J.S. Furnivall and Fabianism

Modern Asian Studies 39, 2 (2005) pp. 321–348. C© 2005 Cambridge University Pressdoi:10.1017/S0026749X04001593 Printed in the United Kingdom

J. S. Furnivall and Fabianism:Reinterpreting the ‘Plural Society’ in Burma

JULIE PHAM

University of Cambridge

Buried in an obscure journal published in Burma is a letter ad-dressed to its readers commemorating the tenth anniversary of thepublication. The editor had asked one of the publication’s founders, awell-known former Indian Civil Service (ICS) officer turned progres-sive reformer, to pen a few lines. Years later, the writer achievedacclaim as an ardent supporter of Burmese nationalism andindependence and one of the founding scholars of Burma andSoutheast Asia studies. These were his words of inspiration to anaudience that comprised mostly educated Burmese:

Burma did not lose its independence because the rulers of Burma came intoconflict with the British Empire, but because they had not sufficient wisdomto preserve their country; they did not know enough of Burma or of the outsideworld. And it will not again be capable of independence until Burmans knowenough of Burma and of the outside world to guide its destinies.1

In essence, the Burmese were responsible for their own colonisationbecause they lacked ‘wisdom’ and only through gaining this elusiveknowledge could they be free. This opinion was based on nearly threedecades worth of first-hand observation of Burmese society. The authorwas J. S. Furnivall.

Furnivall is most renowned for his conceptualisation of the ‘pluralsociety’; this term has been a durable concept of scholarship on

This essay is heavily based on chapter two of my M.Phil dissertation, see HoaiJulie Pham (2002), ‘Empire, nationalism, and Fabianism in the thought of John S.Furnivall’, University of Cambridge. I am indebted to John Ady, J. S. Furnivall’sgrandson, for giving me access to Furnivall’s private papers. I also thank Ady, TimHarper, Reiner Leist, Robert Taylor, and Peter Zinoman for carefully reading andcriticising earlier versions of this essay.

1 J. S. Furnivall, ‘Laying the Foundations’, World of Books, XXI, 121 (1935),pp. 2–3. In accordance with current academic practice, I will use ‘Burmese’ to denotethe nationality of those living in Burma and ‘Burman’ to denote the majority ethnicgroup of Burma. In most of the literature written during Furnivall’s time, the usagewas the reverse.

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multiethnic societies and particularly in Southeast Asia. By the‘plural society’, Furnivall saw a society in which different races onlyinteracted for economic reasons, as in the marketplace, and becameso atomised that they had lost the ability to form a common socialwill, thereby weakening the social demand necessary to organiseactivities to improve social welfare. The laissez faire forces introducedby colonialism were responsible for producing the plural society,by creating institutions that served the market economy instead ofthe community. In Furnivall’s reading, the society was splinteredamong the Burmese, Europeans, Indians, and Chinese. Only Burmesenationalism was capable of rebuilding human bonds among people,of enabling them to once again create a common social will and pavethe way for Burma to enter the modern world on its own terms. Thiscritique of colonialism seemed to demonstrate Furnivall’s sympathyfor the Burmese; he clearly held colonialism to be responsible forrupturing the Burmese gemeinschaft that he and his fellow ICS in Burmaidealised.

This essay reevaluates Furnivall’s thought and its impact inSoutheast Asia studies. It argues that the conventional depiction ofhim merely as a nationalist sympathiser is misleading. By tracing hislong association with the Fabian Society—a vital strand of his thoughtoverlooked by most scholars—this essay portrays a more complexattitude to colonial development and freedom. Furnivall’s career,whilst distinctive in many ways, sheds new light on the intellectualculture of the last years of the British Empire in Asia.

Role of Nationalism in Reintegrating Plural Society

Robert Taylor’s 1995 article, ‘Disaster or Release? J. S. Furnivalland the Bankruptcy of Burma’ presents an insightful and balancedexamination of how J. S. Furnivall’s analysis of the effects of colon-ialism in Burma, principally the ‘plural society’, could explain thepredicament of the current Myanmar state.2 Those in this pluralsociety had unwillingly locked themselves, in Furnivall’s terms, intoa business relationship in which bankruptcy signified not disaster butrelease from one other. After Burma was granted independence in1948, the Burmese chose bankruptcy, signalling the end of the plural

2 Robert Taylor, ‘Disaster or Release? J. S. Furnivall and the Bankruptcy of Burma’,MAS, XXIX, 1 (1995), pp. 45–63.

J . S . F U R N I V A L L A N D F A B I A N I S M 323

society and the beginning of disastrous economic, political, and socialcrisis.3

Combined with allusions to Furnivall’s early retirement from theICS, the theorising of nationalism as the cure to the plural society hascontributed to Furnivall’s legacy. One theme of this essay is to exploreexactly how Furnivall envisioned utilising Burmese nationalism toenable Burma’s entry into the modern world, and to clarify Furnivall’sdefinition of ‘wisdom.’ Taylor described the kind of nationalismFurnivall prescribed as ‘unbridled’.4 Because Furnivall seemed to sotrust the power of nationalism to reintegrate Burma, Taylor arguedthe blind spot in Furnivall’s prediction of the Burma’s future wasthat he failed to ‘take sufficiently into account human emotions,passions, and interests of the people who were cut off from thebenefits of modernity’ to then embrace it as their cure.5 Like manyother Southeast Asianists, Taylor’s analysis of Furnivall assumesFurnivall was a committed anti-colonialist and advocate of Burmesenationalism.6 Indeed, Furnivall protested the unbridled capitalism ofBritish business in Burma, he censured the inhumane machinery ofthe British colonial administrative body, he encouraged nationalismamong young Burmese, but he did all this from the stance of a FabianSocialist, which back then signified mainstream conservatism.

