The Colonisation of Indo-China. Translated ... by A. B. Brabant

Introduction

„ XVI THE BRITISH AT HONG-KONG. chapter i Page 1 I' >, 15 "1 34 ,, iv ,, 52 v. ,, 67 vi „ 86 vii ,, 95 VIII ,, 112 ,, v 111 ,, ix ,, 125 THE BRITISH IN BURMA.

Preface

. To M. LEON SAY. My dear Master, It is my wish to dedicate this book to you. Those of our friends who are aware how much I am indebted to you and what a great affection I have for you, will consider this token of gratitude on my part as perfectly natural ; while maliciously inclined people will, perhaps, find it piquant that I should have implicated in colonial politics not only J.-B. Say, who detested them, but his grandson as well, who — at least publicly — has as yet evinced no interest in them. But you will detect in my proceeding, a motive other than artifice, or even gratitude. In it, you will recognise the anxious appeal VI

PREFACE.

. of the disciple who seeks the patronage of the Scholar (rather than that of the States man) and desires with his co-operation to make a science of colonial politics, if this be possible. I made my debut in colonial affairs under the guidance of an admirable intellect. Sate o judgment, rapid decision, scientific mind, sound common-sense — such were the rare gifts, so seldom combined, which M. Paul Bert united in one and the same person. I need not recapitulate what he accom plished in so few short months. His work is in itself a sufficient commendation. In the course of his brief career and on the morrow of his demise he may have had de tractors ; at the present day he has none but imitators. He was a strong advocate of a colonial policy. But his idea of a colonial policy was not so much an indefinite territorial exten sion as a rational plan of administration.

After conquest, he desired organisation. This organisation he conceived and carried out on a scientific basis. He considered it essential for colonial government, that prin ciples should first be established, and a system of procedure adopted. I have ever since been imbued with these views, at once so simple and so wise : for the future they are my creed. But though

PREFACE.

. VII I have met with people who shared these views, few have dared to defend them, and fewer still have desired to put them into practice. No sooner is the question of colonies broach ed than we desert those principles, which form the basis of our policy, we lack syste matic action, albeit imperious logic has long been our guide. We live from day to day; we wander hap-hazard. Empiricism is our ruler and guide ; and still more so, routine. So that, as a result of mere routine, we have even imported into our transmarine possessions the system of home government, and given to colonies dif fering very essentially a regime which differs in little. And yet each of these colonies has wants of which the others are ignorant, and all of them have wants which are ignored by the mother country. Take, for instance, the population of a colony, — a population of colonists and aborigines.

What are colonists ? They are natives of a metropolis which with its austere regime has offered but meagre chances of success, and who have come to the colonies in the hope of increasing their chances. Will these chances, pray, be increased, if the administrative system, the mania for making regu-

PREFACE.

. VIII lations, and the zeal for the interests of the public treasury to be found in the mother country are imported into the colonies ? And what are aborigines? They are pri mitive and suspicious beings who frequently dread even the most justifiable of our inno vations, and are rarely in a position to pro fit by them. Are we going to transfer our European laws and regulations without any modification to peoples such as these ? It is clear, then, that the mother country cannot administer and govern her colonies in accordance with her own system, by her own laws, and her European officials. She must initiate other methods, frame other laws, train up other officials. Doubtless the parent has her rights which she cannot compromise — still less sacrifice — for the sole benefit of her offspring.

Even the most ambitious nation would not colo nise at a loss for any length of time. And it seems as though colonisation would be at a loss were the interests of the colonists opposed to those of the mother country. But such is not the case ; their interests, far from being opposed, are identical ; and all the rights and interests of the metropolis will be safe-guarded, if care be taken to safe-guard first of all the rights and interests of the colonists.

PREFACE.

. IX It has long been supposed that the interests of the mother country are at variance with those of the colonists. It was thought that the former might be impoverished by the very causes which render the latter prosperous : that, for instance, the colonists grow rich on the sale of foreign products to the natives. The mother country instead of cal culating what these colonists — her sons — have gained, calculates what her own manufacturers have failed to gain, and pretends that what they have failed to gain is an actual loss to her. This calculation is inaccurate. Whatever the colonists have gained is a gain to their native land. The interest of the parent, then, lies in not haggling with her children over such matters as may be conducive to their prosperity ; that is to say, a certain liberty of action should be accorded them, laws suited to the average of the population ; they should have capable and honest officials, and the material means of attaining wealth.

All these are more uncommon than might be supposed. Look at the laws of our colonies : they are laws which have been almost entirely modelled on the Home Legislature. They consist partly of the Civil Code, the Code of Procedure, the Commercial Code, the Penal Code — and a host of our admini-

PREFACE.

