BRITISH FIRMS AND THE END OF EMPIRE IN BURMA

Abstract

A detailed examination of the war-time discussions within the British government and between government and the private sector over the direction of Burma's post-war economic reconstruction and the conditions under which companies might return. Through the focus on capital and commerce, the author seeks to explore British understandings-and misunderstandings- in their broadest sense.

Notes

See the recently published, and extremely fine, two volumes by Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941–1945. London: Allen Lane, 2004; Forgotten Wars: The End of Britain's Asian Empire. London: Allen Lane, 2007.

A notable exception is Thant Myint-U, ‘What to do about Burma’, London Review of Books, 29, 3, 8 February 2007, pp. 31–33. See also his The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma. London: Faber and Faber, 2007.

The two volume collection of British official documents on the end of British rule in Burma, edited by Hugh Tinker, Burma: the Struggle for Independence 1944–1948. London: HMSO, 1983, 1984, concentrates on “the central themes of constitutional and political debate and decision” (vol. I, p. xi). Little of the considerable volume of commercial and economic material is included.

Calculated from J. Russell Andrus, Burmese Economic Life. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1948, Table 23, p. 164.

Cheng Siok-Hwa, The Rice Industry of Burma 1852–1940. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1968, pp. 201, 206 fn. 18.

Cheng, The Rice Industry of Burma, pp. 77–93, 227–228.

Andrus, Burmese Economic Life, pp. 116–122. For a history of Burmah Oil, see T. A. B. Corley, A History of the Burmah Oil Company, volume I, 1886–1924; volume II, 1924–1966. London: Heinemann, 1983, 1988.

Andrus, Burmese Economic Life, pp. 105–106. It should be noted that in addition to its operations in teak, rice, and petroleum, Steel Brothers owned the Burma Cement Company and had interests in commercial insurance: Andrus, pp. 153–155, 311.

Andrus, Burmese Economic Life, pp. 148–149, 206–211.

J. S. Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice: a Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India. New York: New York University Press, 1956, pp. 190–191. In 1943, the Royal Institute of International Affairs reported that “the value of British private interests in Burma was computed in 1941 to be about £30–40,000,000”: Chatham House Paper No. IV, Anglo-American Pacific Study, “Burma”, 12 August 1943, IOLR, M/4/698. In some of the inter-war years, Steel Brothers paid dividends of 40 per cent, indeed 50 per cent in 1929, although the return could also be much lower: Cheng, The Rice Industry of Burma, p. 233.

John F. Cady, A History of Modern Burma. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1958, p. 163.

Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice, pp. 71–72.

For a detailed account of these ‘denial’ operations, see Corley, A History of the Burmah Oil Company, volume II, chapter 3.

Maurice Collis, Last and First in Burma (1941–1948). London: Faber and Faber, 1956, p. 116.

Government of Burma, Public Works and Rehabilitation Department, ‘Answers to questionnaire: a brief summary of war losses and their effects’, no date [but apparently December 1946]; Burma Office, ‘Devastation in Burma’, no date [but August 1946]; United Nations, Economic and Social Council, Reconstruction of Devastated Areas Working Group for Asia and the Far East, ‘Country Studies: Burma’, February 1947: each in India Office Library and Records [IOLR], M/4/689.

Memorandum by the Governor of Burma, attached to Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Burma, ‘Policy in regard to reconstruction in Burma after re-occupation’, 7 August 1942, in Hugh Tinker (ed.), Burma: the Struggle for Independence 1944–1948, volume I. London: HMSO, 1983, p. 3.

A variation of this argument, later much used by Burma's political leaders, was that for almost four years Burma had been a battlefield “through no fault of our own and for no cause in which our people were interested”: radio broadcast by Aung San in Delhi, reported in Dawn, 6 January 1947, in Tinker (ed.), Burma, volume II, p. 225.

Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Burma, ‘Policy in Burma’, 29 March 1943, in Tinker (ed.), Burma, volume I, pp. 17–18.

Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Burma, ‘Policy in Burma’, 29 March 1943, in Tinker (ed.), Burma, volume I, p. 15.

Among the “old defects” Dorman-Smith wished to eradicate were “the money-lending system, system of land tenure, [and] the exploitation of ‘cheap’ Indian labour”. Memorandum by the Governor of Burma, attached to Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Burma, ‘Policy in regard to reconstruction in Burma after re-occupation’, 7 August 1942, in Tinker (ed.), Burma, volume I, p. 3. Here at least he identified no ‘old defects’ in the Western components of Burma's economy.