To Furnivall, there were two kinds of Burmese nationalism:constructive and destructive. Furnivall recognised nationalism asthe one indigenous force that could be exploited to reintegrate aplural society, and he encouraged Europeans to see that ‘Nationalismin Burma is morally right, and economically sound and may bemade economically attractive’.7 But Furnivall did not support theextreme kind of nationalism that would encourage Burmese toseize complete governance before they were ready for it; still lackingthe appropriate ‘wisdom’, Burmese leaders would forfeit their place inthe modern world by shutting out Britain completely. The British had

3 Taylor, ‘Disaster or Release?’, pp. 56–7. For further discussion on the state ofMyanmar, see Michael Aung-Thwin, Pagan: The Origins of Modern Burma (Honolulu,1985); Peter Carey, ed. Burma: the Challenge of Change in a Divided Society (Basingstoke,1997); and Robert Taylor, The State in Burma (London, 1987).

4 Taylor, ‘Disaster or Release?’, p. 48.5 Ibid., p. 55.6 See Julie Pham, ‘Ghost Hunting in Colonial Burma: Nostalgia, Paternalism, and

the Thought of J. S. Furnivall’, South East Asia Research, XII, 2 (2004), pp. 237–268.7 J. S. Furnivall, ‘Preface for European Readers’ in An Introduction to the Political

Economy of Burma (Rangoon, 1931), ix.


the responsibility to ensure that the existing nationalist sentimentamong the Burmese was used constructively lest it become oneof the ‘quasi-religious forces such as patriotism’8 that would proveinsufficiently strong to counteract economic forces that continued tothreaten the unity of Burmese society.9 For the Burmese to moderniseand eventually become independent, not only were moderatenationalism and sound colonial administration both necessary, butthey were also dependent on each other to succeed.

This essay examines Furnivall’s work in its original historicalcontext in order to make sense of some inconsistencies between whatFurnivall wrote and the interpretation of his theories on colonialismthat currently dominates the field. As a concept, plural society hasbeen examined from the angle of economics, sociology, and politicalscience,10 but these studies have failed to examine Furnivall’s socialand political framework. Furnivall’s successors in colonial studies haveapplied his important concepts into their own analytical frameworkswithout questioning where such ideas originated, and thereby remainignorant of their sociological origins and of their contemporarypolitical significance in British colonial policy. Though Taylor refers toFurnivall’s Fabianism in an earlier working paper, he omits it ‘Disasteror Release’.11 Even Frank Trager’s comprehensive bibliography ofFurnivall’s works failed to mention Furnivall’s membership.12

8 Ibid., xiii.9 J. S. Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice: a comparative study of Burma and Netherlands

India (Cambridge, 1948), p. 313.10 W. C. Neale, W. C. Schaniel, ‘John Sydenham Furnivall: an unknown institu-

tionalist’, Journal of Economic Issues, XXXVI, 1 (2002), pp. 201–7; J. R. Potvin,‘The Economic and Social Theory of John S. Furnivall’ (unpublished manuscript,1986), JAP; John Rex, ‘The Plural Society in Sociological Theory’, British Journal ofSociology, X, 2 (1959), pp. 114–24; Danilyn Rutherford, ‘Laughing at Leviathan: JohnFurnivall, Dutch New Guinea, and the Ridiculousness of Colonial Rule’ in James T.Siegel and Audrey R. Kahin, eds, Southeast Asia over Three Generations (Ithaca, 2003),pp. 27–46; John B. Viar, ‘Economic Development in Plural Societies: the InstitutionalEconomics of J. S. Furnivall’ (unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of Tennessee,1993); Taylor, ‘Disaster or Release?’. Rutherford does not discuss the plural societyas attests to Furnivall’s anticolonial views, arguing: ‘John Furnivall understood verywell the inherently ridiculous nature of the colonial state on the frontiers of empire’(p. 28).

11 Robert Taylor, ‘An Undeveloped State: The Study of Modern Burma’s Politics’,Working Paper No. 28 (Melbourne, Australia: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies,April 1983), p. 5.

12 Frank Trager, ed. and comp. Furnivall of Burma: An Annotated Bibliography of theWorks of John S. Furnivall, Bibliography Series No. 8 (Yale University, 1963).


