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Politics in Late Colonial Burma: The Case of U Saw

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Robert H. Taylor
Robert H. Taylor
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Extract

It has been assumed that the politicians and political organizations of late colonial Burma were mere shams behind which the real affairs of government were conducted by British governors and civil servants. It also has been assumed that what mass politics there was among the Burmese in the 1930s was dominated by nationalist youth, especially the Thakins, and monks who were untainted by contact and collaboration with the British and those Burmese who associated with them. Those members of the Burmese political élite who attempted to work in government and party politics during the last pre-war years, therefore, have been seen at best as mere reformers and at worst as callous opportunists.

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Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , April 1976 , pp. 161 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

1 The Burmese political élite of the 1930s has been reputed not to have believed in the possibility of imminent independence from British rule and to have believed that government was a purely administrative, non-political thing. Furthermore, it has been assumed that the Burmese political élite was dominated by Western-educated bureaucrats and lawyers, except for the youthful leadership of the rising Dobama Asiayone, and that there existed a large, unbridged gap, chiefly in terms of communication, between the small élite and the mass of the population. These assumptions are implicit in the standard studies of Burmese politics by Cady and Trager, but are made explicit in Chapter 1 of Guyot, D. H., ‘The Political Impact of the Japanese Occupation of Burma’, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Yale University, 1966.Google Scholar

2 At least this was the case until the communists were expelled from the A.F.P.F.L.

3 Donnison, F.S.V., Burma (New York: Praeger, 1970), p. 138.Google Scholar

4 In the 1950s and 1960s Westerner's writing on Burmese nationalism depicted Saw as ‘an ambitious opportunist’, who ‘utilized… uninhibited ruthlessness and political cunning’. Cady, John F., A History of Modern Burma (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1958), pp. 365–6. Professor Cady describes Ba Maw in similar terms but suggests that Ba Maw hoped to achieve his ambitions through ‘his unusual nativeintelligence and political ability’, rather than ruthlessness and cunning. Saw has been seen as a ‘strange, self-educated, uncouth leader … of the stuff out of which Fascists had been made in the 1930s’.Google ScholarTrager, Frank N., Burma—From Kingdom to Republic (London: Pall Mall Press, 1966), p. 59. It has been suggested that Saw was a man prepared to seize power by force and be a dictator. His volunteer corps has been compared to Mosley's Blackshirts in Britain.Google ScholarDonnison, , Burma, p. 117. While accused of being insufficiently loyal to the Allied cause prior to the war, Saw has since been condemned for ‘collaborating with the imperialists themselves if it would further his political ambitions’.Google ScholarCady, , History of Modern Burma, p. 366.Google Scholar

An American, writing before the A.F.P.F.L. came to power, and some Burmese writers have provided a more sympathetic view of Saw. John L. Christian suggested in 1945 that Saw was merely ‘long a leader among Burmese extremist politicians’, extremist referring to his nationalist activities. In Christian's view, Saw had the virtue of seeking ‘complete home rule through evolution rather than revolution’. Burma and the Japanese Invader (Bombay: Thacker, 1945), pp. 249–50.Google Scholar One Burmese writing in English in the 1960s assessed Saw's character in much the same manner as the Western authors but was willing also to see him as an honest patriot if not always an honest man. Dr Maung Maung described Saw in 1961 as a ‘young ambitious and publicity-seeking’ person, ‘fond of the spectacular’, who won ‘fame and fortune for himself in politics, wrested the premiership of Burma for a brief and dazzling moment of glory, and finally ended … on the gallows, dying as a despised felon.… Burma's Constitution (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 2nd ed., revised and enlarged, 1961), pp. 25, 44. But Maung Maung wrote in 1969 that Saw was a man who ‘had guts and fierce ambition … ability to recognize opportunity … and seize and exploit it with ruthlessness’. He was not a ‘silken, smooth-tongued barrister’ as were so many of his contemporaries.Google ScholarBurma and General Ne Win (New York: Asia Publishing House, 1969), p. 4.Google Scholar

Ba Maw wrote that Saw ‘was in several ways a force in prewar Burmese politics and he possessed many virile qualities, which unfortunately were corrupted by a demon-like personal ambition uncurbed by either a clear political faith or a conscience’. Ba Maw acknowledged that Saw, with his Myochit or Patriot's Party, was making a strong ‘bid …, to steal a march over the Freedom Bloc in the struggle for independence’. Breakthrough in Burma, Memoirs of a Revolution, 1939–1946 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 52, 61.Google Scholar

