CHAPTER XII.

POLICY OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT TOWARD THE KARENS.

THE best way of learning how to govern a people is to consult the people themselves. Depend upon it, there is something worth keeping in their timehonoured usages. Much there may be to prune away, but there is sure to be a residue of good which will repay cultivation. The framework of the original constitution may have become overgrown with a good deal that is harmful; the ancient customs may, from vicissitudes of fortune, from oppression and hard times, have been turned to bad account; the old order of things may have been a good deal disturbed by contact with other races or by internal quarrels ; but if the original polity can only be disentangled from the noxious accretions which have weakened or hidden it perhaps for ages, it will supply the true principles on which to govern. There is a capacity for self

government in every people, but it varies with race and climate. The highest excellence in any administration must always consist in the perception of this capacity, and in leading it into those channels for which it is best suited. We have conceded what may be called a limited selfgovernment to the people of India; but we have made the concession without discernment of the varying capacities of the races and classes to whom it has been granted. We have dealt with all alike, neglecting distinctive national characteristics. We have failed to seize the true spirit of self-government in the East. Both in method and in scope we are wrong. We have, to use a homely illustration, tried to make legs do the work of arms, and arms the work of legs; and at the same time we have offered a sphere of activity where fingers are best employed. Just as the Burmese make their great gongs of a mixture of all sorts of metals, fine and base, so we manufacture civilization in the East. We melt down all the subject-races into one huge mass, and then cast them ruthlessly in our Western mould. But the parallel ends here; for the Burmese gong has a true ring in it, whereas the product of our wholesale civilization has not. We have no art in our government. We do not understand the culti

vation of human varieties. We would supply, at short notice, administrative machinery, on contract, to every country under the sun, and drive it by a big high-pressure compound engine at Whitehall; and we would supplant all indigenous processes by patents of our own. The result of our method is this that the reforms which we endeavour to introduce strike no real root; the soil and climate are not congenial to the plant. The year 1986 will, I fear, find the millions of India not one whit more able to govern themselves than they are now. We have nowhere fostered the growth of real national life. We are endeavouring to create a New English India. The product will not be much to our credit.

Why should we not try-if only as a political experiment to give the Karens a chance of growing as a nation in their own way? Why should we not try and bring their wild growth under cultivation, grafting on the ancient roots as time and experience improve our perception and increase our skill. We have here a little people-probably under a million in all-who aspire to keep their nationality intact. Why should we not allow them, encourage them, to do so? The result may be of the highest interest in the future, and cannot fail

to be fraught with great benefit to the people themselves; it will strengthen British rule, and safeguard it in the times of trouble which may yet be in store for us in Burma.

What, then, have the Karens to say for themselves? Have we any indications of the future to which they look forward, of the destiny to which they aspire, and of the way in which they would work it out? Here is a literal, unembellished description of the programme which they have set out for themselves. I give it as I received it from the lips of one of the most intelligent of them, speaking as a representative of thousands of his clansmen, both Christian and heathen :—

“The Karens, as highlanders, for self-preservation and defence, have for ages been indoctrinated with the policy of association. Living as they do in their long houses on the hills, forming a family group, having a common hall, to meet and to discuss tribal matters of peace and of war, they have a facility for combination.

"On their emigrating to the lowlands, and living in separate houses in villages, the current of association and combination seems to be interrupted— dormant, but not extinguished, till, among those Christianized, it is again brought into play in the

formation of associations for the promotion of Christianity, where delegates from churches are appointed to meet and act in union for a common object.

"This return current combined only the Christian Karens, and though it indirectly benefited the heathens in a measure, yet directly it left the heathen Karens untouched.

"This segregation of the Christian Karens split the Karen race into two sections, the heathen and the Christian. The former, with no means of educating themselves-the written language being not theirs, the white Book sealed to them—uncared for by the State, as their voice could not be heard, are no better off than in the days of Burmese rule, because of their ignorance. On the other hand, the latter, with his village school, his newspaper the Morning Star, the Association of the Churches, the Home Mission Societies, the Missionary Conventions, the High Schools, is prepared to start in life with every advantage.

“To many of us who have been benefited by Christianity, it appears that this facility of combination can be utilized for the heathen Karen in common with the Christian—that there is ground wide enough for us all, without distinction of belief