In lieu of an analysis of his historical context, a brief, stock biographyof Furnivall has often been substituted. Roughly, Furnivall’s lifehas usually been summarised by the following facts: born in Essex,England in 1878; graduated from Trinity Hall, Cambridge, havingread in Natural Sciences in 1900; arrived in Burma to serve in theICS, specialising in district settlement, in 1902; married a Burmesewoman, by whom he had two daughters, in 1906; founded the BurmaResearch Society and its companion publication, Journal of BurmaResearch Society, in 1910; retired from the ICS in 1923; returned tolive in England in 1931; studied colonial administration at LeidenUniversity, 1933–1935 and then returned to England; was asked bythe newly independent Union of Burma to return as Planning Advisorin 1948; was expelled by Ne Win’s government in 1960. Though NeWin had expelled Furnivall, the University of Rangoon offered hima job, to which he had planned to return to Burma after vacationingin England. But he never made it back to Burma—he passed away in1960.

There has hitherto been a lacuna in our understanding of Furnivall’sthought. To fully grasp his theories, Furnivall’s Fabianism must begiven a central place. Two misconceptions of Furnivall’s theory ofhow a ‘plural society’ is created stem from overlooking his politicalorientation: first, it is a condemnation of colonialism and secondly, it isa creation of Furnivall’s alone. This study is more concerned with howthe ‘plural society’ initially emerged rather than how it functions asan analytical concept. Therefore, Fabianism and the Fabians’ internaldissensions over a united platform on colonialism during the first halfof the twentieth century will be examined along with Furnivall’s owninterpretation of Fabianism and how and why he implicitly referencedthis particular brand of socialism in his colonial analysis, both insupport and in negation, throughout his career.

Furnivall’s Fabianism and Fabianism in Burma

More important than its economics or politics to understanding theappeal of Fabian socialism to Furnivall is the Society’s consistent socialvalues, especially its insistence on the importance of a community.In one of the Society’s foundational texts, the 1889 Fabian Essays inSocialism, Sidney Webb wrote:

Without the continuance and sound health of the social organism, no mancan now live or thrive; and its persistence is accordingly his paramount end.


His conscious motive for action may be, and always must be, individual tohimself; but where such action proves inimical to the social welfare, it mustsooner or later be checked by the whole, lest the whole perish through theerror of its member.13

Because they saw the community as an interdependent ‘socialorganism’, the Fabians aimed to devise ways of ensuring its smoothoperation and maximum utility and to ‘educate the people inSocialism by making them conversant with the conclusions of themost enlightened members of all classes’—themselves being amongthe enlightened.14

Tied into their ideal of the community was the ideal of the individual,particularly that of an administrative elite to oversee the ‘health’ ofthe community. The Fabians were not satisfied with a community thatwas merely ‘sound and happy’; this elite—in H. G. Wells’ term, the‘Samurai’—was to ensure that the citizens were continually strivingto progress from ‘good to better.’ Founding member George BernardShaw did not believe the masses could govern themselves. ‘A countrygoverned by its people is as impossible as a theatre managed byits audience’, Shaw said. ‘Government is a fine art requiring for itsexercise not only certain specific talents and a taste for the businessbut a mental comprehensiveness and an energy which only a smallpercentage of people possess in the degree necessary for leadership’.15

This notion of Samurai would later be applied to the colonial context.The Fabian Society’s commitment to research and reform may have

been another strong attraction for Furnivall. The Fabian progressivereformer-scholar was an ideal Furnivall strived to embody throughouthis life. To ensure the rights and freedom of colonial people, Fabiansfought with research, which they likened to ‘eternal vigilance’.16 Adesire to maintain the air of relative objectivity and intellectualism ofa scholar could perhaps explain why Furnivall almost never labelledhimself as a socialist in his public writing, much less a Fabian socialist.

13 Sidney Webb, ‘Historic’ in George Bernard Shaw et al. eds., Fabian Essays inSocialism (London, 1889), p. 57. For further discussion on this foundational text,see Clive E. Hill, Understanding the Fabian Essays in Socialism (1889) (Lewiston;Queenston; Lempter, 1996).

14 George Bernard Shaw, ‘The Mission of the Fabians’, p. 11, Tract 70, Reporton Fabian Policy and Resolutions (1986), E21/8, f. 8, London, LSE, Fabian SocietyPapers (FSP).

15 Cited in Rodney Barker, Political Ideas in Modern Britain (London, 1978), p. 106.16 Rita Hinden, ‘How a Political Society Functions: The Story of the Fabian Colonial

Bureau’ in Rita Hinden, ed., Fabian Colonial Essay (London, 1945), p. 261.


