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 of your arresting 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.