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INDISCH , GENOOTSCHAP .
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VERGADERING VAN 7 DECEMBER 1934.
Blz. 341-356
"Administration in Burma and Java. Some points of similarity and contrast."
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'S-ORAVENtiAOE
MARTINUS NIJHOFF 1935'
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INDISCH GENOOTSCHAP.
VERGADERING VAN 7 DECEMBER 1934.
De Voorzitter, prof. dr. J. H. Boeke, opent te aoht ure n.m. de vergaderin'g. Een woord 'Van bijzonder welkom richt hij tot den spreker en de -leden van de Vereeniging Neder'land-Engeland, die wel aan de uitnoodiging van het Indisch Genootschap, tot het hij- wonen van de te houden voordracht, gevolg hebben. willen geven.
De notulen van de vorig'ei Ibijeenkomst worden vervolgens goed- gekeurd.
De Voorzitter ,geeft daarna het woord aan den heer
J.
S. Furnivall, Late Commissioner of Settlements and Land Records, Burma, tot het houden van diens voordracht betreffende:"Administration in Burma and Java. Some points of similarity and contrast."
When I was invited to address th is old and distinguished Society on the subject of our administration in Burma, I feit greatly honoured, but also rather embarrassed by the difficulty of the task.
Perhaps, however, I may best help you to understand our system by comparing it with yours. We s,hali find, I think, that they s,how in some respects a close resemblance, and in others a strong contrast, and I want to suggest that both the resemblance and the contrast are not merely fortuitous but significant.
One would expect to find a general resemblance. Burma, like Java, is a tropical country, recently brought into contact with the modern world, where Europeans have taken over the government, are developing the material resources, and have co me to recognize a moral responsibility for the welfare of the people. In both count- ries the task of Government is to promote agriculture, industry and commerce, both European and Native; to adjust the rival claims of Capital and Labour, Town and Country, Industry and Agricul- ture, in circumstances where the normal tension between these con- flicting interests is accentuated by a corresponding cleavage along racial lines; to build up a new social order in which Europeans and Natives may both find aplace, and, in short, to find solutions for all those problems which arise in what is termed a dualistic economy. It is nat surprising then that in both countries the course of development should follow the same general direction. It does, in fact run closely parallel; very similar problems emerge and - this deserves notice
- at very much the same time. We appointed a Director of Edu- cation in 1866, and you in 1867. We began to provide railways and irrigation at about the same time as you. We both started at the same time to build a popular credit service and to improve native agriculture, and of recent years we have both been facing the problem of responsible government. These developments arise obviously and directly out of our common entanglement in world economy. In both countries, also, this leads to the decay of the old social order, and an increasing complexity of administration, which multiplies office work and ties the official to his office tab Ie. De strijd tegen den papieren rompslomp is mentioned in the last number of the Koloniaal Tijdschrift, with the remark that you are continually appointing an officer or a Commission to cut down office work; so are we. And with the same result, that the Hydra grows another head. Dr. Meijer Ranneft tells how every year your officers spend half a month reporting what during the previous 11
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months they have seen, do ne and - reported; so do ours. It is strange how closely parallel we run. A few years back, in Burma as in Java, and for much the same reasons, there were circulars urging the importance of amalgamating villages. A little later, again for much the same reasons, there were circulars urging the importance of not amalgamating villages. One of the minor problems of a District Officer in Burma was to keep down the closing balance of his local funds; and in Java I found some of your local funds accumulating huge balances. A circular in Java emphasizing the importance of politeness to natives might al most have served for one of about the same date in Burma. Many official circulars, in fact, would serve for both countries with very littJe difference in the contents;and very little difference in the dates. Now that economy is so essen- tial, in Burma as In Java, we might perhaps save money by estab- lishing a common automatic .Secretariat, mcchanically grinding out Circulars for both countries; they would, of course, be in English, for all of you live, as it were, in a perpetual Pentecost and cnjoy more than a double porti on of the gift of tongues. Without going quite so far, it should at least be useful, if so many of our problems rise out of our common environment, to pool our know- ledge and experience; we ought to look outside Burma, and you should look outside Java.
But although I was impressed by the resemblance between our systems, I was impressed still more deeply by the contrast. The resemblance is superficial, accidental; the contrast is organic, essen- tia!. "That" you may reply, "we have always understood; one system is centralised, the other decentralised, lone is based on indirect rule, the other on direct rule; here is an obvious difference in organic structure which may be found in aWthe text-books". Nów I wish to suggest that this classification, if 1 may borrow an analogy fr.om Botany, is a Linnaean rather than a Natural Classification. So
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far as it is correct, and it is not quite correct, it is misleading, because it does not bring out the essential difference in their nature and vital principle. A good portrait teUs more about a man than the photo- graph and description in his passport, because theartist gives not merely a likeness but an interpretation of character; he siezes on its vital principle. A caricature may tell us more more than a por- trait, be eau se it emphasizes and exaggerates the essential character.