. X strative laws. In Algeria, in Indo-China, in Guiana, in Reunion, we find almost every where the same laws, and the same ad ministration. And the officials? what are they, and whence do they come ? In every ten of our colonial officials there is hardly one who may be safely regarded as trustworthy. How will the remaining nine set about the work of governing ? The answer is on every one's lips. They will bring with them that passion for uniformity, that mania for routine, that love for making regulations and of form, that dread of initiative, and of the responsibilities which crush the mother country as well as the most vigorous of our colonies. Consult the Annual Reports for the colonies. You will find there double and treble the number of officials that ought to be tolerated by even the most scribbling of admi nistrations.

Enormous sums are devoted to the maintenance of an oppressive staff, whilst a miserable allowance is made for the only real objects of interest and usefulness. Examine the budgets: nine times out of ten the establishment charges are heavier than the cost of the Public Works them selves. And yet Public Works represent the future welfare of the colonies ; they are a safety-valve and a means of subsistence for

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. XI to-day, a triumph for to-morrow. Nay, more ; they even constitute in the eyes of the natives the sole excuse for colonisation. For the natives care nothing for our laws ; they scorn our officials ; they dread our reforms. Perhaps more than a century may elapse before we shall score a victory for morals, at the expense of a host of imported vices. What, then, will the present — or may be the next — generation of the vanquished owe us, or for what will they have to thank us, if we deny them altogether, or make them but a niggardly concession of, ports, roads, hospitals, schools, — in a word, all the opportunities of progress ? None of these do our colonies possess. And so almost all of them remain weak and inactive ; and, as a logical result, seeing them just as we have made them, we fear to abandon them to themselves.

We deny them all initiative, and all liberty. We keep them continually in leading-strings. The more they increase in number and the longer we have them, the harder becomes our task and the less efficacious our supervision ; and we finally get to dislike them, because they weary and disquiet us. Oh ! if Parliament to-morrow totally refused its sanction to the colonial budget ; if the Government, tired of war, withdrew its forces ; if the Mother Country said to her

PREFACE.

. XII daughters: "I cry you quits of all I have spent on you ; I will even make you a present of whatever you have that belongs to me. I will still undertake your defence from external foes. But for the future, not a penny of mine shall I give you and you will have to provide for yourselves." Oh! how sweet this severity would be. how bene ficent this cruelty ! Would not this thun derbolt be a stroke of good fortune ! The first days, the first years would see many trials, many follies, much squandering, much ruin. But little by little orderly and energetic folk would gain the upper hand. And what wonders would be accomplished in a short space of time ! There is not a single colony possessed of sufficient security which could not obtain a loan at a reasonable rate of interest. It would provide itself with ' plant,' would indeed construct harbours, railroads, aqueducts, hospitals, sanatoria ; a spark of life would be infused into it.

It would abolish the exces sive import duty which now crushes it, and would allow ingress to all the products of the world at a moderate tariff. It would found a college, at which examinations for the recruiting of its officials would be held ; of these there would be few, but they would be well paid. It would pack away back to Europe all that administrative apparatus, all

PREFACE.

. XIII that legislative trash which are now stifling its progress coupled with our codes, our procedure, and our ministerial officials. It would borrow from young and vigorous countries laws to meet all its various needs. And under such a regime our colonies would one and all become prosperous. They would take their place in the world like new Frances, which would diffuse the influence of the old country in all latitudes. And if some hundreds of years hence one or other of them should grow sufficiently big to have no farther need of our gifts or our aid ; if it should offer to repay us the outlay of past years and to send us back our soldiers, so as to be independent till, some day, its surplus population overflowed into some other new country, this would be still another blessing. For the great aim is not, to have colonies that are languishing, and a vast empire which is in jeopardy; but to have dissem inated one's ideas through the world and to have left heirs of one's genius.

England's most glorious colony is still — the United States. If our colonies freed from our paralysing tutelage were some day to become populous and wealthy ; if, at some future time, they rose from being colonies to the dignity of nations ; if these nations, daughters of our own, were

PREFACE.

. to perpetuate our renown under other skies and in other ages, colonies would then seem to the world a marvellous means of rejuve nescence, the most powerful — and only — foe of decay and death, and there is no nation, but would desire to found them, even at the cost of great sacrifices, to let them take wing when fully fledged, and so launch them on the path of productive liberty. Such, my dear master, are the ideas — somewhat premature, I admit — that I have wished to place under your patronage. Why particularly under yours? In the first place, for this reason : that up till now you are not a declared advocate of coloni sation, and that your adhesion would be all the more valuable because the less antici pated. And for yet another reason : Econo mists appear to me with rare exceptions to have gone on the wrong tack in unreservedly condemning colonisation.