If Ba Maw's opinion was formed from having been Saw's keen adversary in over a decade of hard-fought electoral and parliamentary conflicts, the opinion of U Tin Tut comes from having worked as Saw's personal assistant and confidential adviser for several years. Tin Tut saw him as the most outstanding Burmese politician from the inception of party politics in 1923 to 1942. Myochit, in Tin Tut's opinion, was the only well-organized pre-war party. While acknowledging that Saw had dictatorial tendencies, Tin Tut thought they were benevolent ones and a period of his rule would not have harmed Burma. Indeed, it would have had the virtue of restoring discipline to the Buddhist Sangha. Saw could have been for Burma what Kemal Ataturk had been for Turkey, Tin Tut wrote in 1942, while working as an adviser to Governor Dorman-Smith. ‘Further Note’ by U Tin Tut, 19 November 1942, on Professor B. F. Pearn's note, ‘The Attitude of the Burmese People in the Recent Campaign in Burma’, 12 June 1942. Burma File 229/42. Burma Files [B.F.] and India Files [I.F.] referred to are in the India Office Library and Records, London. Foreign Office Files [F.O.F.] referred to are in the Public Record Office, London.

Leach, Edmund R. has come to Saw's defence as a nationalist in an article, ‘Buddhism in the Post-Colonial Political Order in Burma and Ceylon’, Daedalus, Vol. 102, No. 1 (Winter, 1973), pp. 29–54, esp. p. 46.Google Scholar

5 Statements on Saw's career and views here and below are based chiefly on ‘Visit of U Saw, Premier of Burma, Note [prepared in the Burma Office ] for Lord Halifax’, November 1941. Telegram, Governor of Burma to Secretary of State for Burma [T.G.B./S.S.B.], 28 September 1941. B.F. 100/41, Pts 1 and 4.

6 Burma Legislative Proceedings, House (Rangoon: Government Printing and Stationery), Vol. IX, 18 02 1941, pp. 50–6.Google Scholar

7 Saw also ‘wrote a spirited pamphlet about the rebellion which promptly got proscribed’. Maung Maung, Burma's Constitution, p. 25. In connexion with this ‘he was prosecuted for sedition, but the charge was withdrawn owing to the intervention of the leaders of the various parties.’ ‘Visit of U Saw, Note’, November 1941. B.F. 100/41, Pt 1.

8 Cady, History of Modern Burma, pp. 362–4.Google Scholar

9 Saw received 11, 360 votes, nearly five times more than his nearest rival in his Henzada North constituency and more votes than any other candidate in the 1936 elections. ‘Statement showing the names of Candidates who filed their nominations, … number of votes secured by contestants, … at the General Elections, 1936’, in Singh, Ganga, Burma Parliamentary Companion (Rangoon: British Burma Press, 1940), pp. 341–61.Google Scholar

10 Rangoon Times, 5 December 1936. B.F. 233/37.Google Scholar

11 Burma Defence Bureau Intelligence Summary (B.D.B.I.S.) No. 6, 25 June 1937. B.F. I 12.Google Scholar

12 Ibid.,No. 1, 26 January 1938. B.F. I 358. Appendix A to letter, A. H. Seymour, Secretary of the Defence Department, to Under Secretary of State for Burma, 6 January 1939. Burma Collection No. 8, File 4. B.D.B.I.S. No. 3, 26 March 1939. B.F. I 358. For example, in March Saw wrote in the Thuriya ‘that if the Japanese come to Burma it will be as friends, not conquerors’.

13 Cady, History of Modern Burma, p. 403. Ba Maw had become very dependent on Indian financing by the end of his Premiership and this severely limited his ability to appeal to Burmese students or peasants for support. Chit Hlaing's chances for higher office failed because of his dependence on Indian money, too. Money from the Japanese Consul allowed Saw greater freedom of manoeuver for three reasons. First, it was more easily abandoned since it was in violation of international law and would have proved embarrassing to the Japanese government if politicians who abandoned their support advertised it when the Japanese complained. Second, it was new as a source of funding and no tradition of expected exchanges had developed for it. Third, the few demands the Japanese made for their grants fit into the political élite's own perceptions of what Burma needed more of in its politics and economy—anti- British sentiments and trade alternatives to India and England.