And I think we can learn something from the ordinary caricature of your system as a baboe, b ab 0 e, a nursemaid, and ours as a babu, ba b u, a clerk. These caricatures, I would suggest, point to a diff- erence between the two systems that is not merely accidental but cssential; a difference of vital principle, finding expression both in organic structure and in character and conduct.
Let us turn then to examine the difference between the two systems in organic structure. But I should first explain that I shall be describing our system as I knew it, before the era of reforms;
and also that in British India conditions vary greatly and my remarks are strictly applicable only to the Province of Burma.
for a Province in British India is far more independent than a Province in Netherlands India. It is a sm all matter, but symbolic, th at the Governor of Burma has his aides-de-camp and military body-guard and all the pomp and circumstance of your Governor- Genera\. Although the Army and Navy are common to the whole of India, each Province has its own Civil Service. The superior services are recruited in Europe for the whole of British India but, with a few exceptions, an officer, on ce posted to a Province stays there permanenty. All other services are recruited within the Province tor the Province. Half the revenue, or more, remains in the Province. Our basic laws, the Penal Code, the Criminal and Civil Procedure Codes, the Evidence Act and such like, are common to the whole of British India; but each Province has its own High Court and their legal interpretations of the Codes may differ con- siderably. And, like all the other Provinces, Burma has its own police regulations, its own land law, revenue law, fishery law, forest law, excise law, municipal law and village law. Let me take one instanee. Your Landrente Ordonnantie applies throughout Nether- lands India wherever landrente is collected, in Java, Bali, Borneo, Celebes or Timor. An officer of the Landelijk Inkomsten may be transferred from one island to another, but he will still apply the same system under the same law. Our land revenue system in Burma, however, is very different from that of any other Province of British India, and in many ways bears a closer resemblance to your system than to any of them.
Burma then, is a Province, but far more independent than any of your administrative units. It is over four times as large as Java and must be divided up for administrative purposes. In Burma Proper, excluding the Shan States there were, until quite recently,
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8 Divisions, each under a Commissioner. A Division contains 4 to 6 Districts each under an officer known in law and in the older Provinces (the title is significant) as Magistrate and Collector, but in .Burma gene rally termed a Deputy Commissioner. A District con- tains 2 or 3 Subdivisions, each under a Subdivisional Officer. A Subdivision contains 2 to 4 Townships, each under a Township Officer. We have no comprehensive administrative units correspon- ding to your District and Onderdistrict, but each Township contains élbout a hundred villages. I would suggest, as the very loosest of equations, that you may think of the Division as a Province; the District, our traditional unit of gewestelijk bestuur, as a Residency;
the Subdivision, as an Afdeeling with more than one Regency; and the Township, our traditional unit of plaatselijk bestuur, as a Regen- cy. The correspondence is fairly close iri area, but in population your Regency is c10ser to our District. In function and position our Commissioner resembles your Governor; the Deputy Commissioner may, with innumerable qualifications, be equated with your Resi- dent; but of the Subdivisional Officer and Assistant Resident, the Township Officer and Regent, one can say no more than that they are opposite numbers. But if you wil\ keep these equations, or rather collocations, in mind, you may find it easier to follow my remarks upon our system.
The tour ranks, Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner, Subdivi- sional Officer and Township Officer, are filled by officersof three distinct Services - Imperial, Provincial and Subordinate. Until recently the Imperial, or Indian Civil Service consisted almost entirely of Europeans; the Provincial Service was for Indo-Euro- peans, and the Subordinate Service for Burmans; the Indian Civil Servant was Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner or Subdivisional Officer, the Provincia! Civil Servant was Subdivisional or Township Officer and the Subordinate Civil Servant was a Township Officer.
You have a rather similar distinction in your A, Band C Scale appointments. But whereas we have three Services, you have on!y two, and - this is the important distinction - your two Services have different functions. Your European Civil Servant represents European princip!es and culture, looks after European interests, and in regard to native life does Iittle more than guide, help and super- vi se the native officers. Your Native Civil Servant is an influentia!
representative of the native community, looks after native affairs, and represents Government to the natives. This differentiation of functions is quite foreign to our ideas. When I first went to Burma every officer, from top to bottom, from the Commissioner to the Township Officer, exercised judicial functions, both civil and cri- mina!, and revenue functions; the difference between them !ay in the a~ea of their jurisdiction rather than in the character of their work. The organisation of our Civil Service is territorial; of yours, functional.
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That is only one instance of an essen ti al contrast in organic structure distinguishing your system from ours. Our high officers are eight Commissioners ruling territorial divisions and exercising the same functions over different areas; yours are six' Directors of Departments, exercising different functions over the same area. It is true that we also have Departments. But this is another word which we use differently. What we call a Department, you would call a Service. Your Department is something that we have not got in Burma; it is a group of Services presided over by a Director who is not only the administrative head for all these Services but deals also with all cognate matters. Here again your functional orga- Ilisation is more elaborate than ours. Your Secretariat, likewise, is practically a distinct branch of administration; ours is managed by officers from the executive side and it is a tradition that they should not stay in the Secretariat toa long. Even in your executive branch you pay homage to the principle of separating functions;
we give them to one officer as far, and for as long, as possible..
