BRITAIN, SOUTHEAST ASIA AND THE ONSET
OF THE PACIFIC WAR
EMPIRE AND INFORMATION: Intelligence
Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780 - 1870
CHILDREN'S WORK and WELFARE 1780-1890.
Pamela Horn. Cambridge University Press. Pbk 0 521 55769 0 - £7.95
(US$11.95). Hbk 0 521 55284 2 - £19.95 (US$39.95).
This short book examines the nature
of child employment at a time when Britain was becoming the workshop
of the world.
Further, the situation with regard
to the rights of children can be the more easily understood if this
is seen against the development of modern Britain over the last five
hundred years. During the modern age, Britain developed from a slave-owning
nation during the stage of mercantile capitalism to a colonizer nation
during the stage of industrial capitalism (and the industrial revolution)
through to imperialism. We may call the present age that of globalism,
but we would do well to remember that slavery and its successor, indentured
labour exploitation, sometimes called the second slavery, were global
activities, and so were colonialism, industrial capitalism and pre-World
War II imperialism. In each of these stages of economic activity,
we can identify the oppressor and the oppressed.
The oppression of children in Britain
increased dramatically during the stage of early industrial capitalism
and followed on the heels of the enclosures and the agricultural revolution,
when poverty was rife, the brutality of the ruling elite excessive
and the execution of families sometimes carried out for the crime,
for example, of stealing sheep. In the metropolitan heartland, children
from the lower orders were expected to begin work early in life.
This book describes how at the end
of the eighteenth century, one Mrs Trimmer, an educational writer
and reformer declared that "it was a disgrace to any Parish,
to see the Children of the Poor, who are old enough to do any kind
of work, running about the streets ragged and dirty"; and the
Philanthropic Society, set up about this time, to rescue criminal
or abandoned children, regarded "indolence" as the prime
source of evil and "industry" as the principal virtue. This
encouraged acceptance of child labour in agriculture, mining, manufacture
and, especially for girls, in domestic service. Individuals were encouraged
to remain in their proper stations in life. The rationalisation and
legitimation of evil practices is a lasting tradition. It was these
conditions that caused E P Thompson to write scathingly of the rich
who between 1790 and 1830 had described factory children as 'busy',
'industrious', 'useful'; they were kept out of their parks and orchards,
and they were cheap.....The exploitation of little children, on this
scale and with this intensity, was one of the most shameful events
in our history.
The moral Puritanism characteristic
of this approach to childhood was in marked contrast to that put forward
in the late eighteenth century by the followers of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
These stressed the natural goodness and innocence oof the young and
the loss of these qualities in adult life.
Throughout the middle of the nineteenth
century, children (i.e. youngsters under the age of 14) were treated
as subordinate members of society, lacking individual rights and under
the absolute authority of their parents. Between 1780 and 1860, the
need for the offspring of the lower orders to be employed was widely
accepted. Even the passage of factory and mining legislation in the
first half of the neneteenth century was designed to regulate but
not to outlaw child labour.
EMPIRE AND INFORMATION: Intelligence
Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780 - 1870 by C.A.Bagley.
Cambridge University Press. 412pp. Hbk. ISBN 0521 57085 9. £45.00.
This book examines British political
intelligence in north India between the 1780's and the 1860's, and
describes the networks of Indian running spies, newswriters and knowledgeable
secretaries whom officers of the East India Company recruited and
deployed in their efforts to secure military, political and social
information.
The author suggests that the British
conquest of India was the result of military superiority supported
by uniquely efficient and sophisticated intelligence gathering system.
Neither of these two postulates are of course wholly sustainable.
The Stuart rulers of Britain realised
the importance of methodical intelligence gathering in the political
control of the populace, and went on to found Britain's first organised
postal system. Letters could then have been intercepted and examined
whenever this had been deemed necessary.
Intelligence gathering was the basis
of colonial penetration. It was crude and brutal and gave the edge
to smaller colonial expeditions in their confrontation with the often
larger indigenous anti-imperialist forces.
However, this was not always the case;
most recently during the Malayan national democratic revolution, about
10,000 armed guerillas were pitted against 400,000 British, Commonwealth
and colonial troops from around the world, and local auxiliaries of
all descriptions.
The policies of "divide and rule"
came into their own given the polyglot nature of Indian societies.
Under the Mughal rulers this gave the land its rich cultural diversity.
Under colonialism this was turned on its head. Historians have exagggerated
the military superiority of the British in India. Indian armies were
narrowing the gap in technology in the later eighteenth century.
Where the British did have a critical
advantage, however, was in their political planning and in the cohesion
of their ruling group. Moreover, they were forewarned about the alliances
and armed resistance of the Indian states by increasingly effective
intelligence systems.The British systematically dismantled Indian
lines of communication and established their own by enticing, bribing
and bullying native informants into their service.
The intensive use of spies was designed
to trap enemies before armed conflict broke out and to spread panic.