14 In addition to being a wealthy landowner, Pegu U Sein Win was a trustee of the Shwedagon Pagoda. Government of Burma, Burma Handbook (Simla: Government of India Press, 1944), p. 123. Some of his considerable wealth was apparently earned when he was a broker for Steel Brothers, the large British rice exporting and teak extraction firm. Brief Notes on the Status and Political Leanings of Members Elected to the Burma Legislative Council, G.C.P.O. No. 387, Judl Sec., 4 April 1933. B.F. P & J(B) 1.Google Scholar

15 Henzada U Mya, who was born in 1893, owned rice and oil mills in addition to his land holdings. Burma, Burma Handbook, p. 120.

16 B.D.B.I.S. No. 1, 28 January 1939. B.F. I 358.

17 Interview with U Ba Maung by Professor D.Guyot, 29 September 1962. The author is indebted to Professor Guyot for this information.

18 Aye's political career closely parallels Saw's. They both were born in 1900 and entered the Legislative Council in 1928. Aye however, had studied in Britain and was a barrister. He became a Reserve Officer in 1931. Pu appointed him Judicial Affairs Minister in 1940 at Saw's request and Saw appointed him Home Minister in his government. Burma, Burma Handbook, pp. 114–15.

19 Ain was a schoolmaster in Henzada before election to the House in 1936. He served as Aye's Parliamentary Secretary in 1940 and 1941. Ibid., p. 114. Ba On was a higher grade pleader from Bassein District. He was a member of the Bassein municipal government and President of the Bassein Labourers' Association in 1934. He was one of the first deputy leaders of Myochit and later served as Saw's Parliamentary Secretary and then Labour Minister. Ibid., p. 120.

20 Paw Tun, who was knighted in 1938, was one of the most adept of pre-war politicians. His most important political role was that of go-between among the British, Indian and Burmese political communities. He served in that function in every Ministry from 1937 to 1942 until he gained the Premiership for himself for a very brief period. While an invaluable person to any Premier because of his close contacts with all factions in Rangoon politics, it was generally conceded that he had no popular base, and had he had to stand for election in 1942 he would not have been re-elected.

21 Htoon Aung Gyaw, like Paw Tun, was from Arakan. Educated in England and India, his father-in-law was U Shwe Tha, a very wealthy Arakanese barrister and banker.

22 Pointon, A. C., The Bombay-Burmah Trading Corporation Limited, 1863–1963 (Southampton: The Millbrook Press Ltd for Wallace Brothers and Co. [Holdings] Ltd, 1964), pp. 86–7.Google Scholar

23 B.D.B.I.S. No. 3, 26 March 1939 and No. 5, 27 May 1938. B.F. I 358.

24 Ibid., No. 4, 26 April 1938 and No. 5, 27 May 1938. It was rumoured that Saw intended to bring Japanese officers to train his corps and that the real purpose of the Galon Tat was to aid the Japanese if and when war came. Ibid., No. 11, 26 November 1938. Saw was the first Commander-in-Chief of the Galon Tat, according to its constitution, which he drafted himself. The Tat was divided into army districts, subdivisions and townships in correspondence with the administrative divisions of the country. Home Secretary's Fortnightly Report [H.S.F.R.] 21 July 1938. B.F. P 39, Pt I. By June 1941, there were 91 Galon Tat units active, compared with 123 Bama Let Yone Tat units of the D.A.A. and 31 Dahma Tat units of Ba Maw's party. B.M.I.S., Vol. IV, No. 6, for June 1941, 1 July 1941. B.F. I 37, Pt IV. It was estimated in November 1938, that there were 30 members on average, in each Galon Tat unit (B.D.B.I.S. No. 11. 26 November 1938. B.F. I 358) suggesting that by 1941 there were something like 2,730 Galon Tat members.

25 Ibid., No. 7, 27 July 1938. B.F. I 358.

26 Maung Maung, Burma and General Ne Win, p. 43.

27 B.D.B.I.S. No. 7, 27 July 1938. B.F. I 358. Fortnightly Governor's Report [F.G.R.] No. 15, 17 August 1938. B.F. P 39, Pt I.