You may object that I am comparing Netherlands India as a whole with one remote and backward Province. But the objection does not cover all these facts. Moreover, even in 1854, when your administration was practically restricted to Java, you provided by law for Departments and Directors. About the same time, when our possessions in Burma were Iimited to Arakan and Tenasserim, each of them about the size of one of your Provinces, there was in each of them its own little administration, small but complete. In recent years you have been making experiments in territorial orga- nisation and we in functional organisation but, so far .as we have come together, it is from opposite directions, and in the main our organic structure is still territorial and yours functional. I wish to suggest that this c1assification is more correct than a c1assification distinguishing them as decentralised and centralised, and th at it expresses a difference of vital principle, a difference in their essen- tial nature which is apparent in the work they do, as a man's nature is apparent in his character and conduct.
One can best compare their work where they come most nearly in contact with the people; in the Subdivision and Township in Burma and in the Afdeeling and Regency in Java. But the Sub- divisional and Township Officer come in contact with the people quite otherwise than the Assistant Resident and Regent in Java.
When I questioned your officers about their work and found that none of them did anything that we should consider work in Burma, I recalled Chailley-Bert's description of Java as a Paradise for officials and feit Iike asking, "But whatever do you find to do all day?" However, it was not long before I realised that, if one of your officers should come to Burma, he also would feel Iike asking our Subdivisional and Township Officers, "But whatever do you
find to do all day?"
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I have explained that our Deputy Commissioner is officially Magistrate and Collector. Our officers are magistrates. So, you may say, are ours. They are - in a sense. I know that because I had the privilege of sitting on the Bench with one of your Assistant Residents. A native officer, the Fiscaal-Griffier, an officer unknown to us, was .sitting beside him; in Burma a Subdivisional or Town- ship Magistrate would sit alone. The accused was shown into Court and settled himself comfortably on a seat; in Burma he would' have been standing in the doek. There was no policeman in Court; in Burma policemen would have stood beside the doek. In Burma another policeman, the Court Prosecuting Officer, or a professional advocate ,would have conducted the case on behalf of Government;
there would probably, before a Subdivisional Magistrate, have been another advocate to represent the accused; a string of witnesses would have been examined and cross-examined; the magistrate would have taken down in his own handwriting the statements of the witnesses, and every question to the accused and all his answers would have been taken down as literally as possible in English and Burmese; the magistrate would have written a long order sum- marising the evidence and explaining his decision. But in Java there was nothing of all this; no witnesses were called and the trial con- sisted of a brief and apparently friendly conversation between the magistrate and the accused; the whole "record" was no more than a note scribbled in blue pencil on the charge-sheet to show the penalty imposed or other order passed. And he worked through his cases at the rate of 25 an hour. The whole procedure struck me as delightfully informal and efficient. But wh at surprised me chiefly was to find a European officer with some fifteen years service trying such petty cases and imposing penalties so insignificant;
ordinarily a fine of half a gulden, or even less.
In Burma an officer of the Indian Civil Service starts as a 3rd Class Magistrate; after six months he becames a 2nd class Magi- st ra te, and after another six months a I st Class Magistrate, with powers to impose a sentence of rigorous imprisonment for two years, and whipping. (Apparently your Code does not provide for whipping.) Af ter about five years he becomes a Deputy Commissioner and, as District Magistrate, can try any case not punishable with death, and impose a sentence of rigorous imprison- ment or transportation for seven years. Officers of the Provincial and Subordinate Services rise in the same manner, but more slowly;
most of them within a few years become Ist Class Magistrates and many become Special Power Magistrates with the powers of a District Magistrate. In many Districts, perhaps in most, a District Magistrate without a Special Power Magistrate to share his work would have to sit on the Bench day and night. A Subdivisional Officer is in headquarters for about 20 days a month and practically every day spends much of his time in trying cases; if he had no
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I st Class magistrates he would be unable to go on tour at all. The District Magistrate therefore does his best to induce the High Court to confer higher powers on his subordinates. In Burma all your Regents would be I st Class magistrates and most of them would have special powers to pass sentences up to seven years; practic- ally all your Wedanas would be I st Class magistrates and so would many of your Assistant Wedanas. Matters such as were tried by the Assistant Resident (if they came to 'Court at all) would be tried by unpaid Honorary Magistrates; in rural areas they would mostly be disregarded and the remaining few be dealt with by the Village Headman under the Village Act and not under the ordinary law. The Honorary Magistrates would not impose such trifling penalties as your Assistant Resident, and any Honor- ary Magistrate whose Records we re so scanty and informal would soon be removed from the Beneh.
