Pre-War Burma
Self-Government
1897 – Burma obtains a separate Legislative council
1923 – Montagu-Chelmsford constitutional reforms – system of diarchy
1937 – India and Burma separated; Burma granted its own cabinet and in the lower house of the reconstituted parliament all seats were elected. The British Governor only retained control of external affairs, defence, currency and the “Excluded Areas” of backward hill tribes that amounted to 40% of the country but only 16% of the total population. Thus Burma was very advanced on the road to Dominion status. Despite it’s dependence on a single export crop, and the extraction of large profits to Indian and British investors, the economy was fundamentally sound the standard of living was recognizably superior to that of China, India, and most colonial dependencies in other parts of the world.
1940 – Not satisfied by the pace and direction of change thirty young nationalist (Thakin Party) led by Aung San fled to Japan.
1941 – Indian immigrants were required to be in possession of passports.
Pre-War Investments
Pounds Stirling
Indian 56,000,000 – two thirds in agriculture
British 53,000,000 – oil 18,000,000; mines 11,000,000; timber 9,000,000; transport 6,000,000; rice 3,000,000; trade & manufacturing 2,500,000;
Water Transport
The 4,000 miles of commercially navigable inland waterways was the fundamental component of Burma’s transport network. The two most important river transport companies (both British owned) were the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company (I.F.C. was founded 1865) and the Arracan Flotilla Company A.F.C.). The 900-mile on the Irrawaddy from the coast to Bhamo (30 miles from the Chinese border) in 1930 involved 10 days steaming upstream. The Irrawaddy Flotilla Company’s express paddle steamers which were employed on this run were to larges of their type in the world (326 feet long x 76 feet beam) and in addition the Company owned a fleet of heavy freighters and barges for service between the oilfields and the delta, as well as numerous smaller craft of all kinds, many built in the Company’s own dockyard at Dalla near Rangoon.
The Irrawaddy may be used for commercial navigation for 874 miles all the year plus a further 105 miles for 7 months of the year. The Chindwin River is usable from its confluence with the Irrawaddy to Hamalin (approx. 400 miles) for 8 mouths, and the Sittang River for 25 miles all the year and a further 30 miles for 3 months only. The Salween River is usable for distance of some 60 miles from Moulmein to Shwegun. The Twante Canal connects Rangoon, at the confluence of the Hlaing and Pegu Rivers, with the Irrawaddy. By using the canal linking the Pegu and the Sittang, it is possible for river traffic to travel from the Sittang to Rangoon to the Irrawaddy River proper.
Within the delta region maze of tributaries and minor creeks provided an elaborate network of 2,000 miles of waterways for country boats and launches that carried over half of the rice moving to the mills. Generally throughout Burma the importance of small craft of all types cannot be exaggerated.
In 1939-40 the I.F.C. & the A.F.C. together carried 8,200,000 passengers and 1,300,000 tons of cargo per year, compared to the Burma Railway’s 18,810,000 passengers and 4,001,000 tons of freight. The I.F.C. had 600 river craft.
Rangoon was one of the most efficient ports in Asia, handling ships of up to 15,000 tons and 30 feet draught, possessing 15 miles of anchorage in the river and four miles of dockyard. Rangoon and its neighbour Bassein in the delta (second rice exporting port) it could be used all the year round. The Arakan and Tenasserim ports had virtually to close down during the SW monsoon from May to October.
Railways
In 1877 the first railway opened from Rangoon to Prome on the Irrawaddy. Following the valley of the Sittang River the rail had reach Mandalay by 1889. By 1899 an extension from Sagaing on the opposite bank of the Irrawaddy to Myitkyina in the hill country north of Bhamo. In 1903 the line Mandalay to Lashio was completed. Both Myitkyina and Lashio were starting points of the ancient caravan routes to China. There the followed other branches in the delta, the dry zone, southern Shan States and along the Tenasserim coast to Ye. The total of railway lines being 2,058 miles. In 1934 the great 4,000 feet Ava Bridge (both road & rail) over the Irrawaddy was completed joining the gap between Mandalay and Sagaing. Pre-1942 there were 350 locomotives.
A private railway linked the Bawdwin mine with the smelter at Namtu and with the Lashio branch line of the government railway at Namyao.