Indeed, little is known about Furnivall’s Fabianism because heleft almost no record of it, though he was a member for most ofhis life. An invitation to the 75th anniversary celebration of theFabian Society in 1958 revealed Furnivall as one of the Society’slongest-standing members.17 When Furnivall joined in 1908 as a 30-year old assistant settlement officer in Burma, the Fabian Societywas already established and, unlike other Radical groups, held adegree of respectability within the British political mainstream.Fabianism would come to define the British brand of socialism, onethat paradoxically shared Marx’s moral outrage about poverty whilebelieving that capitalism could successfully mitigate social problems.When Sidney and Beatrice Webb, founding members of the Society,toured Burma in 1911, Furnivall’s ICS superior C. Morgan Webb, aFabian of 16 years, entertained them.18 The majority of his fellowFabians in the ICS, including C. W. Dunn, B. Swithinbank, andS. Grantham, joined several years after him.19

In his real life, Furnivall actively promoted a mild form of socialismin Burma. When he left the ICS in 1923, he founded the BurmaBook Club near the new University of Rangoon, and one year later,he established its bilingual companion serial, The World of Books, whichpublished scholarly discussions of socialism. The socialism describedby the Burma Book Club was the sort that had ‘so far permeated bothConservatism and Liberalism as to elicit from a Liberal leader thepronouncement “We are all Socialists now”’.20 Credited as being one ofthe first sources for English-language Leftist literature in Burma, theBurma Book Club and The World of Books introduced socialism to youngBurmese nationalists, who also used the Club as a meeting place.21

Aung San Suu Kyi described these men as ‘searching eagerly, perhapsunconsciously, for radical ideas’ which later resulted in ‘a tendencyto swallow much of the whole socialist theory without digesting itproperly’.22 To these Burmese, socialism represented a framework in

17 Furnivall listed under ‘Members of 50 years and more’ as having joined in 1908.G65/1, f. 9, FSP.

18 Sidney and Beatrice Webb, The Webbs in Asia: The 1911–1912 Travel Diary, GeorgeFeaver, ed. (London, 1992), p. 189.

19 Bill Elkins, letter to author, 21 Feb. 2002.20 J. S. Furnivall, ‘An Introduction to Politics for Burman; a special supplement to

the World of Books’ (Rangoon, 1925), p. 11, JAP.21 Maung Maung, Burma and General Ne Win (London, 1969), p. 39.22 Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma and India: Some Aspects of Intellectual Life Under Colonialism

(Rashtrapati Nivas, Shimla, 1990), p. 69.


which to be anticolonial, but it was not the impetus for the anticolonialmovement. The rhetoric of even the most zealous of nationalistsinvited to speak at the Burma Round Table Conference in January1931, an assembly called to re-evaluate the rule of Burma underBritish India, did not invoke insurrectionary language.23

As a scholar of the Fabian tradition, Furnivall made his firstpublic attempt at criticising the Empire publicly under the guiseof describing old Burma in his 1909 article ‘Land as a Free Gift ofNature’, which appeared in the Economic Journal.24 His distress overthe changing nature of land ownership in Pegu was a socialist analysison colonialism’s part in changing the value of land as a thing that isshared and open to cultivation by anyone in the community, a ‘free giftof nature’, to being thought of as property. Later, in 1914–1919, hewould administer Pegu as District Commissioner. Other articles onBurmese society that reflected his engagement with Fabianism wouldfollow.

Fabianism also centered on a fundamental criticism of laissez-faire,which Furnivall attributed as the root of societal disintegration of whatwould be later known as the ‘plural society’. In a speech on how ‘theEast’ should adopt Western technology, called ‘Sunlight and Soap’,Furnivall wrote:

In Burma, the Burman and the European, the Chinaman and Indianhave nothing in common but their appetites . . . . These problems of dis-organisation and re-organisation are the most difficult that face us in theEast; so long as these two processes continue there can be no question oflaissez faire.25

This 1918 speech, written five years before he left the ICS, docu-mented his first observations on how Burmese society had beenpolarised along racial lines. As an ICS guardian of Burmese society,Furnivall was acutely aware of and very concerned with humanrelationships and how they determined the overall health of thecommunity—the same concerns Webb expressed in 1889 in the FabianEssays in Socialism. As a manifestation of the ideal of the community,Furnivall portrayed Burmese society as once healthy and sound, but

23 Government of Burma, Burma Round Table Conference, 27th November, 1931–12thJanuary, 1932, Proceedings (Rangoon, 1932).

24 J. S. Furnivall, ‘Land as a free gift of Nature’, The Economic Journal, XIX(Dec. 1909), pp. 552–8.

25 J. S. Furnivall, ‘Sunlight and Soap,’ JBRS 8, III (December 1918), 208.


the ‘village ceased to resemble a family’26 and became a ‘businesspartnership’27 and its citizens underwent a forced atomisation in hislater writing. The antithesis to progress and reform was stagnation,which Furnivall considered the worst possible fate for a community.

In the milieu of the anti-Lamarkian turn in international debates oneugenics and evolution, issues that were of particular interest to theFabians, Furnivall’s conceptualisation of the plural society also had ahint of reform eugenics.28 He adopted pseudo-scientific language bycalling the process of natural selection by which different segmentsorganised themselves hierarchically in the plural society the ‘survivalof the cheapest’. This process of natural selection tended to eliminatefrom social life all values that were not immediately material,encouraging men to pursue individual interests with disregard tocommunity interests.

The way in which Furnivall would eventually organise the stagesof the plural society teleologically was also indicative of his Fabianbelief in progress and his own scientific background. The pluralsociety had five stages of development: initial colonial domination;liberation of laissez-faire economic forces; pluralisation along raciallines; disintegration of common social will; and stagnation. Thesestages signified both social and economic changes. While traits inFurnivall’s work such as having a scientific approach and an emphasison scholarly research reflect not just Fabianism but also the broadershift towards science and the rise of social sciences in England inthe 1920s and 1930s, Furnivall’s understanding of society and viewson colonialism were characteristically Fabian. Firstly, he understoodsociety as an organism that must be preserved, protected, andimproved upon, under the leadership of social engineers and secondly,he had faith in Britain as the leader of an international community ofnations.

