CHAPTER XVII

Benefits of British Rule in Southern Asia

The missionary is one of the most interested students of government that can be found. Good or bad government affects his work vitally. Not only does good government give him protection from violence, but it gives settled peace to the people among whom he preaches, and thus provides the best conditions for the success of his calling. He can not wait for good government where it is not; but where he has the benefits of a settled state of society that is protected by wholesome laws promptly executed, he is one of the first men to recognize the priceless benefits of such government. Then he looks to the effect of government on the general conditions of the people. His views of government are not narrow. He looks ahead to the final effect on the mass of the people of the Government under which he lives. From every standpoint the missionaries whose fields lie under the British flag are best situated of all men of like calling in foreign lands. It therefore comes to pass that all missionaries, of whatever nationality, living in Southern Asia are almost a unit in praise of the Government. This Government, which has for more than forty years given protection to life, calling, and property of its nearly three hundred million diverse peoples, and that in unbroken peace, deserves the highest approval of all fair-minded men.

Life is as well protected in Southern Asia as it is in almost any land. The highest in the land and the meanest coolie are alike protected before the law. Where any man thinks he can insult or assault with even a little lordliness there is recourse to the law, and that within reach of the lowliest and the poorest, and he can get evenhanded justice for any injury, and that quickly. Perhaps in no land is the man of high and the man of low degree dealt with with more evenhanded and prompt justice than in Southern Asia. There are many social distinctions made in Asia, most of all in Southern Asia, peculiar to the land, and the Government adds its official distinctions and social ranks. But when it comes to the law and its administration in protection against all oppression and injustices, these social conditions have no place. It appears to be true that in a Briton’s mind there are two places where men of all stations have equal rights--before a court, and at the sacramental altar in the church. Every man is protected in the exercise of his religious faith, and must not be molested by any. To revile another’s religion is to bring down the swift penalty of the law.

It is possible for missionaries and other travelers to come and go anywhere in the Indian Empire without a thought as to their personal safety, as that is assured. Even unattended ladies make long journeys, and with only native carriers, sometimes travel in unfrequented regions and in the darkness; but so far as I can learn, there has not for many years been an insult offered to one of them. Some of our own workers live and travel in remote regions, even on the extreme borders of the empire, and sometimes these are lone women; but we do not hear of even serious inconveniences to them on account of their isolation. This is due chiefly to the Government, which protects life, persons, and calling.

It is, therefore, not surprising that the missionaries are among the most devoted supporters of the British Government in Southern Asia. It is likely they would support any Government under which they would find themselves called to work. They would teach their converts loyalty and obedience to law. But it is a great gain to be able to say to all the peoples of the Indian Empire that the Government under which they find themselves is one of the very best the world has produced. And if it were necessary to say it, they could truthfully add, better than any possible Government by native rulers, better for themselves, and better for all people in the land. It is a great pleasure to American missionaries to acknowledge the good government of India, for in it they find many of the best principles in which they believe. So far as I can learn, this just tribute from the American missionaries is well nigh universal among them, and the older they are and the longer they have lived in any part of this great empire, the more confirmed they are in their views.

Of all the institutions of the Government that are most to be commended, the courts are perhaps the most notable. There are several features of these courts which are specially commendable. They are prompt to a degree. Long, vexatious delays over technicalities of law are most unusual. It is not infrequent that a serious breach of law is brought to account very soon, and finally settled. Certain it is that money and influence and the “tricks of lawyers” can not long delay final decision on any case. Then there is no crowding to the wall the poor man without influence or money to aid him. The poorest can sue as a pauper, and have his case heard in regular order with the rich man of high station. He can get as certain justice, based on evidence. Cases are on record in recent years to illustrate how the socially high and even the official class have been rebuked and punished at the plaint of the lowliest in the land. They would be well worth recording if their publication would not be understood as too personal. It is this absolutely even-handed justice that has called out the comment of the native of India, “The English judge is not afraid of the face of man.” No partiality is shown for race or condition.

The system of Government seems to be well worthy of study. There is the viceroy, and associated with him, but not limiting his powers, a Council representing the entire Empire. There are lieutenant-governors over provinces. Then there are chief commissioners over portions of the country that are not regarded of sufficient importance to have lieutenant-governors. Under both these officials the next officers in rank are commissioners over divisions, and these in turn have deputy commissioners under them who administer districts. Below the deputy commissioners there are several lesser officers, usually over townships, but having a wide range of duties. From viceroy down to deputy commissioners the officers have certain executive, or executive and judicial powers combined. The higher officers have also authority to some extent in military affairs.