28 Burma, , Home Department, Interim Report and Final Report of the Riot Inquiry Committee (Rangoon: Government Printing and Stationery, 1938 and 1939).Google Scholar

29 H.S.F.R., 23 August 1938. B.F. P 39, Pt I.

30 T.G.B./S.S.B., 16 September 1938. B.F. 3932/38, Pt II. H.S.F.R., 21 October 1938. B.F. P 39, Pt I.

31 The ostensible reasons for the campaign were to protest against the government's actions in limiting the activities of the political pongyis in Mandalay who were beginning to picket Indian shops; the disallowance of meetings, parades and the like in Shwebo, Yenangyaung, Rangoon, Bassein and other places; the suppression of the exploited labourers and cultivators who had come to the Shwedagon to protest against their treatment; the arrests of Ba Swe and Ba Hein; and the ‘oppression of the whole country’. Manifesto of Galon U Saw, 16 December 1938 from Thuriya calling for civil disobedience. B.F. P 39, Pt I, New Burma, 21 December 1938. Rangoon Gazette, 23 December 1938. B.F. P 106, Pt I.

32 They had been arrested and sentenced to two months in jail or Rs 100 fine. Rangoon Gazette, 23 December 1938. B.F. P 106, Pt I. Rangoon Gazette and Weekly Budget, 23 January 1938.

33 Burma, , Home Department, Report of the Secretariat Incident Inquiry Committe (Rangoon: Government Printing and Stationery, 1939).Google Scholar

34 Ba Maw, Breakthrough in Burma, p. 58.

35 T.G.B./S.S.B., 26 February 1939. B.F. 8036/38.

36 Ibid., 3 March 1939. Although Pu denied to the Governor that he had accepted such a condition, Saw told the students that their demands had been met. T.G.B./S.S.B., 3 March 1939, but a later telegram than in note 35, and ibid., 4 March 1939.

37 Ibid., 18 March 1939. B.F. 233/37. Letter, Governor Cochrane to Secretary of State Zetland, 11 March 1939. B.F. 8036/38.

38 Thakins and students also conducted such demonstrations but Myochit was careful to keep the identity of its own demonstration separate. B.D.B.I.S. No. 4, 25 April 1939. B.F. I 358.

39 By July 1939, disturbances ‘took place in Myingyan and Yamethin Districts on the occasion of the visit there of Saw’. At Pyawbwe he ‘was received with the beating of tin cans by the local Thakins, and in the evening there was a clash between them and the Galon followers of the Hon'ble Minister’. The police made a large number of arrests. In another clash at village between Myingyan and Natogyi seven people were injured. H.S.F.R., and half June 1939. B.F. P 39, Pt II.

40 B.D.B.I.S. No 1, 27 January 1940. No. 2, Feburary 1940. B.F. I 358. H.S.F.R. 2nd half March 1940, 9 April 1940. B.F. P 39, Pt III. B.D.B.I.S. No. 4, 27 April 1940. B. F. I 358.

Saw maintained better contacts with less well organized centres of discontent by, for example, paying homage to the graves of the 13 people killed by the police in Mandalay in February 1939, protesting against government actions limiting protests against Indian retailers. Ibid. No. 1, 27 January 1940.

41 Saw was apparently most generousin giving timber grants to kyaungs of the Welawun Sayadaw, U Thadawun, who became a staunch Saw supporter. Interview of Professor D. Guyot with Hla Mya Soe, 6 October 1962.

42 B.D.B.I.S. No. 1, 27 January 1940. B.F. I 358.

43 Ibid., No. 10, 28 October 1938. Dr Thein Maung returned from Japan with assurances that the Japanese would financially support the Freedom Bloc. Ba Maw, Breakthrough in Burma, pp. 62–3.

44 These unity efforts were allegedly funded by Pu, Ba Pe Saw and Paw Tun. B.D.B.I.S. No. 11, 28 November 1939. B.F. I 358. The unity effort floundered for several reasons. It was patently a Ministry move to shore itself against the attacks of the Freedom Bloc; the Bloc and those allied with it would have nothing to do with such an effort. Also, the public leadership of the unity effort was taken by pongyis from Mandalay who antagonized many pongyi leaders from Rangoon. As there were no other important political groups outside the Ministry or the Freedom Bloc folds there was little left to unite.

45 T.G.B./S.S.B. 20 October 1939. B.F. 9102/39. Text taken from telegrams, Secretary of State for Burma to Governor of Burma (T.S.S.B./G.B.) and Secretary of State for India to Viceroy, 4 November 1939. B.F. 9103/39.

