Four years in Upper Burma

If the case of Burma in respect of liquor is serious, that of opium is more so. It presents in a vivid manner some of the most frightful evils of the traffic in this drug, and it shows clearly the gross inconsistency of any Christian nation, especially when it is the ruling power, deliberately introducing and maintaining such an evil and profiting largely in the revenue by it, when it is eating the very vitals of the subject nation that has implored us again and again to remove it.

The whole question of the opium policy of our Indian Government in the East is now prominently under the view of the nation. Parliament has already declared in the abstract that our opium policy is indefensible, and the conscience of the British public, never quite easy on the subject, is at present feeling keenly about it. It seems not unlikely that the consideration of Burma, our latest, and in some respects our worst development of the policy, may greatly aid in shaping the views of the public on this question, and may decide us, at the earliest possible moment, to wash our hands of the whole sad business.

It ought, in the first place, to be understood that the opium business is not like liquor in England, a matter of private enterprise. It is one big monopoly of the Indian Government from first to last, and no one else is allowed to manufacture it. Government assumes the entire responsibility for the growth, manufacture, sale and export of opium, and sells licences for the permission to retail it in British India. Government is the proprietor of the whole concern. The greater part of the Indian opium is exported to China, and there, as everybody knows, we added to our delinquencies by compelling the Chinese, at the point of the sword, to allow us to import opium into China, to the lasting detriment and ruin of untold multitudes of that people. Some of the opium, a constantly increasing quantity, is disposed of in the different provinces of India, this part of the business also being under Government management and licence.

As regards Upper Burma, the law we found on annexing the country was, and had ever been, the law of prohibition. Government knew and fully admitted this. From the despatch already quoted of October 1886, it would appear at first sight that on taking over the country they had fully resolved to continue that policy.

“No shops whatever will be licensed for the sale of opium, inasmuch as all respectable classes of Burmans are against legalising the consumption of opium in the new province.... As the traffic in opium was prohibited under the Burmese Government, there will be no hardship in thus proscribing opium dealings.”

But the very next sentence goes on to make an exception in favour of Chinamen, to whom, and to whom only, it shall be lawful to sell opium, and this clause at once lets in the mischief.

I know a small town in Upper Burma where a Chinaman obtained a licence to sell opium to his countrymen under this regulation, on his representing that there were two hundred of them in the town, when, as a matter of fact, there were not more than half a dozen. He meant, of course, to sell to the Burmans. I had this from the township officer, who knew all the circumstances; not, however, the officer who had helped him to get his licence. It is well known that the restriction is merely nominal and ineffectual, and the Government officers freely admit the fact. A recent Government officer of standing reports that—

“The consumption of liquors and opium is theoretically confined to the non-Burman population. But there can be no doubt that a considerable amount of both finds its way into the hands of Burmans.”

Of course it does. The temptations are there in the shape of licensed shops, and the tempters in the shape of cunning Chinamen with an eye to the main chance; and so long as this is the case the Burmans will fall into the snare in ever-increasing numbers, for they are, like the Chinese, peculiarly liable to yield to the opium habit. The following is the testimony of Mr. Gregory, a gentleman who travelled through Burma to see for himself what the facts of the case were; and whatever may be said by the apologists for opium against alleged exaggerations, I think we may, at any rate, receive the testimony of a Christian man concerning what he saw himself. I quote what he says of Upper Burma. It fully proves how ineffectual the restrictive legislation is, and how powerful the temptation:—

“At Pyinmana I saw Burmans buying opium, and at the same place the abbot of the Buddhist monasteries and one of the chief monks both told me that large numbers of the Burmans smoked. One of them bitterly complained that, whereas in the late king’s time he had power to stop these things, now he had none. At Yamethin, a prominent Burman official told me that there were numbers of purely Burmese villages in the neighbourhood supplied with opium from the Yamethin centre. I myself saw Burmans purchase opium there. At Kyaukse I saw Burmans served with opium. At all three of the opium centres at Mandalay I saw opium served to Burmans. One of the Chinese managers told me that the prohibition was only nominal, and he expected that it would be shortly removed ‘now that the Opium Act was getting into proper working order.’ At one of the Mandalay shops I saw three Burmans being taught to smoke by one of the Chinese assistants. A fourth was lying insensible. At Katha I saw a number of Burmans smoking opium in their houses in rooms quite open and visible, close by the court-house. At Bhamo, in the far north, I saw Burmans in crowds buying opium at the Government centre.”