It ought perhaps to have been condemned in J.-B. Say's time, but scarcely so in that of Stuart Mill, and certainly not in ours. Circumstances — political, economic, and financial — have changed. And Political Economy, the science of observation, must first recognise facts. That the colonies are now badly managed, is no argument against them ; but rather against those that colonise ; it is but a fur-

PREFACE.

. XV ther incentive to us to discover the rules of the art of colonisation. To launch Political Economy on so pro ductive a course were, methinks, a task worthy of the grandson of J.-B. Say. Ever affectionately Yours, Joseph Chailley-Bert. March, 1892. THE COLONISATION OF INDO-CHINA. BRITISH EXPERIENCE.

INTRODUCTION.

. Object of these studies — French Colonial Policy— Reconstitution of our Territory — Reform of our Administration — Necessity of consulting the experience of our rivals — Limit of the profit to be derived therefrom — the British at hong-kong — THE BRITISH AV BURM.4. When we consider what are the elements indispensable to the prosperity of colonies, we shall find that they are three in number, namely : good colonists, good laws, and good administrators. A good colonist is a married, or a marriageable man, who is robust and healthy, full of energy and enterprise, gifted with patience, and possessed of some capital. Good laws are laws which are un pretentious, liberal in their spirit, pliant in

INTRODUCTION.

. XVII their wording, not overloaded with regula tions, which do not try to provide for every emergency and which tend neither to hamper the action of the colonists nor to restrict the responsibility of their rulers. Lastly, good administrators are such as have broad minded ideas and aim high ; are gifted with a comprehensive intelligence and right judgment ; are jealous of nothing but the welfare of both settlers and the colony, and interpret the laws (also, if need be, amplify ing them), in such a manner as to render them a power, and not a constraint, to the community. I doubt if this ideal — good colonists, good laws, good administrators — is anywhere to be met with ; I am sure that it is not to be met with in the French colonies. Our colonists, for the most part bachelors, are in many respects inferior to the average population of the mother country.

Our legislation, far too voluminous and changeable, is nevertheless either antiquated or rigid to excess. Our administrators, in spite of what is undertaken by the central administration, are too numerous ; recruited at random, pro moted by caprice, they are too often wanting in competence and responsibility. Hence we lack at once all those elements previously declared indispensable. And yet France has a superfluity of such elements at home, and

INTRODUCTION.

. at one time had them in her colonies. We know too little of her colonial policy under the former regime; it has been preju diced by her European policy. This colonial policy has had one cardinal defect ; it has lacked the spirit of continuity. But, so far as it concerns us here, it has from its very origin and throughout a period of two cen turies, shown a wisdom in the conception of its plans, and an ingenuity in their exe cution, never to be surpassed. It is to the colonial methods adopted un der the old form of government that France owed so many magnificent possessions, which, even in the 18th century, made it doubtful which of the two, she or England, would be the great colonising nation. Unfortunately, this marvellous extent of territory, these in valuable colonists ; this wisdom which in spite of all was clearly revealed in the King's Councils ; such a wealth of property so dearly bought and so slowly acquired — of all this nothing remains ours at the present time.

Territory has crumbled to pieces and traditions have become obscured with the overthrow of the monarchy ; finally all was lost in the great upheaval of the latter end of the century, and our departed splendour is only shown by the glory of rivals enriched by our spoils. At the present day, despite so many dis-

INTRODUCTION.

. XIX asters, we have at length by twenty years of effort succeeded in reconstituting our colonial empire. But now that we wish to turn the same to profitable account, we search in vain for a modus operandi and for men to put it into execution. The severed chain of traditions cannot be re-united ; the examples of our forefathers, interrupted in their necessary evolution, are no longer a guide to us in our present difficulties ; and, in order to commence our education anew, we must take a lesson from foreign nations. There are many people to whom the ad mission of our inferiority will appear a sacri lege, just as the notion of raising ourselves from this position by means of study will appear ridiculous. It were folly to listen to them. "I lay equal blame," says Pascal, "on those who are intent on praising man, as on those who are intent on blaming, or amusing him ; I can only approve of those who seek knowledge with tears."

However, if we decide to study, let us endeavour to conduct our studies carefully, and let us not exaggerate the profit which may be derived therefrom. Among foreign nations we shall not find laws, regulations or conduct which may be straightway imi tated without any modification. There is no nation whose colonial policy is free from even gross mistakes. All countries without

INTRODUCTION.