Roads
Just as the rail system was laid out to service areas not covered by river transport, so the roads were built to fill in gaps served by neither river nor rail. Although Rangoon had been linked by road to both Prome and Pegu by the end of the 1850’s, the construction of road network did not begin until after WWI. A main trunk road was built between Rangoon to Lashio closely following the rail line, but in most areas roads were intended as feeders to the rail system. The main construction efforts being in the dry zone and the Shan States, and only a couple of “adventurously motorable” roads crossed the western hills into the Arakan.
Before WWII a surfaced road was constructed from east from Toungoo on the main railway line to Mawchi, the world’s largest Tungsten mine.
Towns & Population
1941 –
Rangoon 500,800;
Mandalay 163,243;
Moulmein 71,181;
Bassein 45,662;
1931 Census
Literacy
31.3% of the total population; 48.6% males; 14.1% females;
Main Ethnic & Religious Groups
1. The Nagas and the Was are head hunters
2. The Shan live at 1,000 to 4,000 feet and have acquired either partial immunity or indifference to fevers which others find intolerable
3. The Indians largely monopolized the legal, medical and engineering professions. The majority were employed in the fields, docks, railways and mines.
4. Chettyar – Indian moneylenders who took the role normally taken by the Chinese in other SE Asian countries. As such, like the Chinese in Java they became hated by their unsophisticated customers as the indebted owners of farms and business were forced to hand over their assets and found themselves now working for the moneylenders who now controlled most of the small businesses and small farms.
Buddhist……………..12,348,037
Animist………………….763,243
Muslim…………………..584,839
Hindu…………………….582,581
Christian………………….331,106 (218,790 were Karens)
American Baptist missions found the Buddhist Burmans unreceptive. However the unsophisticated pagan Karen suitable for conversion and education. The mission schools provided a useful education allowing the Karen employment as policemen, nurses, teachers, doctors and soldiers; many obtaining commissioned rank in the British Burma Army. Other Karren converts went on as missionaries to the Kachin Hills and other animist areas.
Burmans………………..9,627,196
Karens…………………..1,367,673
Shan……………………..1,037,406
Kachins (est.).……………..400,000
Chins………………………348,994
Mons……………………….336,728 (language akin to Khmer)
Palaung-Wa………..………176,382
Lolo-Mushso………………..93,224
Naga…………………………70,000
Indian……………………1,107,825 (Madras, Bihar, Orissa & Bengal)
Chinese…………………….193,594
Indo-Burman……………….182,166
Eurasians……………………..19,200
European……………………..11,651
Others
Total………………………15,000,000
Electricity
At Rangoon one thermal power station producing 24,000 kW, about 100 small diesel plants suppling main towns with electric light, and 70 diesel plants providing power for mines and factories.
Trade & Production
Before the Pacific War, in most years rice accounted for 40% of Burma’s exports, Petroleum production 20% next came exports of teak from Pegu Yoma and Moulmein hinterland. Then came an assortment of minerals, cotton from the dry zone and rubber from the Tenasserim were the climate approximated most nearly equatorial type of Malaya and Sumatra.
In the delta region the period of flooding is late July and August, that is 2 months after the start of the monsoon rains have begun in the delta. To protect the rice crop from flooding that in 1860 British Public Works Department engineers using Indian labour started building great embankments on the banks of the main rivers and principal distributaries.
The harvest season began in November/December for at least 95% of the delta rice crop several weeks after the cessation of the main rains in October. By the beginning of January the bulk of the crop was in transit to the rice mills, the farmer retaining a fifth or a sixth of the crop for his own use with the balance for cash crop. Most of the mills are small operations processing less than 100 tons per day.