Thus this legislative expedient we pretend to have adopted for keeping the Burman from opium completely breaks down, and is a mere dead letter. Nominally we are carrying out prohibition as we undertook to do, but really we are tempting the Burmans to their ruin by means of the licensed shops. Time was when Chinese opium vendors in Upper Burma, when caught, were disgraced in every possible way, and even flogged and imprisoned. Recently Mr. Justice Grantham, at the Durham assizes, was trying the case of one miner who had caused the death of another, while the two were drunk together in the Colliery Tavern. The prisoner was found guilty. Upon this his lordship directed the landlord of the Colliery Tavern to take his place beside the prisoner in the dock, and the landlord having done so, the judge proceeded to tell him in plain terms that he (the judge) would have felt more satisfied if the jury, instead of finding the prisoner guilty, had found the publican guilty of causing the death of the deceased. He had served the deceased with liquor when he was drunk already, and had undoubtedly thus caused the man’s death.

The Burman king’s way of looking upon opium vendors was the right way, and the judge’s rebuke of the publican was well merited; the misfortune is that so few can see it yet. The Chinese wealthy opium vendors in Burma now ride in first-class railway carriages, and are put forward into the honorary rank of municipal commissioners; whilst in England we go further than this, and admit to the peerage the heads of the great brewing firms!

We have carried the exceptional, “grandmotherly” method of legislation to a very absurd length in Burma, prompted on the one hand by our usual policy of regulating by licensing these vicious indulgences, and yet restrained by a natural horror for the mischief they do to the Burmese race, and by a well-grounded fear, founded on painful experience, that if we do not somehow keep the nation from liquor and opium, these vices will destroy multitudes of them.

Liquor can be lawfully sold in Upper Burma to Europeans, Eurasians, natives of India and Chinese, but not to Burmans.

Opium to Chinese only.

Both liquor and opium may be sold to Burmans in Lower Burma.

Gunja, a product of hemp, very intoxicating, and used largely by natives of India in their own country, is absolutely forbidden to everybody in Burma.

The absurd and illogical in legislation could hardly go further than the British have gone in these complicated enactments. In view of all this one naturally inquires, If it be right to prohibit gunja, why should it not be proper to forbid opium? If opium ought to be kept from every race in Upper Burma but one, and they immigrants from a foreign country and a very small minority, why not go further and shut it out altogether? If liquor and opium are denied to Upper Burmans, why should they be allowed to the same race in Lower Burma, where they have done so much mischief? If liquor is bad for Burmans in Upper Burma, how can it be good for Europeans, Chinese and natives of India?

We should have entire prohibition of the opium curse in Upper Burma if it were not for the Chinese; that lets in all the mischief. Why is this? Why indeed, unless it is that having forced opium upon them in China at the point of the bayonet, we cannot for very shame withhold it from them in Burma, but must grant them the indulgence, at any cost to the inhabitants, lest we become a byword and a laughing-stock among the nations. There is no consistent standing place between total prohibition on the one hand, and the cynical tone adopted by the advocates of licensing on the other: “It comes to this, that if the Burmans cannot learn to use these indulgences in moderation they must take the consequences.”

If we persist in driving the Burmans to “take the consequences” God will surely require it at our hands.

The further we go into the question the more does it demonstrate the utter futility of a vacillating, partial, halting policy like this our latest in Burma. There is nothing for it but to make that clean sweep of it which the Burmans have always requested we would, and to repent and do our first works, however late in the day it is for us to begin. A brief review of the history of the opium difficulty in our older province of Lower Burma gives emphasis to this view.

There is no wonder our rulers should in the new province show some signs of compunction, and some feeble attempt to prohibit opium to the Burmans, with the dreadful experience of Lower Burma before their eyes. But they should have gone further, and made prohibition complete. Lower Burma is in the unenviable position of having the largest consumption of opium, per head of the population, of any of our Indian provinces. The quantity supplied by Government for the year 1890-91 was 54,205 seers for a population of 4,658,000.

