BURMA: Festering Chaos

Burma this week had its third Royal Governor in two months. He was Major General Sir Hubert Elvin Ranee, tall, gaunt graduate of Sandhurst and an old Burma hand. But the new Governor would have to work miracles to bring order into the festering chaos.

Burma was probably worse off than any country in southeast Asia. Rice, the main staple of Burmese diet, was scarce, chiefly owing to a shortage of draft animals and agricultural implements (in the rice paddies, many a Burmese farmer pulled his own makeshift plow). Nevertheless, the Government insisted on sending large amounts of Burmese rice to India. Farmers had no incentive to sow more, because the ceiling prices at which they can sell their rice were kept low by Government order, while the prices of consumer goods skyrocketed ($8 for a cheap cotton shirt). The promised $120 million British loan is tied to the provision that only British firms which had worked in Burma before the war; could undertake rehabilitation projects.

More & more people were drifting into banditry and into U Aung San’s nationalist, loud, leftist Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League. Last week, Aung San paraded through Rangoon in a jeep, waving a red flag, while thousands of ragged Burmans shouted: “Down with the Government!” Few Burmans really wanted violence, but a British officer estimated that there were enough weapons hidden in the country for a “long and bloody struggle.” The crucial factor would be the size of next November’s rice crop. Now Burmans chanted an old verse with new, ominous meaning:

Old men bent and double

Don’t die so soon,

But come to next year’s festival

At November’s full moon.