Now, perhaps, you wil! understand why I find it difficult to take your Assistant Resident seriously as a magistrate. And your Regents and Wedanas can hardly be regarded as magistrates at all, though under the lnlandsch Reglement they have minor quasi-magisterial powers such as in Burma are entrusted to the ordinary Village Headman, the Loerah. Your officers are not - in our sen se - magistrates. On the other hand they are police officers, and ours are not. Our District Magistrate is he ad of the police, but the responsibility for police administration and for the detection of crime rests with the District Superintendent of Police, and neither the Subdivisional Officer nor Township Officer has any concern with police work. Here, then, is one significant distinction between the work of our officers and yours; our officers are magistrates, and yours are polieemen.
Let us pass on to Civil justice. Wh en I went to Burma, the Sub- divisional Officer was also Subdivisional judge, and the Towl1ship Officer was also Township judge, with jurisdiction (if I remember rightly) up to Rs. 2,000 and Rs. 500 respectively. Now the civil work is usually taken by officers of the same origin and standing who have specialised in civil judicial work. Your Assistant Resident has never been a civil judge. And I was astonished when one told me that he tried five or six civil cases a month. It appeared that people came to him for informal arbitration. That is unthinkable in Burma; it is even more surprising than the lack of formality in the magisterial procedure of your Assistant Resident. With us civil cases must go to civil courts, and sometimes it is necessary to reprimand junior officers for trying informally as revenue cases matters which are cognizable by a civil court. Your Regent and his subordinates have petty civil powers; but here again their powers are such as in Burma may be conferred on a Village Headman.
Then there is revenue work. Here there is same similarity between the work of your officers and ours. But their position and procedure
are very different. Your Treasuries are not under the Civil Service, but under the Finance Department. With us the Deputy Commis- sioner is personally responsible for his Treasury. On the Ist of each month he must personally verify the balance; count aIl the notes, and count or weigh the silver and copper. If a shortage should occur during his tenure of office, even if it be not discovered until some time after he has left the district, he must make it good out of his own pocket, unless he can prove th at he complied strictly with all the rules for safe custody and verification. In each Town- ship there is a Sub-Treasury and, in the absence of special arrange- ments, the Township Officer is in charge. During the revenue season he may be taking in thousands of rupees daily, but he is personaUy liable for any shortage.
You may not understand, however, what I mean by a revenue season. In revenue procedure, as in criminal and civil procedure, we are much stricter and more formal than you are. In Java people may pay in their revenue in such instalments as they Iike up to the 20th December; and nothing very much seems to happen if they do not complete their payments by that date. In Burma there is a fixed date for the payment of each tax. If any one faiIs to pay his dues within the time specified, the Headman must apply to the Township Officer much as if he were applying for the execution of a dec ree of a civil court. The Township Officer issues a formal Notice, then a distress warrant, and then, if the tax remain unpaid, he proceeds to execute the warrant by selling the goods or land of the defaulter. It should be observed th at the procedure is modeIled
"on that of a civil court. So, as far as possible, is all revenue pro- cedure; which inc1udes not only the collection of revenue, but also the disposal of applications for land for residence or cuitivatiop, the grant of advances for the expenses of culti- vation, and everything else which concerns the people in the capacity of tax-payers"
We have dealt with magisterial work, po:ice work, civil justice and revenue work - is there any other work for an administrative officer? We find in Burma that magisterial and revenue work do not"leave a Township Officer much time for other work. There are, however, a few odds and ends th at we lump together in wh at we caU the General Department. The Township Officer must see to the appointment of Village Headmen. He must also hqld alocal enquiry in the event of a serious crime, not with a view to detecting the criminal, but to ascertain the responsibility of the village for not preventing the crime or producing the crimina!. And that brings us to the end of the really important duties of a Subdivisional or Town- ship Officer. His day's work is over. And you will notice that the day's work of an Assistant Resident or Regent has hardly begun.
I have said nothing yet about klachten, complaints, nothing about vergaderingen, nothing ab out the supervision of cultivation, nothing
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about the inspection of schools, vi \lage inspection and welfare work in genera\.
Let us take these in turn, and firstly klachten. When I asked the Manager of aVolksbank if the Headman or Local Committee did not charge a fee for reporting favourably on an application for a loan, he replied, as if disposing of the matter, "But there would be a complaint !" I sawa whole bundie of these complaints made over to a junior officer for enquiry; in Burma each would have been a separate "case", with a diary of the proceedings~ an exal11i- nation of the complainant and respondent, a summary of the state- ment of each witness, and a reasoned order, such as the appellate authority couid confirm, alter or reverse, very much, you see, the procedure of a Civil Court. None of the complaints were stamped;
in Burma most of them would have born an eight anna stamp as Court-fee. But, still more surprising, they were written by any one and every one; even by local nationalist politicians. "One good thing about politicians" he explained, "is that they encourage people to bring complaints and help to write them". I cannot imagine that bein-g regarded as a vütue in .Burma. And rin any case we expect petitions to be written hy a professional advocate or a Hcensed petition writer. You wi\l observe that w.here you talk 'of complaints, we talk of peNNons; applications to the appropriate officer to take certai,", action, and grant a certain remedy to which the petitioner is entitled in law. In the ordinary course we do not accept verbal complainls, but every officer is supposed to receive petitions in. open Court at a fixed hour daoily. In almost ·every matter, t,he petitiemer is entitled to he represented by an advocate, as also ·is the respon- dent, if any. And in every matter, so far as the nature of the case allows, the procedure is modeHed 'On that of a civil or criminal Court.