It is evident from these startling figures that opium in Lower Burma has a history; and a sad and disgraceful history it is so far as our Government is concerned. I gather the following particulars from a publication issued by the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade.

The provinces of Arakan and Tenasserim were annexed in 1826, and Pegu in 1853, and these three provinces formed what has since been known as Lower Burma or British Burma.

There is satisfactory evidence that before these territories came under the British flag, the opium vice, though not absolutely unknown, was not prevalent. An official report, dated 1870, states that “Opium eating is not a Burmese habit; it is a new vice.” Another, dated 1856, says, “The use of this deleterious drug, strictly prohibited in Burmese times, has been considerably on the increase of late.” The late Rev. C. Bennett of the American Baptist Mission said, “When I first arrived in the country in 1830 opium was rarely used, and almost entirely confined to Chinamen. There were, however, a few Burmans who used it, and they were looked upon by their countrymen as outcasts and worse than thieves.”

One of the earliest measures of the Indian Government was the establishment of shops to retail opium, with no restriction as to the number of shops. It was a notorious fact, and it was officially stated at the time by Government servants, shocked at the demoralising effects of the vice, that—

“Organised efforts were made by Bengal agents to introduce the use of the drug, and to create a taste for it among the rising generation. The general plan was to open a shop with a few cakes of opium, and to invite the young men, and distribute it gratuitously. Then when the taste was established, the opium was sold at a low rate. Finally, as it spread throughout the whole neighbourhood, the price was raised, and large profits ensued.”

In the Excise Report for 1879-80, the district officer for Prome called attention to this growing evil in similar terms, and he gives the details of the way in which lads of twelve or fourteen years of age were allured to evil courses by having the opium supplied to them at first in a milder form.

From time to time the Burmans expostulated with their rulers on this matter. The Chief Commissioner reported in 1865:—

“Last year a majority of the respectable Arakanese petitioned me, asserting that their own children and most of the young men of the country had become drunkards, and had acquired within a few years a craving for spirits and opium.”

Again, in 1880, a large deputation of the most influential natives of the town waited upon Commissioner Aitchison, and presented a petition, describing in very forcible language the misery entailed on the population by opium, and praying that the traffic might be altogether abolished in Arakan. The petitioners suggested that Government should impose an extra land tax, in order to make up the deficit which would be occasioned by the loss of the opium revenue, a clear proof of their sincerity.

In the report on the Administration of British Burma during 1877-78, attention was called to the deterioration of the national character, and the increase of gambling, theft, dacoity and other crimes, as the result of the growth of the liquor and opium habits. A searching inquiry was instituted, and the result was the accumulation of a mass of evidence which was irresistible. The wonder was how any Christian Government could ever have established such an abominable system, and having carelessly established it, should have been deaf to repeated remonstrances during so long a course of years. A few brief extracts may be given to show the character of the reports. They are the testimonies of some of the highest British officials, men well acquainted with the country, and responsible for what they said.

Colonel D. Brown, formerly Commissioner of Tenasserim Division, dated April 18th, 1870:—

“In this province the words an opium smoker or eater and a vagabond are, and have been for many years, synonymous. The old and respectable portion of our population complain much of our opium shops, and of the evils they bring on them. The sleepy, dreamy state of the opium smoker has a peculiar attraction for our people; they take to it, and after having acquired the habit, they cannot give it up; their friends refuse to support them; they steal, rob or murder, to get their food and their opium; they often take to dacoity, and join a frontier band; or, if they remain in the province, they end their days in jail, or a halter puts an end to their existence.”

Colonel E. B. Sladen, Commissioner of Arakan Division, dated September 13th, 1878:—

“During my residence in Arakan, I have been impressed and made to feel and acknowledge, in opposition, I may say, to all previous ideas on the subject, that opium is becoming the scourge of the country. The importance of the evil is this, that the addition to opium consumption is alarmingly on the increase.”

G. J. S. Hodgkinson, Esq., Officiating Commissioner of Arakan Division, dated March 12th, 1879:—

“There can be no conception on the part of Government of the fearful strides with which the demoralisation of the Arakanese portion of the Kyouk-pyoo district is progressing, mainly owing to the indulgence of the inhabitants in this vice.”

