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the peace of the border and to prevent the Sawbwas being subjected to oppression and extortion on our account or on any other account.
When such cases occur, the Consul must largely be guided by the opinion of the Government of Burmah in the particular matter. If the Shan State involved is far from the frontier and the trade routes, and no charges of intriguing with the outer people have been preferred, the advisability of Consular intervention would be doubtful, but when a charge of imaginary treason with Burmal is trumped up, or when, as in the case of Kangai, the Sawbwa, attacked is one-the security of whose State is essential to the peace of the border and the due exercise of our own commercial rights, ther the case for intervention is very strong, and so long as I have the honour to be employed here, I propose to intervene, subject to any instructions that I may receive to the contrary.
I am now addressing a note to the Taotai, in which I assume, in order to "save his face," that the Mang Shih and other cases have been the work of his subordinates. I call upon him to take efficient measurer to suppress the practice of extortion of the frontier Sawbwas, and inform him that any further abuse of the name of the Government of Burmah in connection with such unsavoury affairs will be at once referred by me to His Majesty's Minister, and is likely to lead to unpleasant conse- quences to the officials concerned.
Inclosure 2 in No. 1.
I have, &c. (Signed)
G. LITTON.
Extract from Intelligence Report, Tengyueh, January 30, 1905.
State of the Frontier.
IN January 1995 a meeting took place near Meng Mao on the frontier, between the British officials and Ma, the Chinese Frontier Commandant, and the representa tives of the Shan Sawbwas.
Practically all the outstanding Bhamo cases concerning frontier matters were settled, and the stolen property or its equivalent handed over to us, while we had to pay to Meng Mao 185 rupees in respect of two cases where the offenders were British subjects. The Consulate records are not quite complete, but since last frontier meeting in January 1904, when fourteen small cases were outstanding, thirty Bhamo frontier cases have been reported, all, with one exception, through the Deputy Com- missioner, making in all a total of forty-four frontier cases for the year. There were no serious raids into British territory, and the cases were mostly minor cattle thefts. All but four cases have been settled; of these four one is serious, consisting of robbery with deadly weapons, just on the Chinese side of the border when a caravan of five beasts, belonging to a British Chinaman who was badly shot in the thigh, was carried off by Pang Wai Kachins; the animals have been recovered, but we propose in this case to endeavour to extract further compensation. The other three unsettled cases are petty matters which will, I hope, be soon adjusted. Since the meeting a bad case of robbery with violence on a Chinese Shan by British Kachins has been reported from Lung Chuan (Meng Wan), and is under inquiry.
The property and money restored by the Chinese to British subjects represents a value of 2,500 rupees (about) for the year 1904-1905.*
Various "frontier cultivation" cases were also gone into. The Boundary Com- missioners agreed that any cultivation rights exercised in China by British subjects, or in Burmali by Chinese subjects, should be preserved to them by mutual Agreement, after demarcation, but might not be extended. Under this arrangement it appears that the Chinese subjects who cultivate in our territory are more numerous than the British subjects who cultivate in China. If, then, as the Chinese Chefang Sawbwa demands, we withdraw our cultivators from his State, other Chinese Sawbwas must withdraw their cultivators from British territory, and in the end China would be the loser. It is hoped that no further friction will occur as to these cultivation questions, which, if not dealt with, are liable to lead to serious affrays,
* As against forty-four cases, 3,000 rupees, for 1908-1904.
425
On the whole, there is a distinct improvement in the condition of the frontier so far as international matters are concerned, and in the manner in which the Commandant on the Chinese side deals with cases. Considerable credit is due to him, though of course the line of posts and the considerable force of frontier military police which the British maintain is the real guarantee of peace along the border.
The Meng Mao Sawbwa is decidedly more awake to the necessity of keeping his frontier in order than he was; but his Shans still have to pay blackmail to Kachins. The internal condition of Meng Wan (Lung Chuan), on the other hand, is going from bad to worse, and, generally speaking, it is still true that Burmah is put to a heavy expense for the maintenance of military police on the border, who would not bộ necessary if the Chinese Administration did its duty. In no single frontier case were the guilty parties punished; for the Chinese to punish a Kachin would probably mean a punitive expedition against his village, or the commencement of a feud between the man's relatives and the local Chinese. Commandant Ma is anxious to avoid anything of that kind. The total sum which he receives for the upkeep of two regiments (nominally 450 men), including arms, ammunition, equipment, food, clothing, and housing is only 28,000 rupees a-year at most. If he indulged in any fighting he would have to pay even for the cartridges used. What he practically does is to take a contract, by which he agrees with the Tengyueh officials to keep the frontier reasonably quiet, and to satisfy the British officials when cases do occur.
So long as they are not pressed to take any troublesome action or to cash up money, and so long as their conduct is not officially impugned by the Consul, the Tengyueh Mandarins do not care in the very lest what happens on the frontier. Of course Commandant Ma has really only some 100 men in all. The mere fact that he does his duty to a certain extent, that he is on good terms with the British officers, and that by personally moving up and down the frontier, often, horrible to relate, in a short coat and straw sandals, he manages to settle cases to which we call his attention, have been a fruitful source of spiteful accusations against him by the gentry and yamên folk at Teng- yueh, but I have done what I can to support this energetic, if illiterate, officer.
It must be admitted that the precise means by which Ma gets satisfaction for us in these cases are not quite clear, and probably involve some injustice, though less than would be entailed if we get no satisfaction at all. Sometimes he makes the Sawbwas pay blackmail to redeem the stolen cattle from the Kachin thieves; some- times he makes the Sawbwas produce other cattle or rupees, which, as likely as not, are extracted from the unlucky villagers. In some cases I think that Ma pays himself. He is generally supposed to make some 5,000 rupees a-year clear profit out of his office, so if he occasionally has to pay a few hundreds no great harm is done.
The Chinese Kachin villages responsible for these offences and the offenders' nanies are well known, both to the British and the Chinese officials; the exemplary punishment of two or three villages and the establishment of military posts among them by the Chinese would doubtless cause an almost entire cessation of frontier crime, and it may be thought that we ought to press energetically for the immediate undertaking of military operations by the Chinese.
The Kachin districts which, though within the Chinese border, are under no sort of effective control, are--
1. A large tract near the Burmah frontier among the hills which rise above the right bank of the Taping River (excepting the Peng IIsi hill, which is under control). This uncontrolled tract stretches north along the frontier of our Burmah and Mytkina districts. The names of the villages are unknown to the Tengyueh officials. Nothing which happens there is ever reported to them, save occasionally by the Consul; no taxes are paid, and, in fact, China has no more control over these hills than if they were in the centre of Africa.
2. Further south, on the left of the Taping River, the hills which form the divide between Labsa and Lung Chuan are in a very similar condition, except where the main track crosses the hills. One group of villages on this range, Pang Wui, is close to our border, and is responsible for many frontier crimes.
3. The Kachins, who inhabit the divide between Meng Wan (Lung Chuan) and Meng Mao, are practically independent. This range stretches for some 30 miles, and in no part of it except along the main route from Meng Mao to Meng Wan is there a particle of Chinese authority.
control.
4. The Kachins in the hills all round Chefang are also quite independent of All the Sawbwa can do is to prevent the wild men raiding his plain, aud ho cannot always do that.