But you may be t,hinking of our advocate as someone Ii~e your wakiI, or procroL bamboo; or el se perhaps as a lawyer who has b'een to some school Hke your Law School or Law High School. But he is neither; ,he ,is something between t,he two. He is a Native, often ignorant of Euglish, who has passed an'elementaryexamination in law. You, fortunate people, do not know what they are. In Burma we are flooded with t,hem, and we 'need no one ·else, politician or otherwise, to encourage people to come to Court w'Ïth their petitions.
Your people, of course, do not 'go to Court with a petition.; they go to a man with a compla'int. With t,his explanation I thinok you will not misunderstand me if I say that we have '00 complaints.
Vergaderingen? We have no vergaderingen. (Nor have we, Iike you, telephones in local offices). The supervision. of cultivation?
I once heard a Burman villager say "Any one can leam to read and write, but you must be bom and bred a cultivator". And when I found your officers telling your people when and ,how to cuJt.ivate, I wondered what the Burman would 'hav·e thought of them. Your
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oHicers fundion as sohool attendance officers. WHh us, an off1cer may, if he Hke and can find time, inspect a village school; 'but IlOthing will happen if he doesnt. Village Inspection? The time of Township Officer on tour is occupied with really important matters, wïth crime anä revenue; ,he may, if he Iik!e and can find time, discuss village affairs -in general, but nothing will 'happen H ,he doesnt. We have a Vmage Headman, but no Villag-e Government, no ViIlage Treasuty, no Village Meeting, no Poetoesan. Ido not say that we have na viHage ,inspection, but your officers would probably think th at we 'have none. One of your Assistant Wedanas described ,his work. "Sanitation was improved" he said, "I got the people to found schools and :build bazaars and provide a Polyclinic. And I W()uld not permit bambOe} 'bazaars; if t,heycould not make walls I took care that vhe posts were of sulbstantial timber and that the roof was sound. I even· planted flow er gard'ens, a thing that practically no W·edana 'has done; and it was all my own 'idea without pressure from above". I have heard your European ·officers described as Social Engineers and your Native CiV'i1 Servants as Welfare OffiCers, and the terms are j u stif i ed. As I went rounod your vi.JIages and saw the lnfinite pains you take to con serve village society and build up sodal welfare I found myself .humming a tune. It was a 'hymn· tune.
GréiduaHy the words came back to me:
Can a mother's tender care Cease toward the dhild s'he :bare?
Yes, she may forgetful be, Yet 'will I remember thee.
I thought of the hours anod days we spend on the Bench, Iistening to advocates (trying to mislead us), laboriously taking down evidence (much of ,it false evidence) and sendin'g poor unfortunafes to, jail, and I was Wied wHh envy and admiraüon of your officers who ;have the privilege of giving t,heir Iife to constructive social work as missionaries of western civ:ilisation. Truly, I thought, with ChaH- 1ey-Bert but in a different sense, "Java is a Paradise for officials" . .vour Regent can look round his Regency and say "si monumentum quaèris, circumspice". Our energetic Township Officer reviewing nis
work' would take you to his Record Room and point to Alps and
Himalayas of completed cases; here, he would say, "si monumentum quaeris, circumspice" .
. In your offices of ,equal standing 1 found no such mountains of
proceedings. T:here would not 'have been room for th·em. I remember visiting a Wedana. A broad drive throug,h a wa-lied park of several acres took us to a roomy house with a spacious pandoppo or Aud'Îence Hall. In one corner of the park there were two outhouses.
One was a garage, the smaller one I took to be a bicycle shed. But it was not a bicycle shed; it was his office. I do not wish to guarantee the' -details of this picture, but it represents çom~çtly the ~en~rÇlt
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impression that I gathered everywhere. I have .heard and read eom- plain.ts about your .office accommodation, and' ~he buildings at Bandoeng and Soerabaya show that t,hings are ohanging. But until within the last few years you ,had large houses and little off,iees; :in Burma we 'have large offices and little hous'es. Your system is, or has been, personal; ours, mechanica!.
I say your system, -in eomparison with ours, is or has been personal. But it still is, and must be, so .Jong as it centr-es rouná the Regent, even if ~n futur'e the Regency Council should ,gain vitaliTy and strength. Let me give one iIluminating example. A Regent pointed casually to some trees. A few years ago, he explained, the people ,had been allowed to cut down trees. He noticed that this was causin'g erosion, told the people to plant trees, and showed them the best method of planting_ And it was done. With us a Towns'hip Officer does not stay in a place for more than a f'ew months ; 1he would not notice theerosion. lf it 'were brought to nis noticehe mig,ht mention the matter in his diary, the S. D. O. mÏJght eomment on the matter and the D. C. might send an extract to thelocal Fores!
