THREE UNPUBLISHED PAPERS BY HARVEY INTRODUCED, EXPLAINED AND COMMENTED UPON by MAUNG HTIN AUNG * Maung Htin Aung, LL.M. (London), LL.B. (Cambridge), B.C.L. (Oxford), Ph.D., LL.D. (Dublin), Hony. LL.D (Johns Hopkins). LL.D. (Rangoon), D.Litt. (Vidyodaya-Ceylon), D.H.L. (Wake Forest) is a past-president of the Burma Research Society; was formerly Rector Vice-Chancellor of the University of Rangoon and Burmese Ambassador to Ceylon. JBRS, LVIII, i, Oct., 1975. Copyright© 1998- Myanmar Book Centre & Book Promotion & Service Ltd., Bangkok, Thailand. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author is deeply grateful to the Warden Mr. A.R.M. Carr, Library Fellow and Chairman of the Far Eastern Seminar Mr. G.R. Storry, the Dean Dr. Theodore Zeldin and other Fellows of St. Antony's College, Oxford for permission to publish the three Papers by G.E. Harvey. JBRS, LVIII, i, Oct., 1975. Copyright© 1998- Myanmar Book Centre & Book Promotion & Service Ltd., Bangkok, Thailand. Contents I. Introduction. G.E. Harvey: Imperialist of Historian? 1 II. G.E. Harvey: Burma 1885 7 III. G.E. Harvey: Monsieur Hass and the Annexation Of Upper Burma 1885 14 IV. G.E. Harvey: A Letter to his Colleague 29 V. Commentary: G.E. Harvey as an older Orwell 47 VI. Bibliography 52 JBRS, LVIII, i, Oct., 1975. Copyright© 1998- Myanmar Book Centre & Book Promotion & Service Ltd., Bangkok, Thailand. 1 G.E. Harvey: Imperialist or Historian? Introduction Htin Aung Sometimes wear rose-coloured spectacles, Harvey usually wear dark Since the publication of my two glasses of the deepest dye: reading his books, The stricken Peacock (1965) and A book, with all its scholarship, it is History of Burma (1967), I have been accused, impossible not to feel that its subconscious not only by some European historians of in that was to teach the Burmese that the Burma, but also by a few younger Burmese best of all worlds was a British-ruled scholars, of attempting to revise Burmese world. "Who could say that the Burmese history so as to white-wash King Theebaw and empire would have lasted longer had the his people. However more tolerant of my capital been moved to Syriam? It critics have described me as the founder- doubtless would have become a centre of leader of the Nationalist School of Burmese international commerce, but equally historians, in opposition to the Imperialist doubtless it would have become also a School, founded by Harvey and later followed centre of international intrigue" (Htin by Professors D.G.E. Hall and John F. Cady. Aung, 1967, p.145). If Bangkok was closer to the sea, it was also a lot farther A few British scholars have placed me from the bases of British power in India; side by side with Harvey perhaps because they and had the Burmese capital been at think me worthy, or perhaps merely because Rangoon or Syriam, there might have Harvey's Outline of Burmese History (1924) been no Kingdom of Ava to survive the and my History (1967) are the only books in second war with the British (1852) or even English which deal with the history of Burma the first (1824), in both of which Rangoon as a whole. A British diplomat, who studied was taken-from the sea." under Harvey at Oxford and later served in Burma as a member of the Indian Civil (Institute of British Geographers Service stated at a meeting (1959), "Harvey Transactions and Papers, 1968, and Htin Aung are poles apart, yet both are Publication No. 44, p.163.) sincere historians. Therefore, the truth lies half-way between the two." Professor O.N.K. Harvey died in 1965, and his papers, Spate, who was a lecturer in geography at the all torn, jumbled and thrown into cardboard University of Rangoon before the war, and boxes by his landlady, were rescued by his who now heads a Research Institute at the daughter, who gave them to St. Antony's Australian National University comments on College, Oxford. In 1968, the late Guy Wint, us: - the great historian of British Rule in India, and other Fellows graciously chose me to take The country's future lay on the charge of the Harvey papers. G.E. Harvey seacoast' (Harvey, 1924, p.193): whose served in Burma form 1912 to 1932, and was country's future? That of the Burmese, or Lecturer in Burmese Histyory and Burmese of the Bombay Burma Trading Company Law to Civil Service Probationers at Oxford and the other great British mercantile from 1936 to 1942. After the war, he lived houses? If Burmese historians such as in retirement at Oxford, but continuing his JBRS, LVIII, i, Oct., 1975. Copyright© 1998- Myanmar Book Centre & Book Promotion & Service Ltd., Bangkok, Thailand. 