The Freedom Bloc published comments to the effect that the statement was worse than useless, but mainly focused its criticism on the fact that it had been addressed to the Ministers, not the Burmese people. The pro-Indian National Congress Rangoon Daily News echoed the Freedom Bloc view and argued that the statement's implication that political conditions in Burma and India were different was incorrect. Saw's Thuriya criticized the Governor's statement on the grounds that it was vague and did not give a definite time-table for constitutional advance. T.G.B./S.S.B., 10 November, 1939. B.F. 9103/39.

Both Saw and Ba Pe had been in Mandalay when the statement had been released and, upon their return to Rangoon on the 13th, both issued releases condemning it chiefly on the grounds that it had been ‘less definite than that of the Viceroy’. Saw's statement read in part: ‘The Myochit Party has already voiced the political aspirations of Burmans. They will not rest content with anything less then complete Burmese control of the government of Burma. If this right is now recognized, accompanied by some overt action which will inspire confidence, the best interests of both Burma and Britain will be served. If Britain fails to assess the strength of Burmese feeling I shudder to think of the future relations of Burma and Britain’. Ibid., 13 November 1939.

46 Ibid., 14 November 1939.

47 Statement in B.F. 9103/39.

48 T.G.B./S.S.B., 19 February 1940. B.F. 9103/39. Ba Maw submitted a stronger resolution but this was defeated. Ibid., 23 February 1940. B.D.B.I.S. No 3, 27, March 1940. B.F. I 358.

49 Ibid., No. 2, 27 February 1940. Saw was able to pick up additional Myochit members as a result of feuds in the United Party. Ibid., No. 4, 25 April 1939. Also, B.D.B.I.S. No. 6, 26 June 1939. B.F. I 358.

50 T.G.B./S.S.B., 20 January 1940. B.F. 233/37. Pu, perhaps unaware of how he was jeopardizing his own positon, was happy to get rid of Ba Pe and pick up the support of Tharrawaddy Maung Maung from Ba Maw. F.G.R. No. 27, 22 December 1939. B.F. P 39, Pt II.

51 T.G.B./S.S.B., 18 June 1940. B. F. 13507/40. Ibid., 22 June 1940 (two telegrams). B.F. 9103/39, Pt I.

52 Ibid., Statement for the Secretary of State to make on 3 July 1940 to Ministers' statement of 22 June 1940 with approval of H.M.G.given in War Cabinet Meeting, 1 July 1940. B.F. 9103/39, Pt. I.

53 Note by H.E. the Governor of an informal meeting with the Hon'ble Ministers held at Government House on 2nd July 1940. B.F. P 39, Pt III.

54 B.D.B.I.S. No. 7, 31 July 1940. B.F. I 358. Minute, A.D. Cochrane to Premier Pu, 12 July 1940. B.F. P 39, Pt III.

55 T.G.B./S.S.B., 31 August 1940. B.F. 233/37.

56 Ibid., 7 September 1940.

57 Maung Maung, Burma and General Ne Win, pp.73–4.Google Scholar Sometime immediately before or after this meeting Saw made an unofficial visit to the Chinese Nationalist capital at Chungking. Telegram, Governor of Burma to Ambassador, Chungking, 1 May 1940 B.F. 656/40.

58 ‘Report of the Burma Campaign, 1941–1942’, by Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, Governor of Burma. Dorman-Smith Papers, India Office, Item 28, p. 8.

59 B.D.B.I.S. No. 10, 31 October 1940 and No. 12, 28 December 1940. B.F. I 358.

60 Ibid., No. 2, 28 February 1941.

61 Ibid., and also No. 8, 30 August 1941.

62 Ba Maw, Breakthrough in Burma, pp. xviii and 63.

63 Most Burmese politicians believed that the failureof the Saya San rebellion proved that the Burmese were not sufficiently well armed and led to drive the British out by force.