Rice Exports, average of 1934-38
N.E.I………………..77,000 tons (3%)
Malaya……………..225,000 tons (7%)
Japan…………………13,000 tons
Ceylon………..…….335,000 tons (12%)
India………………1,652,000 tons (55%)
China …………….…..64,000 tons (2%)
United Kingdom………58,000 tons (2%)
Others
Total…………….…3,013,000 tons
Agricultural Production average annual 1936-41
Paddy – Rice…………………...7,426,000 tons
Pulses……………………….…….250,000 tons
Ground Nuts……………………...181,000 tons
Sesamum………………………….45,000 tons
Cotton……………………………...21,000 tons
Tobacco…………………………….44,000 tons
Millet & Wheat…………………….78,000 tons
Exports of Petroleum and Refined Products, 1939-40
Petroleum……………………….54,700,000 gallons
Kerosene………….……………140,500,000 gallons
Lubricating Oils………………….7.900,000 gallons
Wax……………………………………56.218 tons
Candles………………………………..4,309 tons
Oil production in Burma represented about 0.4% of the world’s production, but represented 21% of the British Empire’s total and had a ready market in India. During the 1930’s exports of petroleum products were worth some 10,000,000 pounds sterling. Three British Companies – the Burmah Oil Company, Indo Burma Petroleum Company, and the British Burma Petroleum Company, produced the vast majority oil. Each of these British companies had their own refinery on the Rangoon River, B.O.C. at Syriam (supplied by a 300 mile 10 inch pipeline), I.P.B.C at Seikkyi, and B.B.P.C. at Thilawa.
Daily output of the four main oil product centres in 1940
Yenangyaung…………………295,307 gallons
Chauk…………………………377,703 gallons
Lanywa…………………………63,315 gallons
Yenangyat………………………12,679 gallons
Mineral Production, 1939
Crude Petroleum………..…275,700,000 gallons
Tin ores & concentrates…………..5,400 tons
Tungsten ores & concentrates…….4,300 tons
Mixed Tin & Tungsten…………….5,600 tons
Lead Ores & concentrates………...77,100 tons
Zine Ores & concentrates…………59,300 tons
Near Bawdwin in the Shan States were rich silver-lead-zinc deposits, which had been work, worked by the Chinese from across the border using slave labour. In 1907 the British began mining using Indian and Chinese labour, as the Burmese were unwilling to go under ground. The Namtu smelter was built in 1936 and was producing 71,915 tons of lead, 76,802 tons of zinc concentrates, 5,952,000 ounces of silver, 1,294 ounces of gold plus substantial quantities of copper matte.
The Mawchi mine produced half of Burma’s output of Tungsten the remainder coming from small, mainly Chinese owned mines in Tenasserim. The Tenasserium was also the source of the small output of 4,000 tons of tin annually.
Industries
1,007 factories registered in 1942, 70% were rice mills and sawmills.
692 rice mills (1939), 27 European owned, 164 Chinese owned, 190 Indian owned, 311 Burmese owned; 80% employed less than 100 workers.
Of the 90,000 factory workers of 1940, nearly 50% were employed in rice mills, 12% in the approx 100 saw mills, 10% in the oil industry.
The largest factories were the European owned cotton spinning and ginning mill at Myingyan and cement factory at Thayetmyo (supplying Burma and exporting to Malaya), and the Indian owned knitting factory near Insein (5 miles out of Rangoon) and sugar refinery at Zeyawaddy; the Burma Railways workshops at Insein, Myitnge and Kanbalu.
The British Empires leading exporters of timber were Burma, Canada and British North Borneo.
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My Alternate History Writing
Draft of note to Colonial Office
To
The Colonial Secretary
The Right Honourable Malcolm Macdonald
Warning of proposed petition to His Majesty King George the VI by a grouping of moderate Honourable Members Of Burman Parliament and His Majesty’s subjects whom, are of moderate politics and prominent position in Burma.
Part A. Cover letter
Part B. Attachment: Briefing on people and economy of Burma
Part A.
The young nationalist (Thakin Party) led by Aung San who fled to Japan in 1940 left behind them a substantial number of supporters made up of mainly younger sections of the populace. As is the nature of the impatience of youth they only see problems and those problems they believe require bold, simplistic, dramatic and rapid solutions. The present war emergency and the military successes of the Japanese is providing these radicals with influence amongst the Burmese and spotlighting issues that the basic common every day man in the paddy field can relate to.
There are several areas of complaint each of vary type and nature.
- Economic – The average Burman is or has been indebted to the Chettyar (Indian moneylenders) who are universally hated and detested. This is because of their exceeding hard headed and sharp business practices that had led to them now controlling the majority of the delta rice lands and much of the small business of the country. This has boiled over twice into uprisings and massacres of Indians.