Officer. Then, you may think, something would be done. Not yet;
first of all a good deal must be written. The Forest Officer might hold an enquiry and various Departments ..v-ould play battledore and shutUecock with the matter discussing what should be done. I do not know myself what could be done, and the odds are that nothing would :be done. TJJe Reg'en,t saw what was necessary, and did it.
T,hat, I suggest, ,is ilIuminating. For me at least it thr,eW' a new light on all that I had read and 'heard about Decentralisation~ It had not occurred to me, and I do not -rememiber noticing any suggestion that you are, and always -have been, far more decentralised than ever we could 'hope to be ,in the days ibefore Reform~ For your Regent does, to some extent, stand outside th-e machine. In virtue of ibis permanent residence, this rank and his position, ordinarily ~nlherHed,
he is in his own person aneffilbodiment of social will, and supplies driving power to the administrative maohinery. All our o.ffieers are part of the machine. lf a man ,is told by a Towns'hip Offieer to do something that he does not want to do, he can appeal to the Deputy Commissioner and then go on revision to the Commissioner. These may confirm the order of the Township Officer; prov,ided of course that H 'is based on law and that ,his procedure has been legally oor- reet. But by that time the Township Offieer 'wiII Ihave !been trans- ferred and there wil! be OiO one to see that the order is earl'ied out.
And your Regent !has a W'hole staff of Wedanas and Assistant Wedanas to help ihim, constantlyon tour seeing that the villages are clean and tidy, enquil'ing into ,epidemics of men, and cattle, telling people when and 'how to cultivate their fields, and funetioning as Sohool Attendance Officers. There are the Assistant Residents and Controleurs to supervise, assist and help them, and the Village Treas- uries to pay the piper. They must all of them have great fun spending
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other peoples' money. I mày have'!been exceplionally fortunate in the officers
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met, but your European off.icers as Social Engineers and your Native Officers as Welfare Workers aH seemed to enjoy t-heir work. Th.eycomplained of their office boxes and correspondence and the pressure of routine; thàt 'fhey were becomirug mere instru- ments of "gezag". But the Registers and the procedure in general seemed to me delightfully informal. I do not know that you could teàch us much in administrative efficiency; but our system is not, like yours, a tremetidously powerful instrument of government, powerful in the old days for swelling the batig slot and powerful now for building up social welfare.For aH the work to WIh<ich all~hese officers devote most of theh time and energy we regard in Burma as pastime for the leisure
·hours of busy mag.istrates. Vet, somehow we !have cattle pounds, slaughter houses, ferries, bazaars, schools, hospitais, which in many re"spects are on' muoh ~he same scale as your insHtuHons ~n Java.
How do they come into existence, and how' are they maintained?
When we annexed Upper Burma in 1886 it was a populous State With . a complex sodal ·order not very different from that 'Of Java.
But Lower Burma, which we took over in two instal.ments in 1826 and 1852, Was Iittle better uhan a waste of swamp and focest. An imaginary s.ketch of ~he evolution of a Lower Burma District will perhaps ·explain· thow we arrive at results similar in many ways to yours, but by a very different method. The first duty of the D. C.
was to mainta'in law and order. 'f:he maintenance of 'lawand order led to an . increase in cultivation. All culHvated land pays ,land revenue, and on t-his a cess of 10 % ,is ,oharged W'hich ~he D. C. can apply to ,his District Fund for local requirements. As population grows and cuUivation expands there is an increase 'Of crime, espe- cially of cattIe theft. Cattle pounds and slaug;hter houses ar,e useful to prevent theft, and mayalso be a sou ree of profit. Cattle pounds are n'Üt very profitabIe and are usuaJoly allotted to tlhe Village Head- man:. But the keeper of a slaug;hter house may mak'e quite a ,good in'come. T,he poli ce may suggest th at in a certain village a slaughter house would be useful; or some private individual may petition for perm\ssion to establiS'h one; or a Town'Slhip or Sulbdivisional om,cer may recommend that one should be ,establis'hed. Tlhen a Iicense to set up a slaug;hter house will be auctoioned or given on a fixed fee, anod the proceeds will g;o t0 swelI the District Fund. With a 'growing population people will move about more and will need ferries to cross flhe streams. T:hen, as occasion arises, the rig,ht to keep a publjc ferry under suitable regulafions will Ibe aucfioned, and more money wHl come ,in to the District Fund. Similarly, obazaars will graduaHy be provided' in thelarg,er viIlages, anod, <in doue course, furnish the District Fund wiuh a large part o,f Hs rev·enue. Of ten, and pel"haps as a rule, these institutions, slaughter 'houses, ferries, ba- zaars, are due in the first instance to private initiative; they are
353
expected to pay their way, and if they do ,not yield a profit they will be abolished. The principle on which we act is th at if peoplt:
will not pay for a thing they do n'Üt want it. Sohools come ·into existence in a rather ·similar way. Fortunately we have a tradition of literacy. Most of the boys spend at least some time in the monastic schools, where they can learn to read and write, and perhaps the elements of arithmetic. But they can learn to read and write quicker and better in lay schools under government supervision. In the larger villages there will probably be some one to teach them who will be glad to earn a few ru pees as village schoolrnaster. The Native Sub- Inspector (Opziener) will try to get him a grant from the District Fund. A village with a school and a bazaar may be a sufficiently important centre for a Police Station and the Police will ask for a small hospital where hurt cases can be treated. If the village still grows it will need better sanitary arrangements and better roads, and require more money than the Deputy Commissioner wiJl wlsh to spare out of his District Fund. He will therefore (probably despite the protests of the people) ask the Commissioner to get it notified as a Town, with a nominated Town Committee and restricted rights of local taxation. If it grows still larger it will become a Munici- pality with a partly elected Committee. When a District is equipped with these institutions the Deputy Commissioner need only go through his budget once a year; see how much is required for the maintenance of existing institutions and then, within the limits prescribed by Government and with the sancti on of the Commis- sioner where necessary, he can allot the balance as he sees fit.