64 Members of the élite were unwilling to attack Western economic interests for two reasons. First, given the structure of international power in the 1930s, the élite realized that no country situated as Burma was could be much more independent of Western banking, trading and mineral extraction firms than was Thailand. In the early 1930s, 95 per cent of Thailand's national economy was controlled by Chinese and European interests. Darling, Frank C., Thailand and the United States (Washington, D. C.: Public Affairs Press, 1965), p. 29.Google Scholar See also Golay, Frank H.et al., Underdevelopment and Economic Nationalism in Southeast Asia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969), fn. 154, p. 325,Google Scholar and Ingram, James C., Economic Change in Thailand, 1850–1970 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, new ed., 1971), p. 173.Google Scholar The best to be hoped for was to limit the rapaciousness of the Western concerns and to get a larger share of the profits into local hands. Some Burmese élite figures welcomed more Japanese trade and investments in the country as a bolster to their efforts to compete with the Indians and to serve as a partial balance to Western finacial power.

Second, except for finance and banking, most of the business of the European firms was in mineral extraction, teak extraction, rice and other export trades. Mineral extraction, except for oil, was primarily in non-Burman parts of the country and chiefly employed Chinese labour. The rice trade, despite its unpredictable characteristics, was a boon to the country's finances, especially with increasing world demand in the late 1930s. There was no reason to believe that rice would not continue to be an asset, at least until the country could diversify its agriculture and develop indigenous industry. Only the big British firms had the means to get the rice from Burma to the buying world and by the early 1940s the Ministers were devising means to increase Burmese control of the internal rice trade, at the expense of Indian and British investments and profits. The teak firms, like the European rice-exporting companies, were necessary because of their access to foreign markets. Furthermore, as was the Burmah Oil Company, they were beginning to Burmanize their staffs, albeit only with a good deal of prodding from the Burmese Ministers, especially Saw. The teak leases of the five major British firms were renewed in September 1941, and Saw had insisted as a condition of renewal that the companies undertake to train Burmese staffs and officials. [Teak] Negotiations, Meeting at the Secretariat, by F.D.E., 17 September 1941. B.F. 3351/38. Pointon, Bombay-Burmah Trading Corp., pp. 86–7.

65 T.G.B./S.S.B., 8 September 1940. B.F. 233/37.

66 F.G.R. No. 14, 12 October 1940. B.F. P 39, Pt III. For his anti-war and anti-British speeches at several pongyi sponsored meetings, Ba U was arrested and detained on orders of the Ministery. T.G.B./S.S.B. 29 October. 1940. B.F. 157/40. B.D.B.I.S. No. 10, 31 October 1940. B.F. I 358. The joke in Rangoon ‘was that U Saw was not fond of people who had “Ba” in their names’.Maung Maung, Burma and General Ne Win, p. 68. The Freedom Bloc and Ba Maw's party along with some Thakins organized a few protest meetings but they were much tamer affairs than the meetings that Ba Maw, Dr Thein Maung, Nu and others as these had addressed and been arrested for in the summer of 1940. As unpalatable as these arrests may have been, Saw's critics have failed to perceive that his opponents and and did treat him and his supporters in the same way when they had the opportunity.

67 Collis, Maurice, Last and First in Burma (1941–1948) (London: Faber and Faber, 1956), p. 24.Google Scholar

68 Letter, Governor Dorman-Smith to Secretary of State Amery, 4 August 1941. B.F. P 39, Pt IV.

69 This agreement gave the government of Burma greater control over is import policies and an additional source of revenue.

70 This order had been necessary to ease the anxieties of many Indian interests in Burma, which relied on the labour of their countrymen.

71 Note on a meeting between the Member for Education, Health and Lands and Mr Bozman of the Government of India with U Ba Than, Commerce Minister, Mr Baxter and U Tin Tut of the Government of Burma, 12, February 1941. B.F. 96/41.

72 T.G.B./S.S.B. 8 July 1941. B.F. 96/41. Note, Burma Office to Foreign Office, ‘Outline of Proposed Indian Immigration Agreement’, 16 August 1941. B.F. 58/41. See also Mahajani, Usha, The Role of Indian Minorities in Burma and Malaya (Bombay: Vora, 1959), pp. 88–94,Google Scholar and Chakravarti, N. R., The Indian Minority in Burma, The Rise and Decline of an Immigrant Community (London: Oxford University Press, for the Institute for Race Relations, 1971), pp. 54–5.Google Scholar

73 T.G.B./S.S.B., 20 July 1941. B.F. 58/41.

74 Note of an interview between the Secretary of State for India and Burma and the Chinese Ambassador by L. S. Amery, 30 July 1941. B.F. 36/41. T.G.B./S.S.B., 28 August 1941. B.F. 58/41.

