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THE TAKING OF A CENSUS.

BY SIR J. GEORGE SCOTT, K.C.I.E.

THERE are not many people who do not resent the taking of a census. The average man considers it a nuisance. The average woman looks upon it as an impertinence. But in the East, and especially in new countries, it is looked upon as a mere blundering, stupid way of increasing taxation. The general idea of the Oriental is that nobody would ever do anything unless he hoped to make money out of it. Their own rulers had at anyrate downright ways of of doing things. When they wanted money they said so, and they said how much they wanted, and left the sordid collecting of it to those whose business it was. Each individual householder knew that he would have to pay something, and he immediately set about devising means of paying as little of it as he could. It was a sort of combat of wits between himself and the local tax-gatherer, and it was a relief to the monotony of existence to get the better of the transaction. If he was successful, he bragged about it to his neighbours, and if he came off badly, he told lies to the limit of his powers of invention. At anyrate, he knew what he was about.

But the white man's census is a very different thing. The Oriental's view of Government service is that men go into it to make money, preferably for

VOL. CXCI.-NO. MCLVII.

themselves, but at anyrate to get as much as they can out of the rest of the population. When, therefore, a Government officer tells them that there is going to be a census, and that a considerable number of enumerators are to come round on a certain day to make a register of the people, they are apt to count up the cost of the salaries and to come to the conclusion that three or four times, or some indefinite number of times, that amount is going to be collected as compensation for the trouble taken. No reasonable being would go to that worry with any other object. The men consider it vexatious enough to have a large family, without being penalised for it; and the women consider any interest in the subject to be positively indecent, more particularly if they have no children at all. If Chinamen or Hindus are concerned, they look upon inquiries as to whether they have male issue or not as altogether intolerable if they have no boys, and as a flagrant absurdity if they have, since so much prominence is given to the existence of them.

When, therefore, the Chief of Tiger-town received a notification that there was to be a census of his State, a few years after the annexation of Upper Burma, he was much perturbed. Tiger-town was a relic of the days when the Shans held the

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greater part of Upper Burma, and it was a long way off the main bulk of the Shan States, and was, in fact, really in the plains and not in the Shan hills at all. The people had so intermarried with the surrounding Burmans that they were practically no longer Shans, and were not to be distinguished from their neighbours. In Burmese times there was resident Governor, sent from Mandalay, who ruled the State very much in the same way as the districts round about, and the Chief was a mere decorative fixture, kept on because it was a handy way of getting money to put the post up for sale, or to get a fine out of the Chief for the time being to prevent speculators from buying him out. But the British Government recognised him as a Chief, and left him to administer the State with the assistance of his Ministers, whom it was the custom of competition wallahs to call noblemen. Neither the Chief nor his Cabinet had ever had any experience in the way of administration. The Burmese officials had seen to that. They were, therefore, extremely proud of their new dignity, and spent most of their time in writing high-flown letters to the Political Officer in charge, and putting the State seal on them, The State seal was a rubberstamp, got from an enterprising firm in Rangoon, and had cost nearly three times as much as an ivory stamp from the Palace in Mandalay would have come to, if the Royal

Government could have been persuaded to grant it.

The British Government was very short-handed for a long time after the taking over of the Upper Province, so the Political Officer in charge of Tiger - town was really the civil officer in charge of the neighbouring Burma districts. He had more than enough to do in looking after the administered territory. Travelling in those days was not easily distinguished from exploration, and he had no difficulty in persuading himself that a Chief who wrote letters full of such unexceptionable sentiments could very well be trusted to look after his own affairs. So, except for an occasional reminder when his tribute was more than nine months in arrears, the Chief was pretty well left to himself.

But the time for the decennial census came round, and it was decided that the people of Upper Burma should be numbered with the rest of the Empire. The railway from Rangoon to Mandalay had been opened to traffic. There were not many dacoit bands left roaming about, even in the out-of-the-way districts, so the Secretaries in charge of the Province decided that the ordinary form of enumeration should be carried out everywhere except in the hill States, where they grudgingly admitted difficulties, and were quite certain that it would be horribly expensive.

So the Commissioner was told that Tiger- town was to be included in the census with

It officers would visit the State before long to superintend operations and to check the figures in selected circles.

the rest of the Division. was surrounded by administered territory on every side. There was nothing in its physical geography to discriminate it from the neighbouring districts, and it would look slovenly and wanting in energy to leave it out, especially as it was admitted that there was no real difference of race between the people of Tiger-town and those round about it.