- Political – The extent and nature of the authority of the elected Burma Parliament and Cabinet. Of course any politician wants more power, and the Burmans ones wish for more power and total control of all the peoples and lands within the borders of Burma. Those borders that have only last year been finally agreed to by China through treaty last year. Our position is that not all the peoples and lands that are in the borders of modern Burma have been historically under the rule of past Burmese Kingdoms and His Majesty’s Government has special moral duties and responsibilities, not to mention legal and treaty obligations to the majority of the hill tribes.
In a perfect world we could forcible buy the debts of the Burmans and transfer them to a Government Bank, renegotiate the loans or even write them off, also we could also forcible buy back from the Chettyar the small holdings of farmers and business people returning them to their original owners in exchange for low interest loans. This would make us exceeding popular, correct many injustices and the existence of a village level small loan/low interest capacity would greatly increase bottom up economic development. The Indian Government solution of regulating the interest rates of the village-money lenders required regulation and the establishment of thousands of local village co-operative financial societies has run into trouble with the lack of capital available at village level. Therefore a village level loan and savings system must be underwritten by the Burma Government, and in the short term that means the British capital and the British Government.
Against this is the precedent for a future Burman government to seize the assets of British investors and companies by claiming past unfair or unjust treatment. Also the complaint of the Indian Government to the seizure of assets of Indian nationals and the simple immense size and complexity of the task and cost, running into tens of millions of pounds. If these funds cannot be raised would the United States Government look upon this as a means of helping protect the Burma Road and speeding the end of British Colonial rule in Burma?
For the Burmans it is a matter of simple logical and pride that they should govern what we have governed as they become the successor state to the British Colonial government.
For the native hill tribes, they have claims to their own independence and some even can claim they have they have their own sovereignty being only under the protection of the British Crown. Also their economic, social, political and cultural history and connection the Burma vary greatly from tribal group to tribal group and would, in the interest of justice and law require the negotiation of individual relationships to any independent Burma, and their residual connection to the British Crown. The answer may lay in a form of lose confederation with the hill tribes having if they request it a token British presence and Nepal/Gurkha style relationship to Britain. No matter what guarantees we may negotiate between the parties any unitary state created would be overwhelmingly dominated by the valley Burmese. As any guarantees from Britain would ultimately be only enforceable if Britain is prepared for the commitment of the sanction of military force for all practical purposes would be worthless without the backing India or other neighbouring states in the future Asia.
I submit that these are a rough outline of a political position, but I believe that we must get in first with a deal, waiting to only react to these issues when we are forced to, will be too late. The perception is growing, correct or not, is that world wide, the “new dynamic” powers of Germany, Italy and Japan are sweeping away the past and they represent the future of the youth. We must be seen to be both the protectors of the best of the past but also the builders of the better future. It is a delusion that the Burman is going to fight for us out of loyalty and duty, the hill tribes are enlisting as a form of insurance for our protection of them in the future, the average Burman is enlisting because of our reserve of good will built up on good government, and the rule of law. This is a very limited reserve, as the average Burman wants us out, only the timing and how they cannot agree on. The Burmans must have a stake in fighting for Burma on our side and we must give it to then, or the Japanese will surely have some impossible dreamland promises to make all sections of Burmese society happy.
All this may seem radical steeps, but I believe after extensive consultations with local old Burma “hands” on political, military, economic, etc issues that we may be sitting a power keg if the Japanese can make politically significant military progress on the ground in Burma. We desperately need to give the moderates something to offer their supporters, for they fear that they and all that they have achieved to date may be irreparably damaged by associating with us. There is no stopping the “Burma for the Burmese” movement as it has too much momentum and also as it is the policy of His Majesty’s Government to prepare Burma for Dominion Status as a self-governing independent country in the British Commonwealth it is just a matter of the meeting and merging of the two ideals. If a deal can be struck now, or at least substantial progress on one, the price will be far less than one will be later. The reward is a politically safe base for military, economic and diplomatic operations, the active support the vast majority of the population and the recruitment over the next year of 100,000 men.