2 researches and giving occasional lectures. The manuscript, for towards the end of 1924, there purpose of this introduction is to contrast suddenly appeared in Burma a text book of Harvey the Imperialist before the war with Burmese history for use by Burmese students Harvey the Historian after the war, and by G.E. Harvey, and published by the Indian therefor is not meant to be a biography. Branch of Longman's, and it contained not However, it will be necessary to notice some only that portion to be published in London a special aspects of his life. Both by birth and few months later, but also a history of the education, he was a liberal. His father's entire British period from 1824 to 1920. Just relations had taken active parts in the Irish as John Milton in Paradise Lost justified the movement for freedom and his mother was ways of God to man, in the text book Harvey closely connected with the suffragette attempted to justify both the British conquest movement for women's rights in England. and British rule over Burma. Even in the 1925 Although he could not take a University history, the general impression given was that degree because of a lung ailment, he became Burmese Kings were stupid, and the Burmese proficient in Greek and French, and obtained a people, wayward. The book portrayed high position in the results of his Indian Civil Bodawpaya as a cowardly and cruel buffoon, Service competitive examination. After arrival and asserted that the Burmese as a nation in in Burma, like Professor Luce, and unlike 1824 were arrogant, boastful and ignorant, Professors Hall and Cady, he became forcing Bagyidaw to go to war against the proficient in Burmese and could therefore read British. Admittedly Bodawpaya's treatment of the Burmese sources of history. Although, as the Arakanese will remain forever a blot on he wrote to a friend in 1932, every day of his the page of the history of his region, and in life in Burma was a day of physical suffering some ways, the First Anglo-Burmese War for him because of his lung ailment, he was an represented a clash of two imperialism British efficient administrator and a keen student of and Burmese, but both Bodawpaya and Burmese institutions. In 1920, he combined a Bagyidaw wanted to avoid war if there could sick leave with study leave, went back to be a peace with honour. Oxford, and wrote a history of Burma for which he received a B.Litt. degree in 1922. Harvey used the Burmese Chronicles The thesis was well worth a Ph.D., but he as his main source and had some words of could not spend a third year at Oxford as praise for them, but he did untold harm to the required by the regulations. His thesis was prestige of the Chronicles by quoting a later published by Longman's in 1925. Soon passage from the Report of Crawfurd, British after getting his degree, he had to go envoy to the defeated Burmese King, which Switzerland and spend some time at a gave an amusing account of how the court Sanatorium there to cure, or at least check, his historian distorted the true facts of the war by lung ailment. He returned to Burma in 1923. noting in the Chronicle that "White strangers came into the country and reached Yandabo, The History of Burma published by but as they were in great distress, the Burmese Longman's in 1925 stopped at the point where, King, out of piety, paid them large sums of in 1824, the British frigates stormed into money, and asked them to leave the country".1 Rangoon harbour, thus ushering in the British This envoy hated and despised the Burmese period of Burmese history. Apparently he and their King; the story was a deliberate and submitted as his thesis only half of his malicious lie, and his successor as envoy, 1 history of Burma, p. xx JBRS, LVIII, i, Oct., 1975. Copyright© 1998- Myanmar Book Centre & Book Promotion & Service Ltd., Bangkok, Thailand. 3 Burney, definitely wrote that this story was grandfather went up-stream to warn the absolutely untrue, but Harvey ignored Burmese troops of the deception, only to die in Burney's rebuttal. 1 the desperate defense of the Minhla fort. My In about 1934 or 1935, Harvey critics had described this account as an " old contributed the chapters on Burma to the wives' tale". As there were so many ships Cambridge History of Modern India, Which following the first, it could be that there were was published in 1937, and in those chapters two or three bogus princes. I came across Harvey became an absolute imperialist and copies of correspondence exchanged between ceased to be a historian. He sounded angry and Harvey and Professor John Moonie of bitter, and even described Theebaw as a " gin- Mandalay University in 1953.