The British had learned to listen in on the internal communications
of the Indian rulers. By controlling newswriters, by coralling groups
of spies and runners, and by placing agents at religious centres,
in bazaars and amongst bands of military men and wanderers, they had
been able to anticipate the coalitions of the Indian powers and to
plot their enemies movements and alliances. It was for this reason,
rather than because of any deficiency of patriotism or absence of
resistance, that there failed to materialise a general alliance against
the British.
Almost everywhere, the medical training
of Company servants proved an advantage to them in securing the cooperation
of local people. This was important in offsetting the justifiable
suspicion with which they were greeted in these vulnerable Asian regions.
The British were by no means wholly
ignorant of the society they were ruling. Conversely, the formal structures
of information gathering did not necessarily give them a coherent
insight into its workings. Their knowledge was patchy, incomplete
and liable to atrophy. They were better at picking up warnings about
insurrections than about understanding the inner workings of Indian
institutions.
Colonial knowledge, far from being
a monolith derived from the needs of power, existed on different levels
which were imperfectly linked. There was the level of formal, learned
and abstract knowledge which has become associated with the term "orientalism".
There was also a level of practical, ad hoc, administration which
was not embodied in texts or procedures and worked on particular local
circumstances.
British rule greatly expanded the
diversity of institutions which collected and processed information
to create yet longer social memories. Apart from the myriad overlapping
of civilian boards and commissions, the British government spawned
knowledgeable bureaucracies in the army, police and medical service.
The colonial information order was erected on the foundations of its
Indian precursors.
In 1857 a struggle unfolded between
the British and the insurgents over the control of modern information
media, which belies the conventional assumption that the rebel leaders
were blind traditionalists. Despite the many institutions which the
British had established to enumerate their Indian subjects and their
resources, the East India Company's government was shattered by a
series of rebellions which it had failed to anticipate.
Individual leaders and communities
which were thought to have benefited most from British rule were often
among the first to revolt. The Company's sophisticated system of local
intelligence disintegrated quickly as information brokers defected
at local level. The British survived in part because they had the
electric telegraph and could mobilize an international system of communications.
When these were temporarily interrupted during the rebellion, the
Company resorted to the methods of utilizing newswriters, scribes
and runners which had served them so well in the past. On the other
hand, the rebels were not averse to incorporating modern methods of
communication whenever the opportunity presented itself.
The colonial order emerged strengthened
from the 1857 rebellion. The British reinforced their physical control
over the country. Urban pacification required efficient policing.
The real struggle now was over the formation of opinion. One of the
skills of the rapidly expanding vernacular press was an ability to
link together the older institutions of social communication with
the newer associations and urban societies.
In order to limit possible danger
from the press, the government introduced severe controls and monitored
these with systems of surveillance. These later developed into political
surveillance and counter-intelligence.
At the beginning of the nineteenth
century, North India had been straddled by networks of knowledgeable
persons serving state and society: spies, runners, astrologers, trackers
of animals, bone-setters and hundreds of other groups.
Changes following the Rebellion of
1857 reshaped the native information order of colonial India. The
picture, however, was not just one of fragmentation, bifurcation and
decline. The Khilafat and Non-Cooperation movements against British
rule in the early twentieth century witnessed a remarkable resurgence
of well-tried modes of publicity, debate and protest. Mosques became
centres of political debate again. Sufi shrines spread political discussion
among their Muslim and Hindu devotees and, together with the members
of prominent families, spread a political message which was common
property for all Indians.
The author argues that successful
intelligence gathering was a critical feature of the British domination
of India. One reason why the East India Company was able to conquer
and dominate it for more than a century was that the British had learnt
the art of "listening in" on the internal communications
of Indian polity and society. The Company's domination of the information
system meant that Indians were coerced by the reputation and the scientific
and cultural superiority of the conquerors.
A glaring omission is the absence
of a meaningful reference to the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Although
this is outside the terms of reference of this book which in the main
covers the period 1780 - 1870, the fallout from this episode has lasted
to this day. The defeat of the forces of the Nawab of Bengal at the
Battle of Plassey gave the British their first incontestable, independent
foothold on the subcontinent and paved the way for the military conquest
of the country. This military victory was achieved through the treachery
of Mir Jaffar, one of the Nawab's senior officers, who defected to
the forces of the East India Company on the eve of the battle. A small
army from the company then went on to defeat a numerically superior
force loyal to the Nawab.
The tragedy that befell Bengal then
is partly, at least, responsible for the problems facing the area
now. Whilst Bengal under the Mughals was probably the then world's
most industrialised state with its manufactured clothing goods being
sold from Africa to East Asia, Bangladesh is currently the poorest
country in Asia. Jawarhalal Nehru wrote in "The Discovery of
India" that those Indian provinces which were the longest under
British rule, namely Bengal, Bihar and the Madras Presidency, were,
at the time of the writing of his book, the poorest regions on the
subcontinent.