The army is made up of British troops and native soldiers, with a great preponderance of the latter. There are also many belonging to the military police. The same division is made in the civil police. The police department is perhaps the most difficult branch of Government to keep efficient and free from scandal, but there are many worthy men in the police service.

In addition to the regular administrative officers mentioned there are departmental officers, such as an engineering corps, which has the care of all public works. There is the growing educational department and a medical department including care of prisons, hospitals, and a great forestry department, that conserves the valuable forests of the empire. There is also a department of marine with full official equipment.

There is a civil service system operating throughout all these departments of government, including even the most subordinate clerkships. The higher officials are usually brought out from some part of Britain, and have been taken into Government employ after the severest examinations. Their promotions are given by grade and service, allowing also for special promotions for distinctive service. Having been so placed that I have had to do with a wide range of these officials, in most departments of the service, it becomes a great pleasure to me to record the character of their official conduct as I have found it in personal dealing. In the first place, they almost without exception are men of courteous, gentlemanly manners. This alone goes far to smooth the way in official transactions. Then I have found them generally men who are very fair and even generous in dealings where public interests, missionary matters, or property have been dealt with. This is partly due to the system of aid given especially to schools with which both the Government and the missionary have to do, and partly due to fair dealing on general principles, which I am led to believe from an experience all over the province of Burma for a period of ten years, and from inquiries from others of longer experience, is a British characteristic. This is especially true of the better cultivated men. The snobbery of the uneducated Briton is equal to that of the American of the same class. In the whole range of my experience I have never met with other than manly treatment from officials but twice, and then these were not of the higher ranks, and one of them can not be said to be a Briton. If an officer might be disposed to be unfair, he knows that there is a superior above him that is ready to correct any abuse. But the whole system of Indian service is well worth study, for it is not a creation of a day, but the best fruit of England’s extensive colonial experiences. In this matter it is well worth study, especially on the part of America, which has now to enter upon the rule of large and distant possessions. It is also to be noted that the wonder of England’s Government is that she has been able to allow of a diversity of Governments in her several possessions suited largely to local conditions, so that no two of her colonies are entirely alike, and yet she has been able to give protection, justice, and the largest measure of liberty to each country that the people are able to utilize for their own good. In these respects it is only fair to say her system of Government over remote and diverse peoples is the best yet seen on this globe.

[Illustration: BURMESE FESTIVAL CART]

There is also a striking feature of the Government of municipalities in India. Municipalities have not wholly self-government, yet they are so ordered that the popular will has a representation, even when it retards the actual progress of the city, as it not infrequently does. The municipalities are governed by commissioners, about half of whom are elected by the people, and the other half are appointed by Government. The latter are not Government officers, however. They may be as democratic in their votes as any member of the municipal committee. But these commissioners are representative of the different native races, as well as the Europeans in the city. In a city like Rangoon there are several great race divisions that are recognized on the municipal committee, both elective and appointive. In the election of these commissioners appears one of the most extreme examples of the democratic principles that the writer knows of anywhere. Perhaps it has no parallel. In the case of the ballot, it is allowed freely to _all Europeans and Americans_ on exactly the same conditions. They, as aliens, never having become British subjects, and never intending to do so, _have the ballot the same as an Englishman_. This broad democracy has greatly surprised many Americans when I have told them of it. The alien has a right to hold the office of city commissioner, if elected, the peer of the native-born Briton. This is the broadest democracy found anywhere within the defined limits of franchise.

The Government has a vast system of railroads in India amounting to sixteen thousand miles, with many other extensions and new lines in prospect. These roads now reach nearly all the districts which could sustain them. They are sometimes built for military purposes, but they are mostly directed for the carrying of traffic in times of peace. The province of Burma, one of the later provinces to be thoroughly developed, is having railroads to all its principal sections, and some of these roads are being projected to the very borders. That to Kunlon is extended to the borders of China. They also talk of a line from Rangoon through Western China, and there is every likelihood of connections direct with Bengal. So the old world moves under the impetus of Western enterprise. The telegraphs attend the railway, and exist even far outside of railway lines to all parts of the empire and to foreign lands. Let it be remembered that probably none of these improvements would have been thought of in the country had not it been taken in hand by an enlightened and enterprising people from the West.