I have the honour
Sign
(Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith)
His Majesty’s Governor of Burma
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Andaman Islands 1941
There are over 200 islands extending 220 miles NNE/SSW with a total area of 2500 square miles with bulk of the area taken up by North, Middle, and South Andaman Islands. Narrow mangrove-fringed inlets separate these three islands so they are usually referred to as one island, Great Andaman. The islands are formed of sandstones, limestones, clays, and some serpentines and are highly dissected by streams, the hills rising to 2,400 feet. The temperature is never far from 85 degree F, rainfall of over 100 inches per year and a monsoonal distribution with no rainless season. The coastline and inlets are mangrove, tropical evergreen jungle along valleys and on steeper wetter slopes, elsewhere moist deciduous. Forestry is the most important economic activity and is fairly well organised with a match factory set up in 1930.
The 1941 population was 21,316 comprising aborigines, convicts, ex-convicts and their local born children and officials. It was believed the aboriginal population was down to 62. Transportation of convicts from Indian has continued since the Indian Mutiny. Latter the settlement was changed to an open prison for young men condemned to life sentences for more or less excusable homicide. After a few months in jail convicts were allowed to become wage-earning employees of the Government, wear ordinary dress, and to marry or bring out their wives. Thus the 1941 population was 14,872 males and 6,444 females. This development of a large family based population resulted in the replacement of temporary huts by more permanent buildings, well-constructed two-storeyed houses of sawn timber and iron roofs. Also a good deal of reclamation of malarial swamp took place around Port Blair. In 1941 one third of the population was Muslim, largely Moplahs from Madras deported after their 1921 rebellion; Sikhs 3.5% (against the national 1.5%) thanks to the Sikh penchant for “liquor, love and Fights”, and Buddhist 13% (Burmese).
The “Settlement of Port Bair” had practically all the economic development and 90% of the population was an area of 500 square miles in the south of South Andaman. The balance of the population was located in forest camps. About 75,000 acres are more or less cleared of which 10-15,000 acres are cultivated and as much used as grazing land. Paddy and coconuts each account for about a third of the cultivation and there are struggling plantations of rubber and coffee of negligible area.
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Extracts from Eastern Fleet War Diary
ANDAMAN ISLANDS
Although warnings were promulgated in the usual manner of the mines laid by HMS ABDIEL during the previous month, it is regretted that HMIS SOPHIE MARIE struck a mine in the Macpherson Strait and sank.
With the growing threat from the East it was decided to evacuate the garrison at Port Blair. SS NEURALIA was accordingly detailed for this duty. Certain demolitions were to be carried out by a special detachment of sappers and miners. Ordered were passed that trucks and mules were not to be evacuated but were to be handed over to the Chief Commissioner. Subsequently, a request was made for another ship to evacuate the remaining citizens, this unfortunately could not be granted owing to the war situation.
Air reconnaissance of the Andaman Island area shows that the Japanese are now using these waters, the following is a summary of sightings”
On March 23rd: One cruiser, one 5000 ton transport, one minelayer or cruiser, 2 Aircraft Carriers.
On March 24th: Three cruisers, six destroyers, three 5000 ton transports, and one minelayer
On March 25th: Four cruisers, twelve destroyers, and four transports.
On March 26th: It was reported that one supply ship had arrived, while three destroyers and on transport had left. A most secret source reported that the Japanese 3rd Aircraft Carrier Squadron was in the Penang/Andaman area on March 26th.
On March 27th: Two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, three destroyers, and four 4000 ton transports.
On March 31st: Two cruisers and two destroyers off Port Blair.
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This NOT my writings but taken from web site…..
THE PORT BLAIR MASSACRES (March 23, 1942)
Japanese forces occupied the British controlled Andaman Islands. They met no resistance from the local population but within hours the 'Sons of Heaven' started an orgy of looting, raping and murder. Unbelievable orgies were perpetrated in the towns and villages with women and young girls forcibly raped and young boys sodomized. In Port Blair, eight high-ranking Indian officials were tortured then buried up to their chests in pits they were forced to dig. Their chests, heads and eyes were then prodded with bayonets after which the pit was sprayed with bullets until the helpless victims were all dead. The Director of Health and President of the Indian Independence League, Diwan Singh, was arrested and nearly 2,000 of his Peace Committee associates incarcerated in the local jail and subjected to the water treatment, electric shocks and other unspeakable forms of torture for eighty-two days. Those left alive were then taken out to the country and shot and buried. After the massacre the Japanese resorted to a reign of terror, women were abducted and taken to the officers club to be raped by the officer elite. A shipload of Korean girls was brought in to participate in this 'sport'. During the three and a half years of Japanese occupation, out of the 40,000 population of Port Blair around 30,000 were brutally murdered. The small islands of the Andamans were left a scene of utter devastation.