These are the words of Sir Arthur Bruce, Manager of the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation from 1926 to 1947, and Commercial Adviser to the Governor of Burma, in Simla, 1944–45. His assessment of Dorman-Smith's vision and motives, written more than two decades later, is worth quoting at length. “Smarting under defeat, deeply humiliated by the way in which the Civil authorities had been unceremoniously bundled out of Burma, and imbued with a self-exculpatory feeling of having ‘let down’ the Burmese people, the exiled Government, under the inspiration of the Governor, set out to make amends by planning a new heaven on earth.” ‘Narratives of Events: Sir Arthur Bruce KBE’, in Tinker (ed.), Burma, volume I, pp. 990–991.

Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Burma, ‘Policy in Burma’, 29 March 1943, in Tinker (ed.), Burma, volume I, p. 15.

L. S. Amery to Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, 15 April 1943, in Tinker (ed.), Burma, volume I, p. 26. Amery was reporting on a meeting of the War Cabinet the previous day, at which Burma's economic and political reconstruction after the war had been discussed. “I am afraid Winston was in his most impossible mood. The thing is that he has an instinctive hatred of self-government in any shape or form and dislikes any country or people who want such a thing or for whom such a thing is contemplated.”

Direct rule by the Governor was seen as essential partly because the huge task of reconstruction would demand focused, decisive management but also because, in the view of Dorman-Smith at least, the vast sums of money reconstruction would involve meant that it could not be left in the control of “corrupt Burmese politicians”. Memorandum by the Governor of Burma, attached to Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Burma, ‘Policy in regard to reconstruction in Burma after re-occupation’, 7 August 1942, in Tinker (ed.), Burma, volume I, p. 4.

In Tinker (ed.) volume I, p. 1.

Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Burma, ‘Policy in Burma’, 29 March 1943, in Tinker (ed.) volume I, pp. 15–17.

Memorandum by the Governor of Burma, attached to Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Burma, ‘Policy in regard to reconstruction in Burma after re-occupation’, 7 August 1942, in Tinker (ed.) volume I, p. 4.

J. K. Michie to Sir David Monteath, 9 April 1943, IOLR, M/5/39.

Minute from Sir John Walton to Sir David Monteath, 26 August 1943, IOLR, M/5/39.

‘Minutes of a meeting held at the Burma Office on the 27th October 1943’, IOLR, M/5/39.

[Minutes of the] War Cabinet, 14 April 1943, in Tinker (ed.), Burma, volume I, p. 25.

‘Minutes of a meeting held at the Burma Office on 4th November, 1943’, IOLR, M/5/39.

‘Meeting held at the Burma Office, 18 March 1943’, IOLR, M/5/39.

‘Notes on a possible agenda for further discussion with the firms’, no author [but Harold Oxbury], no date [but 26 May 1943], IOLR, M/5/39.

Sir David Monteath to J. K. Michie, 3 April 1943, IOLR, M/5/39.

‘Note on conversation at a meeting with representatives of the firms on 8th September 1943’, no author, IOLR, M/5/39.

‘Meeting at Burma Office, 18 March 1943’, IOLR, M/5/39.

Sir John Walton to J. K. Michie, 5 March 1943, IOLR, M/5/39.

‘Notes on a possible agenda for further discussion with the firms’, no author [but Harold Oxbury], no date [but 26 May 1943], IOLR, M/5/39.

J. K. Michie to Sir David Monteath, 20 April 1943, IOLR, M/5/39. Not that these contributions were recognised by the Burmese, Michie continued: ‘But in a country where in recent years political intimidation has been rife it is not these things which have prevailed but the quite baseless attacks by these numerically small but vocally and otherwise very active political agitators using any stick to beat the British connection.’

J. K. Michie to Sir David Monteath, 9 April 1943, IOLR, M/5/39.

See, for example, Sir Henry MacNaghten [Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation] to Sir David Monteath, 9 April 1943; P. E. Marmion [Burma Corporation] to Sir David Monteath, 6 September 1943, IOLR, M/5/39.

J. K. Michie to Sir David Monteath, 9 April 1943, IOLR, M/5/39. Michie was also angered by a recent comment by Sir Stafford Cripps, then Minister of Aircraft Production, that European commerce in India – and by implication Burma as well – had had “a good innings”.

‘Notes on a possible agenda for further discussion with the firms’, no author [but Harold Oxbury], no date [but 26 May 1943], IOLR, M/5/39.

J. K. Michie, ‘Notes on suggested agenda’, 20 August 1943, enclosed in J. K. Michie to Sir David Monteath, 23 August 1943, IOLR, M/5/39.