The following is an extract from a memorial presented by the leading natives of Akyab to the Chief Commissioner on March 13th, 1878:—

“The consumption of opium is contrary to the religion of the people, and its baneful effects are telling markedly on their character, inducing enervation of both mind and body, unfitting them for the active duties of life, whereby the material progress of the country is retarded. Lands are thrown out of cultivation, those who should be engaged in agricultural pursuits becoming unfitted for work, and taking to idleness and bad livelihood.”

The Chief Commissioner sums up this extraordinary body of testimony in an unsparing indictment of opium in Burma, which leaves it no loophole of excuse.

“The papers now presented for consideration present a painful picture of the demoralisation, misery and ruin produced amongst the Burmese by opium smoking. Responsible officers in all divisions and districts of the province, and natives everywhere, bear testimony to it. To facilitate the examination of the evidence on this point, I have thrown some extracts from the reports into an appendix to this memorandum. These show that among the Burmans the habitual use of the drug saps the physical and mental energies, destroys the nerves, and emaciates the body, predisposes to disease, induces indolent and filthy habits of life, destroys self-respect, is one of the most fertile sources of misery, destitution and crime, fills the jails with men of relaxed frames predisposed to dysentery and cholera, prevents the due extension of cultivation and the development of the land revenue, checks the natural growth of the population, and enfeebles the constitution of succeeding generations. That opium smoking is spreading at an alarming rate under our rule does not admit of doubt. On this point the testimony of all classes of officers and of the people is unanimous.”

A high official gentleman, Mr. Hodgkinson, the late Judicial Commissioner of Upper Burma, when Commissioner of the Irrawaddy District, wrote:—

“A large revenue is secured to the Government by the present system, but it is secured by sapping the very hearts’ blood of the people, the better classes of whom most bitterly reproach us, and, in my opinion, very justly, for our apathy and misgovernment in this matter.”

To sum up, the following facts are proved, beyond all manner of doubt; and criticism of them, though it may attempt to palliate, cannot explain them away:—

What is required for the removal of this evil is a complete reform. The feeble attempts at remedy so far have shown themselves to be useless.

The first attempt at improvement was the closing of the greater part of the licensed shops in Lower Burma. A good deal has been made of that by the upholders and defenders of the present system. We are told that there is only one licensed opium house in Akyab, for instance. An eyewitness tells us that in forty-five minutes he visited fifty opium dens in that town of “only one licensed shop,” and he was told that there are in the district not less than one thousand places where opium is sold. That one house pays 158,000 rupees (about £10,533) annually for licence duty.

The system of high licences has been tried, and the price has been put up, until in Rangoon the price of the drug is equal to its weight in silver, but this makes little or no difference.

Sir Alexander Mackenzie, the present Chief Commissioner of Burma, now proposes to make it penal to sell opium to Burmans in Lower Burma, as it is in Upper Burma, or for Burmans to be in possession of opium; but this is merely trifling with the evil. If it is ineffectual in Upper Burma, what good is it likely to accomplish in the Lower province, where so many have acquired the habit?

These all stop short of an effectual dealing with the opium question; they will avail nothing so long as the drug is within reach. The real remedy, I submit, is entire prohibition, and many officials of Government, of standing and experience, concur in this view. Let our Indian Government give up entirely, except for medicinal purposes, this iniquitous and disreputable business of manufacturing and supplying opium, and get rid of the guilt of it. “Native opinion,” says Commissioner Aitchison, speaking of Burma, “is unanimously in favour of stopping the supply altogether, and no measures we could adopt would be so popular with all the respectable and law-abiding class of the population.”

Lord Cross has recently said: “It is not practicable to close all opium shops and to stop opium consumption so long as opium is grown in British India and in the native states.” Quite so. No doubt we shall have to take up the accursed thing by the roots to do it effectually.

We are told that the consequences of this course would be very dreadful, but we have been told this in the case of every reform ever yet proposed, and the statement has ceased to frighten us. If we had the cordial support of the whole of the “respectable and law-abiding class of the population,” no great harm could come of it. At any rate, the consequences could not then be worse than they are now.