This was Japan's way of helping India get her freedom from British rule.
MASSACRE ON ANDAMAN (August 14, 1945)
Situated midway between the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean, lie the tranquil Andaman Islands. As the food shortage became acute during the last month of the war, the Japanese occupiers decided to exterminate all those who were no longer useful or employable. All were deprived of their personal possessions and household goods before being embarked on three boats. About two kilometres from the shore of the uninhabited Havelock Island they were forced to jump into the sea and swim to the beach. Most of them, around a hundred, drowned on the way and those who made it were abandoned to die of starvation. Of the original 300 who landed only eleven were alive six weeks later. The next day, 800 Indian civilians were rounded up and transported to another uninhabited island, Tarmugli. Transferred to the island in small boats, they wandered aimlessly on the beach waiting for further orders. Soon, a detachment of 19 Japanese troops arrived and what followed was one of the most heinous crimes in the annals of the Pacific war. It took the detachment just over an hour to slaughter all but two of the 800 victims by shooting and bayoneting. Next day, August 15, 1945, the day of the Japanese surrender, a burial detail of troops arrived to remove all traces of the massacre. Within twenty-four hours all 798 bodies were collected and burned in funeral pyres until only fragmented bones and ashes remained. The ashes were then buried in deep pits dug on the beach.
In a gross miscarriage of justice, the Japanese officer responsible was sentenced to only two years in prison by a British Military Court.
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Nicobar Islands
This group extends from 6 to 10 drees north. Car Nicobar lying 75 miles from Little Andaman, with Great Nicobar 91 miles from Sumatra. There are 19 islands of which 12 are inhabited with a total 1941 population of 12,452.
According to the 1931 census figures the total population of 10,240, Great Nicobar with 133 square miles had 300 people; several island run to 40-60 square miles and Car Nicobar with 49 square miles had the larges population of 7,492. The greatest density was on Chaura Island with 205 people. The population comprised of 200 Shompen, a jungle inland tribe on Great Nicobar, traders and offices number 500. The balance is Nicobarese proper whose affinities seem to be Mon-Khmer peoples of the Indo-Chines Peninsular and east Burma.
The basis of the islands is formed of soft micaceous sandstones and clays, but there are extensive slightly raised coral flats. None of the islands is very high, but Great and Little Nicobar are much dissected by streams and forested; the other islands are mainly covered with tall “lalang” grass or coconuts. Abandoned coconut groves around Great Nicobar tell of a former larger population but conflict with the Shompen is apparently responsible for their abandonment.
History & External Economy
Dutch pirates and French Jesuits had contacts with the islands before the Danish East India Company took on the task of “civilisation” in 1756. The British occupied the islands during the Napoleonic Wars, but spasmodic and inept Danish efforts at colonisation and evangelisation continued until 1848. The chief heritage of the Danes was the herd of half-wild buffaloes on Kamorta Island. In 1867 and 1876 the Prussians and Austrians made gestures towards developing the islands. At intervals Malay pirates who left no survivors used the islands and their activities unjustly gave the Nicobarese a reputation for ferocity. In 1869 to protect mariners acted. A penal settle was tried but failed, importing Chinese colonists failed, finally the British administration practically confined to keeping out “firearms and firewater” and to licensing traders. The traders were mainly Penang Chinese but also native craft from Burma, the Maldives and even Cutch. Coconuts are by fare the most important export and are in effect the currency. By 1915 the Nicobarese were in Debt to the tune of 29,000,000 coconuts are four years production. The government allowed 5 years to collect the debts and the ordered the books closed and forbade credit. Other exports include trepang, edible nests, trochus shells, areca nuts and rattans. Imports are rice, tobacco (which is also grown on some islands), “dahs” (Burmese choppers or knives) and cloth. Much of the cloth being destroyed in Funerary Ceremonies.
Internal Economy
1931 Census, Vol. III, page 74 “In a rich man’s household often as many as 300 coconuts are consumed in a day. Some 200 of these are used in feeding the family’s many pigs in the jungle.”