Following the military conquest, the
enforced underdevelopment of Bengal commenced and the local state
and society disintegrated. Successive famines resulted in great loss
of life. Whereas under Mughal rule, when societal links and lines
of communication were intact, food shortages due to crop failure consequent
on severe drought were managed by the transportation and the supply
of food from unaffected neighbouring areas. With the break-up of Bengal
society and industry (weavers had their thumbs amputated to stop them
competing with Lancashire), this was not possible. The mass poverty
consequent on all this obliged many Bengalis to seek a livelihood
in the service of the armies of the Company. These were later to fight
against their fellow Indians in the conquest of India as well as to
serve in foreign adventures in Burma and in the opium wars against
the Chinese.
Intelligence studies have now become
a major industry for European and American historians who have come
to regard political surveillance and social communication as a critical
feature of modern state and society. The shortcomings of this book
do not detract from the fact that this is a well researched and authoritative
text, the first in the series of Cambridge University Press's Studies
in Indian History and Society. We look forward to examining the future
issues in this series.
BRITAIN, SOUTHEAST ASIA AND THE ONSET
OF THE PACIFIC WAR By Nicholas Tarling. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 0 521 55346 6 (hardback). Price £45.00.
The war of 1939 was really a European
war until the end of 1941 when the entry of both the United States
and Japan converted it into a global conflict.
The conduct of affairs in Southeast
Asia, unsurprisingly, took second place to confronting the enemy on
the home front. Britain's main aim in the Far East then was to continue
to maintain the status quo, as far as was possible without getting
involved in an additional war. The intention was to prevent the further
military expansion of the Japanese and to restrict their penetration
into the area.
Unable to maintain an effective military
presence in Southeast Asia, the British sought to use their commercial
and financial strengths and to draw on their diplomatic talents. The
advantage of drawing in the United States in a common cause was an
overriding consideration.
The making of British policy was a
complex matter and involved the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and Cabinet
committees, the Defence Committee and the Far East Committee and also
involved representatives of the Dominions.
This book deals with the attempts
of the British to play out their world role in the twentieth century
at a time when they were deficient in the application of military
force. This book also tells the story of how the collapse of nineteenth
century imperialism led to catastrophe in the colonies and brought
revolution to colonial peoples, offering them a greater prospect of
independence.
Britain was a world power as well
as a European power, although her industrial superiority did not last
long. As a result of their rivalry, the European powers had extended
their influence in the world to secure more resources. With the industrialisation
of other European countries, Britain began to lose the pre-eminence
it enjoyed in the mid-nineteenth century.
The colonial structure of Southeast
Asia had been created in the period of British primacy and this lasted
until the Japanese incursion in 1941-42. By the 1890's Southeast Asia
included territories that Britain either directly ruled, acquired
as colonies, or made protectorate agreements with, and these included
Burma, Singapore and the Straits Settlements, Labuan, Sarawak, Brunei
and North Borneo, and the Malay States. The Dutch had the Netherlands
East Indies that extended from Sabong to Merauke, and the French had
established themselves in Indo-China.
The British had been the leading colonial
power in Southeast Asia. Their own possessions, Malaya, source of
tin and rubber, and Singapore, commercial entrepot and naval base,
had, however, only become of major importance in the twentieth century.
Yet British capacity to uphold the colonial framework, or indeed to
use their naval base effectively, had during this period, greatly
diminished. The beginning of the European war reduced their capacity
even further, and the defeat of the French and the entry of the Italians
into the war obliged the British to focus more attention on the Mediterranean.
The British then reverted to diplomacy.
At odds with Vichy France elsewhere, they nevertheless attempted to
sustain the regime in Indo-China that acknowledged Vichy. In Thailand
they were tempted to advocate a moderate revision of the status quo
to avoid a larger disruption. They hoped the Dutch would resist the
more extreme demands of the Japanese. The British were not prepared,
however, to offer any of these states, even the Dutch, who were their
allies in Europe, a guarantee of support in the event of a Japanese
attack. They insisted that such a guarantee could only be given if
the US also gave such an undertaking.
Britain attempted to preserve this
colonial structure during the struggle with Germany. As Britain's
military power was insufficient, the main means of containing Japanese
expansion was diplomacy. The undue emphasis given to this, together
with the priority given to Europe, led to the failure to provide adequately
for the defence of Southeast Asia or to recognise fully the possibilities
of disaster.
The impact of the European war produced
a series of actions and eonomic measures on the part of the US that
the Japanese regarded as drastic. The European war gave the US an
interest in colonial Southeast Asia that it had not before had. The
US believed that the survival of the British in Europe was connected
with its continued access to the resources of Southeast Asia, India
and Australasia, and the denial of those resources to the Japanese.
The US and Britain did not believe
that Japan would go to war with the both of them. A remembrance of
Japanese caution, a mistaken impression of the fragility of their
economy and an underestimation of their determination led to a quite
unfounded optimism. The Japanese, however, went on to war on a grand
scale.
This book is a study of British diplomacy
which itself was unsuccessful in avoiding a catastrophic war in Asia.
However, the US entered the world conflict and ensured the defeat
of Britain's opponents.