Furnivall never blindly accepted the doctrine of any organisationand Fabianism was no exception to his measured, scholarly scepticism.

26 J. S. Furnivall, ‘Planning for Welfare in Burma’ (1948), Box 12, File 55, p. 19,London, SOAS, John S. Furnivall Papers (JSFP).

27 J. S. Furnivall, ‘The Political Economy of the Tropical Far East’, Asiatic Review,XXIX, parts 3–4 (1942), p. 204.

28 Sidney Webb, The Decline of the Birth Rate (reprinted, London, 1910, c. 1907), p. 19.For further discussion, see Paul B. Rich, Race and Empire in British Politics (Cambridge,1986); G. R. Searle, Eugenics and Politics in Britain, 1900–1914 (Leyden, 1976); NancyStepan, The Idea of Race in Science: Great Britain, 1800–1960 (London and Basingstoke,1982).


He even criticised the Fabians in his 1910 article ‘The Organisationof Consumption’. Furnivall’s plural society rested on the notion thatweak organisation of consumption, not of production, was responsiblefor a lack of social welfare and progress since these could not existwithout a common social will. Though he did not formalise hisconcept of the plural society until years later, Furnivall had criticisedthe Fabian Society for being ‘open to a change of laissez faire’ byvaluing ‘“the freedom of the individual to test the social value ofnew inventions” as highly as Mill valued the freedom of the producerto palm off adulterated goods. They do not emphasise the fact thatfreedom depends upon organisation in consumption no less thanin production’.29 Later, in taking up the plural society, the FabianColonial Bureau also changed the conventional Fabian outlook onconsumption and production in the colonial setting.

That article would not be the last time Furnivall would find himselfdeviating from the official Fabian line in order to remain faithfulto his own beliefs. It reflected a trademark characteristic of his. In anobituary, his long-time friend and fellow Burma scholar, Gordon Luce,wrote that Furnivall ‘never hesitated to denounce the Base whereverhe saw it—whether in Government, politic, commerce, or the Press.And if he made enemies, that was of no consequence to him’.30 Anotherfriend said that Furnivall ‘did not believe in cheap popularity or playingto the gallery’.31 Moreover, the differences of opinion among theFabians themselves gave Furnivall the flexibility to consider himself aFabian while criticising certain aspects of Fabianism.

Early Fabian Views on Imperialism

At the dawn of the twentieth century, the official Fabian stance oncolonialism was a far cry from other radicals of the time. Shaw’sFabianism and Empire: A Manifesto (1900) encapsulated their pro-Imperial stance on the basis of protecting capitalist interests athome.32 In the year Furnivall finished his course at Cambridge, the

29 J. S. Furnivall, ‘The Organisation of Consumption’, Economic Journal, II (March1910), p. 25.

30 Gordon Luce, ‘J. S. Furnivall’, The Nation (Rangoon), 13 July 1960, p. 356,clipping, JAP.

31 R. D., ‘J. S. Furnivall’, The Guardian (Rangoon) 28 July 1960, clipping, JAP.32 George Bernard Shaw, ed., Fabianism and the Empire: A Manifesto (London, 1900).


Fabians were hotly debating their stance on the Boer War.33 Thevote among members on this question was decided 259 for vs. 217against; thirteen members resigned over this,34 and Sydney Olivierstepped down from the Executive Committee.35 Fabianism and Empirewas framed by traditional Fabian values of an interdependent worldcommunity under British authority, motivated by goals for progress,reform, and rationalism. Shaw merely shifted Fabian paternalismfrom domestic to colonial affairs when he wrote, ‘Our first dutyto our subjects is to make them as independent of our guidance,and consequently as appreciative of our partnership, as possible’.36

Fabianism and Empire would remain the only major Fabian statementon imperialism until the establishment of the Fabian Colonial Bureau(FCB) in 1943, and, though highly controversial among Fabians,Bernard Porter argued that it influenced official Fabian thought oncolonialism for the following fifty years.37 Furnivall integrated some ofthe core arguments of this manifesto into his own views on colonialism.

Shaw’s ‘public-spirited Imperialism’ was attacked by other progres-sives such as J. A. Hobson as the ‘Imperialism of capitalism andvainglorious nationalism’.38 James Alexander argues that theimperialist stance in Fabianism and Empire was based on practical,economic arguments as opposed to the moral position adopted byHobson and his supporters.39 Shaw referred to Fabianism and Empireas ‘the original Socialist view of the war’, rejecting the sentimentalmoral arguments offered by his anti-imperialist critics.40 One anti-imperialist Fabian who opposed Fabianism and Empire nonethelessapplauded Shaw’s ‘indifference to the moral aspects’ of the colonialquestion.41 Hobson saw imperialism as a violation of the ‘sacred rights

33 ‘The Fabian Society and the War’ Reply by the Majority of the ExecutiveCommittee to the recent circular; ‘The Fabian Society and Imperialism’ Rejoinder tothe Reply of the Majority of the Executive Committee; ‘To members of the Fabiansociety’, C54/1, ff. 1–8, FSP.