75 Statesman, 26 August, 1941. I.F. L/PJ/8/214.

76 Letter, Viceroy Linlithgow to Secretary of State Amery, 26 October 1941. I.F. L/PJ/8/214. T.S.S.B./G.B., 9 December 1941. B.F. 96/41.

77 In the first 11 months of 1940, Japan purchased 450,676 tons of Burma rice compared with 38,500 tons on average in the preceding five years. Telegram, Governor of Burma to Tokyo, rpt. to S.S.B., 26 November 1940. B.F. 255/40, Pt I. Telegram, Government of Burma, Commerce Department, to Secretary of State for Burma, 7, October 1941. B.F. 246/400.

78 Feis, Herbert, The Road to to Pearl Harbor (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 245.Google Scholar

79 T.G.B./S.S.B., 7 December 1941. B.F. 246/40. T.S.S.B./G.B., 24 December 1941. B.F. 255/40, Pt 23.

80 T.G.B./S.S.B., 13 September 1941. Allocation of the Share of Burma to the Growing Defence Expenditure by the Finance Minister Htoon Aung Gyaw, 20 September 1941. B.F. 1462/38. T.S.S.B./G.B.23 October 1941. Saw set forth his views in a letter to the Secretary of State, 29 October 1941. Also, in a telegram to the Governor, Lisbon to Foreign Office, 14, November 1941. Ibid., 9 December 1941. B.F. 1462/38.

81 T.G.B./S.S.B., 2 October 1940. B.F. 2611, Pt 2.

82 Memorandum, Chinese Embassy to Foreign Office, 19 October 1940. B.F. 36/42. Letter, Secretary of State Amery to Governor Cochrane, 24 October 1940. B.F. 4250/38, Pt I. T.G.B./S.S.B., 28 November 1940. B.F. 2066/37, Pt I. T.S.S.B./G.B. 12 December 1940 and 31 December 1940. B.F. 36/40. Confidential Report of the Proceedings of the Burma Misson to China, January 1941, 26 02 1941 (Rangoon: Superintendent, Government Printing and Stationery, 1941). B.F. 6/41. The mission was led by H. H. Craw, Councillor to the Covernor. T.G.B./S.S.B., 24 April 1941. B.F. 36/42.Google ScholarIbid., 30 June, 1941 B.F. 90/40.

83 Telegram, Clark Kerr, Chungking, to Foreign Office, 25 July 1941. T.G.B./S.S.B., 30 July 1941 and 14 August 1941. B.F. 36/42. Minute Paper by Ashley Clarke, 8 August 1941. F.O.F. 371–27731. Letter Ashley Clarke to Under Secretary of State, Burma Office, 11 August 1941. T.G.B./S.S.B., 16 August 1941 B.F. 36/42.

84 T.S.S.B./G.B., 22 August 1941. T.G.B./S.S.B., 23 August 1941 and 27 August 1941. B.F. 36/42. Letter, F. Pearce to Sir Archibald Cochrane, 29 August 1941, Cochrane Papers. Letter, Kingsley Wood, Chancellor of the Exchequer, to L.S. Amery, Secretary of State for Burma, 2 September 1941. T.S.S.B./G.B., 3 September 1941. Saw was apparently willing to drop the transit duties in exchange for promises of constitutional advance. T.G.B./S.S.B., 5 September 1941. B.F. 36/42.

85 Ibid., 16 August 1941. B.F. 9103/39, Pt IV.

86 Note on Churchill's interview with U Saw and U Tin Tut at Chequers, 18 October 1941. B.F. 9103/39, Pt IV.

87 Telegram, Halifax to Foreign Office, 22 November 1941. B.F. 100/41, Pt 2.

88 It has been suggested that Saw had, before leaving Rangoon for London, arranged with a Japanese offcial to fly to Bangkok in order to lead an anti-British army into Burma. Documentary evidence to support this claim has not been found but 's changes in his itinerary while en route home after his unsuccessful talks in London and Washington tend to support it.

89 Thakin Nu offered to collaborate with the British against the Japanese in exchange for a promise of Dominion status after the war even after the Japanese invasion, and only joined with the Japanese when no such promise came from Churchill. Pe Myint, Thein, War Time Traveler (in Burmese) (Rangoon: Hkyin Twin Press, 3rd printing 1966), p. 16.Google Scholar