Great systems of canals have been constructed, and more than thirty million acres of land are irrigated, and famine in this area is forever forestalled. Larger plans are being suggested by the recent famine. The famine relief works constructed many tanks on land too high for irrigation from running streams.

Good pavements in cities and good roads have been made in the land universally. These roads are nearly all metaled and kept in good order.

Public buildings of the most substantial and imposing kind are built in all capital cities. The Government wisely erects buildings in keeping with its own governmental ideas, and with its declared intention of remaining in the land to work out its plans. The public parks and gardens are on an elaborate scale, and are enjoyed by everybody. The memorials to great men of India and the great men who have made India British territory are placed in all public gardens. Great men and great deeds are set before the world as they should be, that the world may emulate them. The latest design is to build a memorial to Queen Victoria in the city of Calcutta, to which many of the rajahs of India are subscribing. The building is to cost perhaps more than five million dollars, and while it is a great memorial to Queen Victoria, it is to be a museum of great men of India as well. There will be other memorials established in other cities of the Indian Empire also. The taxes of the Government are reasonable. They are mostly placed directly on the earning power of the individual, or tax upon land assessed in proportion to the amount of grain it produces, There is also a tax on houses in villages outside municipalities. The land tax is very just. If the land produces regular good crops, it is taxed accordingly. If there is a failure of crops, the tax is reduced or remitted. As land needs rest, it is allowed a tax at fallow rates, which is very light indeed. The income tax is collected chiefly in cities, but of all Government employees, beginning with the viceroy. This tax is two per cent per month. This is to be paid out of the monthly salary. But it is said this tax only reaches one out of three hundred and fifty of the native-born inhabitants of India.

The Government claims to own the land, very much as the American Government owns the public lands. But, of course, the greater part of this land comes into the ownership of the people, and is transferable as elsewhere in the world. In the comparatively rich province of Burma, where there has been until recently much of the very best land of the tropical world lying idle, grown into grass and forests--land that never was cultivated, the land is given out freely to would-be cultivators. They only have to show that they are prepared to cultivate it. They have to pay nothing but for its survey. When it is cultivated they get a title to it, and then they can sell it as the actual owners. If it is grass land, the cultivators are allowed one year exemption from tax. If forest land, ten years are allowed exemption. A more liberal plan could not be devised than this. It is just here that England’s policy in the country is shown. If a Burman asks for a piece of land, and a European, any Englishman indeed, asks for the same piece of land, the Burman will surely get it. One becomes more and more convinced that the policy of Government in India is to govern for the best interests of the Government. There is another great plan of Government to aid agriculture. The people of all parts of the Indian Empire are chiefly agricultural. They are like all Asiatics, great borrowers of money. They generally mortgage the crop by the time it springs out of the soil. The native money-lender demands as much as three per cent a month; but here the Government comes forward, and agrees to loan the agriculturalist money at six per cent a year, and allow him to repay it in partial payments. This is eminently fair, and any man can get it who can show that he can repay it, and can give two personal securities. This seems a very liberal proposition.

The Government has also devised a great school system to aid in popular education. The schools of Southern Asia have been almost entirely in the hands of the various religions of the land. The Government has undertaken to work out a plan by which a very large part of this education can be put under popular control, and yet be allowed to remain under the direction of the various religious communities that conduct schools. Of course, under the old order there was but a small part of the community allowed to go to school, and the teaching was of an inferior kind. Government would promote education and give a fixed standard. To do this they had to put the secular instruction of all schools under the Government, and allow the religious instruction to be carried out according to the ideas of every society concerned. So that we witness Mohammedan, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist schools, all drawing aid from Government, and all passing the same Government examinations in secular subjects, but each imparting its own religious instructions. To aid in this educational scheme, the Government will give grants in putting up buildings, in paying accredited teachers, and in giving grants to current expenses on passes secured in Government examinations. In addition, the Government has built up certain schools entirely under its control, where no religion is taught.

In all this it will be seen that the Government, in keeping with its declared purpose and position, is neutral in the matter of religion. It ought to be clear to all who will see it, that the Christian Church should avail itself of all this educational plan that is possible, so as to mold the minds of all the young in Christian principles. Nearly all mission schools are identified with this educational system, but there is opportunity for much more of the same kind of work.

There is another great and merciful arm of Government to be mentioned. In every municipality, and even in large villages, there is hospital treatment for all who need medical or surgical aid. All this is freely given to every applicant.