34 James Alexander, ‘Socialism on Two Fronts: Shaw Against Marxism andLiberalism’ unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1999), p. 156.

35 Francis Lee, Fabianism and Colonialism: The Life and Political Thought of Lord SydneyOlivier (London, 1988), p. 73.

36 Shaw, Fabianism and the Empire, p. 21.37 Bernard Porter, ‘Fabians, Imperialists and the International Order’ in Ben

Pimlott, ed., Fabian Essays in Socialist Thought (London, 1984), p. 54.38 Cited in Alexander, ‘Socialism on Two Fronts’, p. 156.39 Alexander, ‘Socialism on Two Fronts’, pp. 159–60. See J. A. Hobson, Imperialism:

A Study (3rd. ed., London, 1988, c. 1902).40 Cited in Alexander, ‘Socialism on Two Fronts’, p. 155.41 Cited ibid., p. 160.


of nationality’ of the dependencies.42 Describing Shaw as a liberal with‘socialistic’ leanings, Hobson summarised Shaw’s arguments as such:

If a nation or the government of a nation holding possession of a piece ofterritory refuses to utilise fully its resources or to permit others to do so orotherwise makes itself a nuisance to its neighbours, or to the internationalpublic, the sacred rights of nationality ought not to protect it from coercionimposed on behalf of the general good of nations.43

In the face of this moral critique, the imperialist Fabians insisted thatless developed nations needed the guidance of the British Empire tomodernise and train them to practice liberal democracy.44 ThoughHobson shared many of the Fabians’ doubts about liberal nationalism,he did not believe that imperialism would ever evolve into an altruisticendeavour. Hobson saw imperialism as a force of the capitalistsystem,45 whereas the Fabians viewed it as a justifiable civilisingmission.

Good government, the Fabians reasoned, was necessary to ensurethe quality of the British race and thereby, the strength and authorityof the Empire. Backed by its core of colonial bureaucrats, includingLeonard Woolf, Sydney Olivier, and Sidney Webb, the idea of anadministrative elite most likely appealed to young, optimistic colonialbureaucrats such as Furnivall. ICS men who came to Burma beforethe First World War were, Furnivall described, working in the ‘GoldenAge’.46 They had the promise of a career in public service, an op-portunity to prove themselves as muscular Christians, and a faith inthe Empire.

To understand how Furnivall reconciled the official Fabian linewith his early condemnation of capitalistic forces, we turn to SydneyOlivier, later Lord Olivier, a career civil servant who served as acolonial secretary in British Honduras (1890–91) in Africa and inJamaica (1900–04; governor, 1907–13) and as Secretary of State for

42 J. A. Hobson, ‘Socialistic Imperialism’, International Journal of Ethics, XII (1901–02), p. 44.

43 Ibid.44 Nicholas Owen, ‘Critics of Empire in Britain’ in Judith M. Brown and Wm. Roger

Louis, eds., The Oxford History of the British Empire; the Twentieth Century (5 vols., Oxford;New York, 1999), IV, p. 193.

45 Porter, ‘Fabians, Imperialists and the International Order’, p. 58.46 J. S. Furnivall, ‘Burma, 1902–1952: Then and Now’, Lecture at Chatham House,

1952, p. 2, Box 10, File 28, JSFP.


India with the new Labour government in 1924.47 Like Furnivall,Olivier’s own experiences abroad shaped his analyses of colonialism.He disagreed with Shaw’s view that more progressive nationsshould profit by colonising ‘backward nations’; instead, humanitarianinterests should guide colonial projects. Olivier preferred a policyof ‘trusteeship’, in which a more advanced, powerful nation wouldmodernise underdeveloped countries through the aid of social engine-ers before granting their self-government. Although Olivier supportedtrusteeship as the better alternative, he remained critical of thecolonial project as a whole, stating that ‘No “trustee” government canpretend to believe that these laws were enacted in natives’ interests’.48

The Task of the Social Engineer

Ironically, Furnivall became even more prolific and concrete in histheories on colonialism in Southeast Asia after he left Burma in 1931.His return to England signalled a new period in Furnivall’s life inwhich he tapped into fresh intellectual networks. Back in Cambridge,he began to participate in a relatively large, albeit unorganised,community of Fabians—this was in stark contrast to Burma, wherehe had to establish his own outlets of political discussion.49 Boththe British government and the Fabians would find Furnivall’s first-hand experience in a colony invaluable. Furnivall taught Burmeselanguage, history and law at his alma mater from 1936 to 1942 as anICS lecturer, and then conducted research for the Burmese colonialgovernment on the reconstruction of Burma.