Thus, by a quasi-natural process, by the play of supply and demand, we arrive at very much the same results as you - witli very much Ie ss work and worry. But the principle is not the same, the method is not the same and the results are not quite the same.
Your policy is, professedly, ethical; ours, practical. These are not mere catchwords. You try to give the people what they ought to want. we are content to give them what they wiJl pay for. Your method is one of personal influence, gentie pressure, zachte dwang, prenfalz a/oes; we rely on the economie motive, the desire for gain, working within the limits of the law. The results, I admit, are not quite the same. Our villages compare very badly with yours in res- pect of hygiene and roads; it is hardly an exaggeration to say that, outside the larger towns, until the coming of the motor-car, we had no roads. People do not want disease and they would rather go dry-foot than through mud. But no one can make any money out of hygiene or roads, and not much can be done by a private indivi- dual in respect of either. The want for these, and for many· other things, is a social want. On the ethical system you aim at organising social demand; on the practical system we neglect such wants until they threaten to create a public nuisance. Your system works differ- ently from ours.
I
~
, Let me recapitulate the main points of difference. Our officers a.re magistrates; yours are policemen and welfare officers. Our methods are repressive; yours are preventive. Our procedure is formal and legal; yours, informal and personal. Our Civil Service
is
an administrative machine; yours in an instrument of government.Our aim is negative - to suppress disorder; yours is positive - to maintain order. Order - it is a word ,we both use frequ,entIy, but with
a
significant difference of context. We talk of "lawand order"arid you of "rust en orde"; but, in the absence of a common active social conscience, it is ha~d to distinguish between law and the letter of the law, and between rust and the placidity of a good baby in its perambulator. The ~aricature which depicts your system as a baboe, a nursemaid, and ours as ,a babu, a derk, does emphasize a difference in vita! principle. Vou try to keep a man from going wrong; we make it unpleasant for him jf he does go wrong. Vou believe in protection and welfare; we believe in law - and Iiberty.
It would be interesting to speculate on the reasons for the differ- ence between your system and ours. Many factors have contributed, but to find the original point of cIeavage we must, I think, go back to the 12th century and the birth of the English Common Law. Vou have inherited from Roman Law a positive conception of kingsfiip.
We have been taught to look on Government as the referee in a boxing match, whose function it is hold the ring and see that the combatants fight according to the rules, to give a fair field and no favour. And wh at is good enough for us we not unnaturally think is good enough for Burmans. Thus your idea of government is different from ours. Government is another of the terms, Iike Pro- vince, Department, District, that we use with a different meanIng.
There is a difference of vital principle which must necessarily be reflected in a difference in organic structure. Again, we have the tradition of a landed aristocracy. The Report of 1803 argues that it was easier for the English in British India than for the Dutch in Java to obtain revenue from taxation rather than from ,trade because British India was different from Java; I suspect that there was more difference between the traditions of England and the Netherlands than between the conditions of Britsh India and Java, and th at to depend mainly on land revenue was more in accordance with our ideas than with yours. Also, we made most profit by depending on land revenue. Vour colonial reformers appealed to the authority of Adam Smith' because his arguments we re convincing. Adam Smith appealed to us because he was a native product of our country and conditi0ns~ At that time we were a generation or more ahead of you in commercial anè industrial methods. We had goods to sell at a price with which no one could compete; and we could sell more if t\:le .consumers were !eft free to grow what paid them best. Vou found it necessary to direct production and as a logical consequence had to govern the' country through its native rulers. This gave a
355
strong government to which, under your tradition of Roman Làw, you were naturally inc1ined. The difference is not merely that one system is more centralised than the other. In respect of function we are more centralised; and every Regent is far more autonomous than any officer of ours. You apply Adat law, we have invented British- Burmese-Buddhist law. But these are minor points. The antithesis between a centralised and a decentralised system implies that government means the same thing in both terms. And that is not the case. Our conception of the functions of. government is com- paratively simple and, just as animals low down in the scale of life multiply by fission, or by founding colonies, so we tend towards territorial organisation. We are now budding off the Shan States as a new Province. But you seem to find Dr. Colijn's policy of setting up large Provinces in Sumatra, Borneo and so on, as difficull as it is for a vertebrate to reproduce by fission ; you expect more of government and tend therefore towards functional organisation.