All cities and large towns have great hospitals where medicines and food and shelter in bad cases are given freely to men of all races and creeds. No disease is turned away, and no sick man denied attention. This charitable effort of Government is far-reaching in its beneficence. It is not so valuable as it might be, because it has a prejudice of the populace to deal with. But the amount of suffering that is relieved by Government in all the empire is enormous.

In cases of epidemics there is a Government order to fight the disease in an organized way. If it is smallpox, which is very prevalent, public vaccination is enforced. Cholera epidemics are taken in hand vigorously, water purified, and quarantine established, until the pestilence is put under control.

The last four years has called out all the agencies of a great Government to battle with the Bubonic plague and the famine. It is now more than four years since the plague began its ravages in India, and a little over three years since the famine began its course of devastation. Both of these dire visitations were grappled with from the start, and the battle is still being waged.

A competent board of physicians and a large force of skilled nurses were quickly organized, and they have been unremitting in their efforts, and many of these have fallen victims to their difficult and dangerous duty. A system of inspection was at once established on all railroads and steamship lines throughout India and along its coasts. Every traveler, irrespective of race or rank, has been examined by medical experts. Yet in spite of this precaution the deadly scourge has insidiously worked its way almost throughout the empire. But still the Government grapples with the pestilence. One can feel something of its terrors when it is noted that ninety-four per cent of all who are seized by the plague die. Six hundred thousand have died of the plague in five years. The greatest hostility has been shown at times by the native population, in opposing the most necessary plague regulations.

With plague almost all over the empire, the Government had at the same time to undertake a most extensive plan for relieving a famine that was ever undertaken by any Government in human history. The famine had only one immediate cause--the lack of rain. The greater rains over almost all India occur between June and September. For years on overlapping territory the rains failed, or were deficient. The world knows the story. One-fourth of the nearly three hundred millions of this population of the empire were in the terrors of famine, with its slow starvation of man and beast, with its attendant cholera, plague, and other diseases. It is worthy of cordial recognition and perpetual memory that this gigantic specter was met by a Christian Government. It was not a Mohammedan or Hindu people which fought back this monster calamity, but a Government and a people whose sympathies were Christian. The Christians hurried to the relief of those of non-Christian belief and alien people, and hardly thought of their race or religion. They only knew they were starving communities of fellow-beings, and they put forth supreme efforts to relieve their hunger and other ills due to the famine. Yes, this was done by a Christian Government, aided by private Christian beneficence of distant lands, while their own co-religionists, having money in many cases, owning nearly all the grain in the empire, enough to have fed all the hungry at every stage of the famine, gave practically nothing for famine relief! They held their feasts, organized their tiger hunts, looked on the dance of the impure nautch-girl, and reveled while their people starved and died, or owed their life to a foreign race of the Christian faith.

The Government of India spent $92,650,000 on famine relief during 1899 and 1900. The relief works were open nearly two years before that, and help on a large scale continues still. This is the most gigantic effort of all human history to meet a great national calamity. Strange that these noble and statesman-like efforts should have been belittled by any, much less by some who should have known better.

The census of 1901 has been gathered, and these columns of figures tell their sad story of suffering and death in the famine districts. Of India’s two hundred and eighty-six millions of ten years ago, sixty-six millions were residents in native-protected States. The census of 1901 shows that British India increased its population by ten millions, while the peoples of the native States decreased three millions. British territory increased its population by four and one-half per cent, and the-native States decreased by four and one-half per cent.

A close inspection of the figures shows the decrease to be largely due to the famine. What would have been the death-rate but for the English Government’s immense relief?

The missionaries worked hand in hand with the British officers, and I have never heard that either has ever spoken except in words of praise of the other’s labors. This proves that good Governments and faithful missionaries are invaluable to each other.

A crowning proof of the good government of Britain in India, is in the fact that her population does not migrate to any adjacent State where there is limited or unlimited native rule. But from all such States there is a steady stream of immigration pouring into British territory. None of India’s peoples migrate in any numbers to any Oriental or Occidental country, but from every Oriental land there are immigrants to sojourn or to settle in India under the justice, protection, and peace of British rule.

The tropical world is fast coming under Western domination. These lands must be lifted by new blood from the North and West, and must serve the needs of our race. While this process is going on, the world can afford to be happy over the fact that so large a part of the tropical countries is under British rule.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.

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The first illustration is the cover. The illustration on the Title Page is a photograph of a woman leaning against a cocoanut tree (it is the leftmost part of the illustration on page 45 of this eBook). The four captionless illustrations are identical decorative tailpieces.