Integral to furthering his concept of the ‘plural society’ wasFurnivall’s comparative research of colonial systems from 1933 to1935. In the tradition of British comparing their own colonialsystems to that of the Dutch, Furnivall studied colonial administrationin Holland and Java.50 What Furnivall discovered in the Dutch

47 G. F. McLeary, ‘Olivier, Sydney Haldane’, Dictionary of National Biography, 1941–50 (Oxford, 1959), pp. 641–2.

48 Rt. Hon. Lord Olivier, Imperial Trusteeship (London, 1929), p. 11. Also see Olivier,The League of Nations and Primitive Peoples (London, 1918).

49 Furnivall listed under ‘List of Fabian Society Members in Cambridge 22.6.46’,F101/3, f. 40, FSP.

50 For example, see J. W. B. Money, Java, or How to Manage a Colony (reprinted,Singapore, 1985, c. 1861); Henry Scott Boys, Some Notes on Java and its Administrationby the Dutch (Allahabad, 1892). Ian Brown gives an insightful history of comparisonsmade between British and Dutch colonial administrations in his introduction to the1985 edition of Java, or How to Manage a Colony.


Netherlands India deepened his faith in an administrative elite, aclass of ‘social engineers’, capable of reintegrating the plural society,which in turn gave way to his philosophy, that ‘If subject peoples areto remain within the Empire, we must first enable them to leavethe Empire’.51 Furnivall first borrowed the term ‘social engineer’from the Dutch, who used it to describe their own officers,52 andhe used it to reconceptualise the Fabian idea of Samurai for thetask of colonial administration just as the Fabians themselves weredoing.

Furnivall had researched the Dutch colonial system from theperspective of a former believer in British efficiency and its abilityto rationally govern its colonies whose first-hand experience incolonial administration turned him into a critic of the British colonialmachinery, which he personified as the ‘Leviathan’. After leaving theICS in 1923, Furnivall had continued to criticise the British systemfor making it difficult for ‘district officers and people to becomemutually acquainted. So far as they come into contact they tendto see one another in unpleasant aspects; the official mostly seespeople who want to get something out of him, and the people seethe official as magistrate and tax-collector’.53 Such social barriersbetween the colonial administrators and those they came to help werecounterproductive, as it prevented the Burmese from being able to‘probe the secrets of the West’.54 Furnivall’s observations of the Dutchsystem only solidified the shortfalls of the British system, and renewedhis hope of the possibility of reforming the British Leviathan.

As representatives of British humanitarianism, Furnivall envisionedhis social engineers as modernisers of native society, enabling nativepeoples to join and contribute to an international community thatwas tenuously linked together by British authority.55 His personalexperience gave him faith in the collective power of individual social

51 J. S. Furnivall, ‘The Far East and International Economic Relations’, SixthSession of the conference on the Far East, Culton Hall, Clacton, 1–4 Feb. 1946,sponsored by Fabian International Bureau, lecture manuscript, J61/13, ff 27–33,p. 3, FSP.

52 J. S. Furnivall, Netherlands India: A Study of Plural Economy (Cambridge, 1939),p. 261.

53 J. S. Furnivall, Reconstruction in Burma (Simla, 1943), p. 69, Walton Papers,London, BL, Oriental and India Office (OIOC), MSS Eur. D 545/30.

54 J. S. Furnivall, ‘The Burma Education Extension Association’, lecture toEducation Department, Rangoon University 1926, Box 11, File 50, JSFP.

55 XYZ ( J. S. Furnivall), ‘Political Reconstruction in Burma’, Pacific Affairs, XVI, 3(Sept. 1943), p. 300.


engineers. Therefore, Furnivall could criticize the British colonialadministration while ultimately supporting it. In this 1939 talk to theRoyal Central Asian Society on the Dutch system, Furnivall asserted:

[The Burmans] do not appreciate the vital importance of the Europeanelement in the present state of Burma, but regard the economic positionof Europeans with jealousy, and look on European officials as the agents andguardians of European interests. If it were explicitly recognized that onepeculiar function of Europeans in the administration is to act as a brakeon European extremism and to restrain the unsocial tendencies of capitalistinterests, then the more intelligent Burmans might come to place a highervalue on their services.56

By recognizing that the Burmese resented the European presence,Furnivall showed some sympathy with the Burmese. But Furnivallargued if the Burmese could see how much worse society would bewithout the presence of the administrators, they would ‘come toplace a higher value’ on their services. Even then, it would the ‘moreintelligent’ Burmese who could see this distinction. Furnivall laterstressed the need to train ‘tropical administrators as social engineers’.He admitted that the British were at fault for the development of theplural society and yet if they could supply a ‘body of administratorstrained as social engineers’, then the Burmese will ‘soon realize thatthey are getting good value for their money’.57 ‘Until the Burmese cantake over the material development of their own country’, Furnivallreasoned, ‘production must remain largely in the hands of Europeans,and so long as that continues Europeans are as necessary to Burmeseas Burmese are to Europeans’.58

Furnivall was not trying to transplant a Dutch ideal to the Britishcontext; nor would this be possible because of their historicallydifferent traditions of law. Instead, Furnivall adapted the Dutchmodel of social engineer to fit both British Burma and to appeal toincreasingly dissatisfied colonial peoples. From studying with Dr. JanBoeke, the Dutch economist who had developed the economic modelof ‘dual societies’, Furnivall was able to give name to the theory hehad been developing on multicultural colonial societies. Furnivall drewfrom one colonial system to another, across the peripheries, as part ofa larger exchange of ideas in the international colonial network.