A notification was therefore sent to the Chief. The Assistant Commissioner who had the task of drafting it had had a good deal of trouble in explaining away the fears of the local people as to the meaning of the census, so he wrote rather an elaborate letter to Tigertown. He explained that the numbering of the people was to be undertaken merely for the sake of information, so that Government might know how many subjects it had, and that there was no intention either of imposing taxes or of raising the tribute which the State had to pay. It would be a source of gratification to the Chief at the end of the next ten years to know that his population had increased as a result of the protection of the British flag and his own wise rule. The Government was confident that the Chief's officers would find it easy to understand the enclosed forms, several thousands of which would be sent to him in the course of a few days for distribution; but to prevent misapprehension and to secure completeness and uniformity, a certain number of census

This letter was read out to the Chief by a person who figured on the rolls as the Royal Secretary, and appeared in the budget as in the enjoyment of a salary of twenty rupees a month, which was never paid to him. He had been a clerk in Lower Burma, and was dismissed for taking bribes. He then got a post as a schoolmaster, and his services were dispensed with after the first inspection. Then he became a a postmaster, and levanted to Upper Burma with all the loose cash. In Mandalay he lived on his wits until the occupation, when he found it advisable to get out of the way, and so drifted to Tigertown, where the account of his experience in "three Government Departments" seemed to recommend him as a medium of correspondence with the British Government. The fact that he never got his official salary did not disturb him. He was by no means singular in that respect. He got an occasional present for concocting a letter, lived free on the population, and made quite an income out of suppressing or forwarding petitions to the Chief. It was also profitable to set the Ministers by the

ears.

The Chief sat up abruptly when the letter was read. "What is the meaning of this?" he asked. Why do they want to know the number of people in our State?"

That was just what the that the matter had the Chief's Clerk was revolving in his direct attention, and that the own mind. It immediately persons named would be artook a personal complexion. rested and handed over as He thought it would be extremely awkward if he were enrolled on the list and had to give an account of his past history. It would be easy enough to tell lies about it, but that would be difficult to reconcile with his claim to experience in British Government Departments. It would never do to have that on the census form. So he said: "Your Highness, I think it is a cunning attempt to find out what people have come under your benign protection. Your Highness cannot fail to recollect that they are always writing to ask if there are no refugees here."

It was quite true. Tigertown was found a most convenient place of retreat by dacoit leaders when the pursuit of military columns or police parties became too hot. It was also an excellent place to bring all manner of stolen property to, cattle or anything portable. A great deal of the Clerk's income was derived from covering up the tracks of notorious outlaws, and from buying stolen goods at low prices. The Chief also received not inconsiderable presents. There were perpetual requests to arrest certain named individuals which were sent in from all the districts round about, and it was chiefly in concocting replies that the Clerk was occupied. The regular thing was to answer the first letter immediately, saying

soon as they were found. There the matter rested until a reminder was sent, and then the reply was varied. Either it was announced that the men wanted had died in the jungle or had left the State, or were just on the point of being surrounded and captured. These replies had so long apparently been considered sufficient, as far as the British Government was concerned, that the Chief had come to the conclusion that nothing further would be wanted of him, and that all that was necessary was to keep a large supply of paper, and to see that the wording of the replies was judiciously altered, and that the same answer was not too often sent to the same officer. Now, however, he was forced to believe that the patience of the neighbouring British officials was being exhausted, and that energetic measures were going to be taken to search the State.

So the Chief sighed and said, "Oh, you think that, do you? You don't suppose it is because they are in want of money. It would be very annoying if they were to demand taxes the way they do in Mawhan and Uyu and the other districts. The Commissioner was much too polite when we saw him last year. We thought then that he had some scheme in his brain. He was so different from the Burmese Wun.

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There was no mistaking what the Wun was after." "Your Highness is acute," said the Clerk. would never have occurred to me to imagine that. I have no doubt they want to do both things. Shall I draft a letter saying that the matter will be attended to? It might be well if I added that there is no need to send British officers here, or any officers. Your Highness's staff is capable of doing anything that may be required of it. I would humbly suggest that your Highness should summon the Ministers together. They will agree to whatever your wisdom suggests, and the British Government thinks that a unanimous decision is worthy of great respect. Your Highness will probably hear no more about it after that.'

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"Very well, go and call the Ministers," said the Chief; "we may as well have this settled immediately, so as to have no more bother about it. They are tiresome people, these English, with their letters. Letters never settle anything." It did not take long for the Ministers to gather together. They all lived just outside the Palace stockade, and soon assembled in the dingy and dilapidated wooden porch which was called the Audience Hall, and had nothing about it that was not shabby except the pillars, which were huge teak logs. The Chief seated himself on a couch like the charpoy of India, and the Ministers ranged themselves below the dais, in a double line in front

of him, to right and left on the plank flooring. The Clerk read the Commissioner's letter aloud in the customary Burmese high-pitched zigzag intonation, and then there was a pause.

"I think we cannot agree to this," said the Chief.

"It is not according to ancient custom," said the First Minister.

"I think he ought to be satisfied with the list of houses," said the Revenue Minister. "We can send him an old one. He will not know the difference."

"What does he want to know the number of women and children for? It has never been permissible to tax them. The Dhammathats say nothing on this point," said the Civil Judge.

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"What he really wants to find out is whether there are any of the dacoit-bos here, the men he is constantly asking us to arrest for him,' said the Clerk. "That is why he wants to send his enumerators. I do not think we ought to agree to this. Some of the bos are very dangerous people whom it would be very difficult to capture, and some of them are quite considerable men who bring a good deal into the State. It would be very troublesome and unprofitable if they were interfered with. His Highness might tell the Commissioner that if he sends merchants we shall be glad to see them, but that if he sends officials there will be great alarm and the people will be seriously afraid. That will be much better than saying we

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