The internal economy of the islands is highly developed but has little to do with economics. The crowded island of Chaura has a dominant position in the lively inter-island trade, but has no significance in normal commerce and as such is practically untouched by the administration. The importance of Chaura Island is only partly due to its location between the most populous island, Car Nicobar and the central group of islands. More important is its central position of the peculiar cults of the Nicobarese. Trade is largely governed by taboos: canoes must not be made in the Nn islands, the lime for betel-chewing must not be produced on Chaura or Teressa Islands, the Chaura can make pots but as they have exhausted their supply of clay they must get their clay from Teressa Island, canoes for Car Nicobar must either be bought through Chaura or their whole value in nuts, cash, or kind must be paid to anybody on Chaura Island. This is enforced by an embargo “unless this price has been paid a canoe may never visit Chaura, and as a pilgrimage to Chaura is as important as the “haj” to Mecca” this as good a sanction as can be devised.
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General Note on Far East Shipping
The British considered during 1940-1941 that the Indian Ocean to be a safe place to move the great Tans-Atlantic liners. These great ships where used as troopships and the number carried on board never stretched the potential of these ships. In the Indian Ocean there was no threat from bombers or U-boats, just disguised raiders or occasional foray of a Pocket Battleship. Sometimes they operated as very fast convoys with 8-inch gunned cruisers escorting or plodded along in larger convoys with an old 15-inch gun battleship for company.
The ships serving in this safety zone were, R.M. Steamers Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary, Mauritania (1939), Aquitania; the Dutch “New Amsterdam”; the French “Ile De Paris”; and several lesser liners.
These great ships were on continuos trooping runs from eastern Australia to Egypt and South Africa to Egypt. R.M.S. Aquitania, the old lady of the group with her great coal burning power plant tended to operate solo from various Australian ports to places from New Guinea to Singapore. Her old age meant that to maintain sufficient prolonged speed in company of her younger oil burning companions would result in too much wear on her old machinery and fatigue on her “black gang”. Also her clouds of black smoke when at maximum power would betray the location of her more valuable convoy mates.
These ships tended to do their return runs virtually empty, thus providing the British with a large manpower lift capacity for the Far East if required. Once Japan enters the war these ships begin to have their areas of safe operation drastically reduced as the Japanese advance pushes the threat radius of air attack in particular deeper out into the Indian Ocean.
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French Indochina Exports 1938
Value 17,160,000 Pounds Stirling
Rice……………………..35.0%
Rubber……………….…21.8%
Maize…………………...18.0%
Coal………..…………....4.3%
Fish……….……………..2.8%
Tin Ore & Metal………...2.6%
Cattle, Hides & Skins……1.2%
Cement…………………..0.9%
Oilseeds………………….0.8%
Kapok…………………….0.8%
Tea………………………..0.8%
Eggs………………………0.7%
Timber……………………0.7%
Copra……………………..0.6%
Pepper…………………….0.6%
Exported To
France & French Colonies.….53.2%
Singapore………………….…9.7%
Hong Kong…………………..9.6%
U.S.A………………………...8.8%
Japan………………………….3.1%
India…………………….……2.8%
China…………………………2.7%
United Kingdom……………..2.1%
Netherlands East Indies………1.0%
Indochina’s main exports of (1st) rice, (2nd) rubber, (3rd) maize and the lesser export of (5th) fish came almost entirely from the southern Annamite lands and/or nearby parts of Cambodia and togethered comprised 78% of total exports whereas the only important export items coming mainly or wholly from the were (4th) coal, (6th) tin, and (8th) cement amounting to a mere 6% of total exports.
1937-38 production Coffee 1,500 tons; Tea 880 tons;
1941 production Rubber 76,000 tons;
Saigon & Cholon – manufacturing of soap, cigarettes and brewing.
Cambodia – saw milling and sugar refining, a single distillery at Phnom Penh
Cambodia because of its relative drier climate grew maize and raise cattle as opposed to the rice of Cochinchina. Cambodia accounted for about half of the 2,500,000 oxen in all of French Indochina in 1940.
The Song-koi delta
In the late 19th century the French began strengthening the river dikes as protection against exceptional floods. After the calamitous floods of 1926 many of the main dikes were reinforced to a total thickness of 150 feet with heights of up to 40 feet in the central delta. Starting in 1905 the traditional irrigation works were supplemented by a series of new dams and canals to control the water level in the rice growing basins and the extension of area under irrigation and increasing area that could have two harvests per year. Thus Tonkin was producing the highest yield per acre, imports were still required from the south (100,000 tons in 1940).
