、处等部门)专员,长官,委员 | |
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35 magisterial | |
adj.威风的,有权威的;adv.威严地 | |
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36 administrative | |
adj.行政的,管理的 | |
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37 cavalry | |
n.骑兵;轻装甲部队 | |
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38 unity | |
n.团结,联合,统一;和睦,协调 | |
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39 acting | |
n.演戏,行为,假装;adj.代理的,临时的,演出用的 | |
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40 zeal | |
n.热心,热情,热忱 | |
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41 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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42 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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43 deported | |
v.将…驱逐出境( deport的过去式和过去分词 );举止 | |
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44 concurrently | |
adv.同时地 | |
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45 incessantly | |
ad.不停地 | |
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46 outlaws | |
歹徒,亡命之徒( outlaw的名词复数 ); 逃犯 | |
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47 withheld | |
withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
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48 preyed | |
v.掠食( prey的过去式和过去分词 );掠食;折磨;(人)靠欺诈为生 | |
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49 asylum | |
n.避难所,庇护所,避难 | |
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50 gazetteer | |
n.地名索引 | |
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51 pacification | |
n. 讲和,绥靖,平定 | |
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52 followers | |
追随者( follower的名词复数 ); 用户; 契据的附面; 从动件 | |
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53 disarmed | |
v.裁军( disarm的过去式和过去分词 );使息怒 | |
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