Burma as a “Special Case”: Testimony about Burma at the Royal Commission on Opium of 1893–1895

Abstract

Any discussion of the development of opium policy in colonial Burma would be incomplete without considering the implications of the Royal Commission on Opium. The Commission, which began its investigations in 1893 and published its final report in 1895, was a pivotal moment in the history of British colonial opium policy, in Burma and elsewhere. The sheer volume of material collected by the Commission demands attention.¹ This chapter and the following chapter will explore the Commission’s procedures and findings in detail. This chapter will summarise the testimony presented at the Commission that was relevant to Burma. The following chapter will analyse the significance of this testimony, with regard to the connection between opium regulation and imperial rule. This work’s premise is that control of opium and imperial rule were bound together in complex ways, with opium and its regulation influencing and influenced by the imperial power’s desire to regulate labour, the construction of racial discourses, and the networked context of imperial power. Each of these connections became apparent in the course of the Commission’s concerted investigation into the workings of the opium industry in India, though as the following chapter will argue, ultimately the testimony and the final report of the Commission made it clear that above all else, by the end of the nineteenth century colonial opium policy was designed to ensure the continuance of imperial rule.