. XX exception have proved themselves improvi dent, ignorant, unjust ; all governments, care less, indifferent, wanting in tact. England herself has, throughout her history, committed monstrous errors. She possesses, how ever, two good points, by which we may profit. One is an uninterrupted experience of three centuries from which we might after feeling our way gather certain rules of con duct which at the present day can hardly be dispensed with, and the other, a well-founded mistrust of improvised methods, and an appre ciation of the fact, the truth of which has been repeatedly proved, that in the conduct of colonial affairs nothing can supply the place of experience, or even of mere study. That is all, perhaps, that the first colonial power in the world can teach us. Little as it is, let us at least try to understand it aright — a task by no means so easy.

Compared methods, usually so fruitful, are yet fraught with danger ; none more so, per haps, than the compared study of colonial administration. Numerous and complex factors have to be taken into account ; the power of the parent and the aptitude of her colonists; the climate and resources of the colony; the character and institutions of the aborigines. England's experience may possibly be of no service to Spain; results ob tained in Africa do not serve as a prece-

INTRODUCTION.

. XXI dent for any course of action in Asia. If, then, we would model our policy from that of foreign nations, let us make a good choice of our masters. These masters will be the Dutch or the English. But the British-Aus tralian colonists cannot teach us anything worth knowing for our Algeria or our Senegal, nor Americans, for Madagascar. If we wish to reap information from the British on mat ters relating to Africa, let us go to the Cape, or to the African West Coast. If we wish to turn studies to good account for our Indo-Chinese possessions, — and that is our primary aim — Asia is the country we must study, in adjacent latitudes and under simi lar conditions : for instance, at Hong-Kong, and in Burma. The history of Hong-Kong will afford us a further proof (if such were needed) of the — now-a-days commonplace — truism that, colonial enterprise requires an inexhaustible store of patience added to a large amount of obstinacy, and even occasionally a stub born and naive denial of what is commonly called "evidence"; and that, according to the good old English proverb, " where igno rance is bliss, 't is folly to be wise."

It will prove to us, moreover, how many mistakes are made even in the best laid plans ; how large a portion of man's success is due solely to good fortune ; and that, perhaps,

INTRODUCTION.

. XXII all human wisdom consists, not in trusting to fortune, but in always being in a position to profit by her favours. Burma, and India too, of which the former is but a province, will furnish us with other lessons. We might study Burma from more than one point of view. We might confine ourselves to British Burma, that is to say, the province of India so called prior to 1885; we might analyse the policy pursued there by the British towards the natives ; indicate their system of administration ; and determine what might appropriately be imitated, or avoided. This would be an instructive, but at the same time an incomplete task, seeing that British Burma, since 1885, has nearly doubled its area which now extends from the sea to the frontiers of China and Siam, and that all the interest appertaining to this enterprise centres in the British relations with their subjects in name but incompletely con quered, those of Upper Burma, and their problematical tributaries called by them Shans, and by us Laotians.

We might also give a description of the Anglo-Burmese hostilities, of the wars of 1824, 1852 and 1885, and of the dismem berments which followed the first two, the total absorption resulting from the last.

INTRODUCTION.

. XXIII This would be, especially as regards the latest period, an interesting addition to the history of intentional provocation and invol untary conquest, with the moral ready to hand of the 'Earthen and Iron pots.' Finally, we might describe the rivalries of France and England, rivals in Indo-China in the 1 9th century, as they were in India in the 1 8th. We could show how, more than 60 years ago England in self-defence seized a part of Burma ; how France, following in her wake, coveted by turns Annam, Cambodia, and perhaps Burma itself; neglected grand opportunities ; lost splendid advantages ; and allowed herself to be distanced in the race. So that out of this Indo-China, which seemed almost wholly within her grasp, she has still scarcely time to retain for her self a legitimate share by acceding to a proposal to fix the boundaries of the respec tive spheres of influence.

This task would indeed be no less interesting, and for it a motto might be borrowed from an equally famous fable : that of ' The Hare and the Tortoise.' But apart from the fact that all, or nearly all the above has already been done, ! this 1 Regarding the triple order of ideas indicated in the text, information may be gathered from the following works :

INTRODUCTION.

. XXIV is not the object of our research. We wish, in drawing a comparison between Burma which belongs to England and that portion of Indo-China which belongs to France, to find out what line of conduct the British have themselves adopted in their new possession, and how, in the midst ot difficulties and in the face of wants which are almost identical in the two countries, they have succeeded, not in rendering it prosperous — for that too short a period has yet elapsed — but in preparing its pacification, its administrative organisation, and its economic working. I . _*. narrative of the Mission sent by the Governor- General of India to the Court of Ava in 1855, by Captain Henry Yule, I vol., 4to, London, 1858; a work replete with information regarding the geography of Upper Burma, and the history and constitution of the Kingdom of Ava; the author's reputation being worldwide, any encomium on our part would be superfluous. — 2.