‘Provision of working capital for British firms operating in Burma: note of a meeting at the Treasury on 19th January, 1944’, IOLR, M/4/556.

Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House Paper No. IV, Anglo-American Pacific Study, ‘Burma’, 12 August 1943, IOLR, M/4/698. The paper later argued: “it would seem inevitable that, both in the immediate period of rehabilitation and in the execution of a long-term plan alike of economic and political development, there is an unanswerable argument for the retention of control in some form in the hands of the tutelary Power.” In other words, British control should continue, perhaps for a decade or more.

L. H. Foulds to W. T. Annan, 21 February 1944, IOLR, M/4/698.

W. T. Annan to L. H. Foulds, 11 March 1944; draft of W. T. Annan to L. H. Foulds, undated [but early June 1944: the letter was not sent], IOLR, M/4/698.

Sir Cecil Kisch [Financial Department, Burma Office] to Francis Smith [Assistant Under-Secretary of State for Burma], 7 March 1944, IOLR, M/4/698.

‘Note by [James] Baxter on a draft Burma Office reply to Foulds letter of 6 April 1944’, 20 April 1944, IOLR, M/4/698.

C. H. M. Wilcox [Treasury Chambers] to W. T. Annan, 14 April 1944, IOLR, M/4/698. Dorman-Smith was infuriated, dismissing Wilcox's letter as “jejune and stupid”: Minute by Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, 12 May 1944, enclosed in T. L. Hughes [Simla] to F. W. H. [Francis] Smith, 17 May 1944, IOLR, M/4/698.

L. H. Foulds to W. T. Annan, 6 April 1944, IOLR, M/4/698.

Minute by W. A. B. Iliff, 15 May 1944, enclosed in T. L. Hughes [Simla] to F. W. H. [Francis] Smith, 17 May 1944, IOLR, M/4/698.

Iliff continued: “but some offers [of outside capital] would have sweeter odour than others in Burmese nostrils”.

Draft of W. T. Annan to L. H. Foulds, undated [but early June 1944: the letter was not sent], IOLR, M/4/698.

Dorman-Smith commented that the Foreign Office was pushing “a thoroughly materialistic point of view”: Minute by Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, 12 May 1944, enclosed in T. L. Hughes [Simla] to F. W. H. [Francis] Smith, 17 May 1944, IOLR, M/4/698.

L. H. Foulds to W. T. Annan, 6 April 1944, IOLR, M/4/698. For a detailed consideration of the discussions in and between London and Washington on the proposed declaration, see Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain and the War against Japan, 1941–1945. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1978, pp. 222–224, 341–342.

L. H. Foulds to W. T. Annan, 6 April 1944, IOLR, M/4/698. Emphasis added.

‘Note by [James] Baxter on a draft Burma Office reply to Foulds letter of 6 April 1944’, 20 April 1944, IOLR, M/4/698.

Draft of W. T. Annan to L. H. Foulds, undated [but early June 1944: the letter was not sent], IOLR, M/4/698. Emphasis added.

Minute by Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, 12 May 1944, enclosed in T. L. Hughes [Simla] to F. W. H. [Francis] Smith, 17 May 1944, IOLR, M/4/698. Emphasis in original.

United Nations, Economic and Social Council, Reconstruction of Devastated Areas Working Group for Asia and the Far East, ‘Country Studies: Burma’, February 1947, IOLR, M/4/689.

Corley, A History of the Burmah Oil Company, volume II, p. 208.

Nicholas Tarling, ‘“A New and a Better Cunning”: British Wartime Planning for Post-war Burma, 1942–43’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 13, 1 (March 1982): 48. The article has a companion: Nicholas Tarling, ‘“An Empire Gem”: British Wartime Planning for Post-war Burma, 1943–44’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 13, 2 (September 1982): 310–348.

Hugh Tinker, The Union of Burma: A Study of the First Years of Independence. London: Oxford University Press, 4th ed., 1967, p. 303; Louis J. Walinsky, Economic Development in Burma 1951–1960. New York: The Twentieth Century Fund, 1962, p. 350.

Tinker, The Union of Burma, pp. 94–95.

Tinker, The Union of Burma, p. 303.

Corley, A History of the Burmah Oil Company, volume II, pp. 196–197, 269–271.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ian Brown

Ian Brown is Professor of the Economic History of South East Asia and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the School of Oriental and African Studies,(SOAS) London. He is currently writing a history of crime and imprisonment in colonial Burma.