Industrial Development
95% of Indochina’s mining was in the northern Annamite lands (excluding the Nam Patene complex) almost exclusively in Tonkin.
1939 Total coal production was 2,615,000 tons of which 1,780,000 tons were exported including 150,000 to France.
1937 total tin concentrate production was 1,602 tons all of which was totally exported to Singapore for smelting.
Haiphong – cement, cotton spinning, ship building, glass bottles, pottery, building materials, rugs, buttons, candles, rice milling, oxygen;
Hanoi – matches, tanning, brewing, building materials, pottery, buttons, rubber, glass, distilling;
Nam Dinh – cotton spinning and weaving, silk weaving, glass, distilling;
Viettri – bamboo pulp;
Dap Cau – paper
Ben Thuy & Ham Rong – match industries
The large cement factory built in 1889 at Haiphong was located near supplies of coal and limestone and to supply local demand. By 1939 more than half of its production of 306,000 tons of high quality cement was been exported to Java, Siam, the Philippines and Malaya.
In 1937 the Haiphone and Nam Dinh cotton mills together produced over 8,000 tons of yarn. The Nam Dinh mill, which employed 4,000 workers, also produced 702,000 blankets and 2,212 tons of miscellaneous cotton fabrics.
In 1937 approximately two thirds of output of electrical power (153 million kW) was generated in Tonkin by mainly thermal power stations.
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Indochina – Nationalism
Politically the unity of Indochina existed only on paper and in the minds of the French administration. Socially and economically both Cambodia and Laos remained areas of stagnation and the people resented the influx of thousands of Annamite officials, clerks, traders and professional men after the beginning of the 20th Century. There were 191,000 Annamites in Cambodia (a large proportion were cultivator in the area bordering on Cochinchina) and 27,000 in Laos in 1937. The fear of the more advanced and diamamic Annamites made Cambodia and Laos look to the French for protect and there was no serious nationist opposition to colonial rule before WWII.
The northern Annamites especially had a tradition of resistance to cultural change and revolt against alien domination (i.e. by China) and from the beginning did not take kindly to French rule. Believing the own civilization to be at least the equal of that of the French, they were unimpressed by the theory of assimilation. The lack of opportunities for the limited few who had acquired a French education made them even less satisfied with assimilation. Of the 42,000 persons recorded as “French and Assimiles” in 1937, 30,000 were European. These included many Corsicans who were not infrequently despised as “second-class Frenchmen”. From 1905 onwards nationalism showed itself as a force to be reckoned with and Prince Cuong De, the cousin of the Emperor of Annam, actively sought the Japanese support for independence. Vietnamese now became the preferred nationalist form for Annamite. While Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese’s Revolutionary Association was proscribed by the French, a large and growing proportion of both the traditional and western educated elites had be the 1930’s become ardent advocates of independence, which logically had no place in the French scheme of things. Such views were widely had even among the 1,500,000 Roman Catholics. In certain districts in the northern Annamite lands where 80% of Roman Catholics lived they comprised over 30% of the population and thanks the education of the Church missions Roman Catholics formed a disproportionately large part of the local intelligentsia.
In the south Annamite lands Roman Catholics were outnumbered by adherents of two new sects which grew up during the inter war years. There larger of these, Cao Dai, was founded by an Annamite ex-merchant in 1925 and had it’s headquarters at Tay-Dinh some 50 miles north-west of Saigon. This self-styles “third amnesty of God in the Far East” which been described as a mixture of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and Roman Catholicism and includes Joan of Arc, the Jade Emperor and Victor Hugo among its saints. Ignoring its religious doctrines, and despite its generally conservative economic policy, its over 500,000 followers in 1939 (over 2,000,000 in 1954) was sufficiently nationalist and pro-Japanese to have been regarded by the French as subversive. The French also regarded as subversive the somewhat smaller Hoa Hoa sect founded in 1939 and also centred on Cochinchina representing a militant variant of Theravada Buddhism.
By 1939 the Annamite lands were among the most nationalist areas in all of South-East Asia.
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