Pke British Burma Gazetteer, a publication issued by the Government of Lower Burma, and containing all requisite information regarding the history, geography, natural history and administrative organisation of that province, 2 vols., Svo, Rangoon, 1880.— And 3. La Chute des Allompra ou la fin du royaume d'Ava. (The Down jail of the Alompra, or the End of the Kingdom of Ava,) the purport of which is sufficiently indicated by the subsidiary title: "Extract from a work in the press, entitled La France et I ' Angleterre dans I'Indo-Chine," 1 vol., 8vo, Paris, 1890; Challamel. THE BRITISH AT HONG-KONG. rioxc idixc, «-irh tin- Adjacent Court ■S. l-.lnn.l-: B a-_r_____iL_i_ieir .Eim*

Chapter I

The Island — The Harbour — The Town — The Panorama . Hong-Kong, universally renowned, orna ment of the China Seas, wonder and jov of the Far-East, a place of rest and of refuge midway between Singapore and Shanghai, of which two places it forms the connecting link, is a diminutive island situated on the South-West coast of China in I i i° 40' E. longitude (Paris) and 220 N. latitude, just at the entrance to the Bay into which flows the river Canton. Facing it, 40 miles away, lies Macao, a Portuguese settlement. The two settlements stand erect like sentinels placed there by Europe to keep a watch over the Chinese colossus. There is, how ever, this difference between the two that, whereas the one is feeble and inattentive and dates back 400 years, the other is vigorous and alert, and is hardly half a century old.

It was in 1S41, at the time of the Opium war, that Hong-Kong became British territory. The provisonal terms, however, drawn up between Captain Elliot R.N. and the Chinese Imperial Commissioner Keshin, merely granted the use of the island to Great Britain, and contained special reservations with regard to the high ground. In the definitive Treaty of Nankin, signed on the 29th August 1842, these reservations disappeared, and the island was ceded perpetually to her Britannic Majesty, and her heirs and successors. On the 5th April 1843, it was created a colony and was granted a Charter which we shall discuss in a subsequent chapter. In 1 860, at the close of the Anglo-French expedition, the British acquired, by the terms of the Treaty of Pekin (24th October), an additional portion of territory, namely, the Kowloon Peninsula, which projects from the mainland at a point almost opposite the centre of the island.

It was at this period that the colon)* in its present form was constituted. The additional territory acquired by the Treaty of Pekin was an indispensable adjunct. To it must be attributed the vast extension of the trade — especially the maritime trade — of Hong-Kong, and from it the harbour derived its formation, convenience and security. Hong-Kong without Kowloon had in fact two defects. In the first place it was too near for safety to a country which made pirates wel come. The distance from the island to the mainland confronting it, does not at any point exceed six miles ; at certain points at the extreme end of the Kowloon Peninsula it is only two and a half miles, and at the Lyemoon Pass on the north-east, scarcely one mile. This being so, there is a continual crossing to and fro, for which even the most miserable apology for a craft suffices.

Now the pro vince of Quang-Tung is inhabited by a population of the worst description. Bandits, pirates, deserters, all sorts of vagabonds live there, on the watch for an easy prey or for profi table opportunities. They penetrated into Hong-Kong, achieved their object, and found an immediate and sure refuge on regaining the opposite shore. The possession of Kowloon, where posts of observation could be established, tended in some measure to render — and, in fact, did render — these expeditions more difficult, as it afforded greater facilities for their prevention. Nor is this all. Hong-Kong is of small di mensions : it has a length of i i miles, and a width of 2 to 5 miles ; the total area co vering 29 square miles. Besides this, the whole neighbourhood, both island and mainland, is mountainous.

The average height of the mountains is considerable, and here and there rise peaks which descend abruptly to the sea-shore. Victoria, the capital of the island, which at the present day has a population of 190,000, lies at the foot of the peak of that name which rises to a height of 1900 feet. The town developed at first — not without difficulty — along the sea-front ; the land was, as the English term it, re claimed ; quays were constructed, and quar ters, both good and bad, were provided for the requirements of trade, and for the colon ists. Then, as business increased, the space was found to be inadequate. Hereupon the inhabitants migrated, and built their nests on higher ground. Trade cannot, however, mount heights. It requires the immediate neighbourhood of a harbour, and flat ground ; so it extended to right and left till every available site being appropriated it was com pelled to seek other quarters, the result being, that it overstepped the arm of the sea and occupied Kowloon.