SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS— H. 401 



Afternoon. 

 Discussion on Anthropology and administration. 



Mr. KiNGSLEY Roth. 



Mr. G. E. Harvey. 



A century of British rule has nearly quadrupled the population of Burma 

 and greatly raised the standard of living, but it has destroyed some of the 

 healthiest elements in the pre-British social organism, and the increase in 

 crime which has been taking place for generations is symptomatic. Whereas 

 in England since 1870 murder has fallen by nearly half, in Burma it has 

 risen from 26 to 62 murders annually per million people. Murder is thus 

 eighteen times commoner than in England, and this, the all-Burma figure, 

 would be even higher but for the inclusion of backward tracts indirectly 

 administered through the pre-British hereditary institutions. There are 

 ' progressive ' districts under direct administration where the murder rate 

 is equivalent to three murders a day all the year round for the population 

 of Greater London. The causes are spiritual rather than economic. At 

 the Annexation of Upper Burma in 1885 the Burmese Buddhist Church 

 voluntarily preached submission to British rule, yet we refused its request 

 for the continuance of its penal jurisdiction over its own clergy, with the 

 result that holy orders are now habitually used as a cloak by charlatans and 

 even by criminals. Our refusal was characteristic of ' administrative 

 efficiency ' which fails to get under the skin, nor will anthropological 

 training (which our officers sadly lack) help unless they are left long enough 

 in a district to know the people — the usual term is three or four years at 

 most, yet one does not even begin to know a district till the fifth year, for 

 if friendship takes time among ourselves it takes infinitely longer with men 

 of an utterly different language, skin colour and tradition, nor will they 

 confide in those whom they know to be only birds of passage. Hence the 

 gulf between the rulers and the ruled evidenced by the fact that the bloody 

 outbreaks of a few years ago came as a complete surprise to the Burma 

 Government. 



Mr. H. A. FosBROOKE. 



Saturday, September 4. 



Excursion to Sherwood Forest and Laxton. 



Sunday, September 5. 



Visits to Gresswell Caves and to Leicester Forum excavations. 



Monday, September 6. 



Discussion on Presidential Address (lo.o). 



Dr. A. C. Haddon. — Introduction. 



In a discussion of distributions in Oceania it must be borne in mind that 

 there have been a considerable number of ethnic and cultural migrations 



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