Here then I offer for your consideration some reflections on our systems of administration. In many ways they are alike; mainly because we are faced with similar problems. In other ways they differ; mainly because a deep-rooted difference of principle, finding expression in organic structure and shaping one on territorial and the other on functional lines, compels us to approach our common problems from different angles and to employ different methods in solving them. If the difference is so deep-rooted, littJe can be expected from copying one another, dressing up your system like ours, or our system like yours; but there is all the greater likelihood that we can each obtain from the other suggestions which we cart adapt with profit to our own requirements.
I have tried to abstain from criticism of either system and have born in mind the remark of Gil Bias quoted by Chailley-Bert, "Je ne trouve point 'de tout mauvais que vous me disiez votre sentiment.
C'est votre sentiment se ui que je trouve mauvais. rai été fudeuse- ment la dupe de votTe intelligence hornée". If I have trespassed, ·1 hope you will ascri:beit to my limited intelligence. It ris not easy to grasp the working of a foreign, 'Ïnstitution, and ~here are probabTy things on which I have 'gon·e wrong, and others wrhere I ,have faiTed to make my m~aning c1ear. But I have attempted to compare the two systems and point the difference between them without criticising them or suggesting that either is the hetter.
That is a question wlhich time may settle. Eaoh system ,has its own advantages, and disadvantages. 1 suspect that H a Burma'n came to live in a Javan village he would say "How quiet ! How restful !", and then, after a while, "But isnt it a little" stuffy"?". And a Javan in Burma might say "How bracing! How refreshing! .... But how horribly. uncomfortable !". And :both would be glad to get back home again.
-Prof. dr. E. 'Mores co gives expression to 'his hig,h appreciation; he has list,ened: to the reading of the paper with v,ery greatinterest.
Mr. Fmnivall 'has delt wi~h a very difficult problem, makinga com- par,ison between {wo different colonial systems, especially concerning the differences hetween the judicial systems and the welfar,e work.
Tlhe differencein vhe judicia'l system is, to dr. Moresco's 'Üpinion,
T,e!ated with ~he judicial systems of the mother countries; whereas
in the Britisih system prevails the "unus judex" system, we ,have in the Netherland's East In.qies mostly tbenches, except for very petty cases.
lIhe differenlCe in the welfare work system may be ascribed, to :his opinion) to differ;ences .jn theeconomic structure of both countries, Burma and java. java has an agr-icultural industry which was able to fumiSh the necessary funds to defray the cost of the social welfare work; the dvH service corps has always tried to meet vhe suppos'ed needs of the nativ,es. Dr. Moresco asks if his opinions r,elating to the differences are rig,ht.
Mr.
J.
S. Furnivall ag rees witb the opInIOns of dr. Moresco. In Burma the agr.icultural industry, compared witih java, is of little importance, furvhermore the number of Europeans, living ov-er there, is very smalI; for vhe greater part they are resi-ding in Rangoon. On the other hand, travelling in java, he was always struck by the great number of Europeans every where, even in th-e most remote parts._ Prof~ mr. F. D. Holleman asks, if there are no agricultural industries or Europeans furnishing funds, in whioh manner fihe money necessary for social measur'es is provided; furt,hermore if there are gr'eat diffe- rences between Upper- and Lower Burma.
Mr.
J.
S. _ Fumivall answers that the greater part of the mon'ey is p.fO'vided in: different forms ,by the native population; f. i. land r,evenue, revenues of slaug,hter ... houses, bazars, a. s. o. T'herefore, ibecause only sm all funds are available, a bazar in, Burma is not c9mpar~ble with the beauiiful pasar in Soura'karta. Schools are fora
good deal financed and conducted by American missionary asso- ciations. Between Upper- and Lower Burma exist great differences;differences in taxation, in economi-cal structure, density of population a. s.o.; Lower Burma lis more cultivated.
Prof. dr.
J.
H. Boeke asks if in Burma an income-tax and a limited liability company tax is 1evi'ed.Mr.
J.
S. Furnivall answers that f1hese taxes are levied on behatf of vhe treasury of the Central Government.Prof. dr.
J.
H. Boeke then closes the meeting, thanking tthe audience for their appreciated presence.\
/' .
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