56 J. S. Furnivall, ‘The Training for Civil Administration in Netherlands India’,Royal Central Asian Journal, XXVI, part 3 (1939), p. 428.

57 Ibid., p. 429.58 Ibid.


Furnivall Among Fabians in Europe

By 1940, the Fabians’ stance on colonialism had changed little,despite increasing protest among the colonial dependencies and newleadership in the Society’s ranks. However, they did decide Fabiansneeded to conduct further study on colonial affairs and established theFabian Colonial Bureau (FCB), which eventually also served the samefunction to the Labour Party.59 This way, the Fabian Society could‘act as a direct channel for transmitting the results of its members’research work to key people of the Labour movement’.60 Duringthe Second World War, the possibility of decolonisation across theCommonwealth loomed, and the Fabians were both arguing as to whythe colonies should not yet be granted independence and developingways for Britain to cope with newly independent nations. Their writingconveyed a sense of urgency along with resignation and renewed hope.If and when decolonisation came, Fabian rationalism accepted thatcolonies could never return to their precolonial state.

As for Furnivall, he did not foresee Burma would attainindependence in the near future because of its divided population’sinability to form a common will.61 Nor did he think that a democracywas possible in a plural society.62 Democratic institutions couldonly be practiced in homogeneous societies where a strong commonsocial will already existed, such as in England.63 During the years ofFurnivall’s absence, Burma witnessed its first major violent raciallyand economically motivated riot in 1931, with Burmese against theChinese shopkeepers in Rangoon.64 Then came riots between theBurmese and the Hindus in 1931 and between the Burmese andthe Muslims in 1938, which were interpreted by the British as

59 S. R. Ashton and S. E. Stockwell, eds., Imperial Policy and Colonial Practice 1925–1945 (2 vols., London, c. 1996), I, lxxiv.

60 Rita Hinden, ‘Socialists and the Empire: Five Years’ Work of the Fabian ColonialBureau’ (Sept. 1946), Box 31, File 3, item 1, FCBP. That ‘channel’ certainly was‘direct’; ‘Fabian’ and ‘Labour’ were practically synonymous in the 1945 LabourGovernment, with the prime minister, nine cabinet members, and a majority amongthe 394 Labour M. P. s calling themselves Fabians (E. J. Hobsbawn, ‘The FabiansReconsidered’ in Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour [London, 1964],p. 250).

61 J. S. Furnivall, ‘Some problems of the Tropical Economy’, in Fabian Colonial Essays,ed. Rita Hinden (London, 1945), p. 183.

62 Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice, p. 454.63 Furnivall, ‘Some problems of Tropical Economy’, p. 182.64 John Cady, The United States and Burma (Cambridge, Mass, 1976), p. 123.


reflections of growing nationalism rather than of religious animosity.65

These riots, to Furnivall, may have attested to further divisions.The Fabians wanted to look forward in constructing new policy,

not backward on questioning the moral and economic motives behindBritish imperialism. While the Fabians ‘dislike[d]’ imperialism, FCBChairman and the Labour Government’s Colonial Secretary ArthurCreech Jones claimed that ‘to throw off the colonial empire in this waywould be to betray the peoples and our trust’.66 This sense of Fabianprogress both absolved the Empire of its wrongdoings and bolsteredits authority. In FCB’s first major publication, Fabian Colonial Essays,Creech Jones argued:

It matters little to-day how they were acquired, the predatory and possessivecharacter of imperialism in the past, or indeed, the ugly episodes andexploitations many of them experienced in the past. Our concern must bethe discharging of this legacy of responsibility, i.e. a legacy of service andcontribution.67

The collection of essays was predicated on the promise of ‘partnership’as the future of the Commonwealth; in truth, ‘partnership’ onlydiffered from its predecessor ‘trusteeship’ in the rhetoric used in itspromotion.68 Though the essayists acknowledged British colonialismnegatively impacted the dependencies, the overall message in FCB’sofficial debut was ‘reform, not remove’, a relatively moderate stancein light of vocal discontent among the colonial peoples. AlthoughFurnivall opted not to join the FCB, Fabian Colonial Essays containsthe most explicit and public evidence of Furnivall’s sympathy withFabianism, namely his own contributing essay, ‘Some Problems ofTropical Economy’.69

In line with Fabian gradual reform, the FCB recognised thatthe dependencies should eventually regain self-government, but theFabians in the Labour Government were reluctant to set firm dates

65 F. S. V. Donnison, ‘Contributions to Memories of District Officers 1930–1947’,p. 16, Indian Civil Service (District Officers) Collection: Donnison, MSS Eur. F180/35,OIOC.

66 Arthur Creech Jones, ‘Introduction’ to Fabian Colonial Essays, p. 13.67 Ibid.68 See Kenneth Robinson, The Dilemmas of Trusteeship: Aspects of British Colonial

Policy Between the Wars (London, 1965); Nicholas Owen, ‘Critics of Empire in Britain’(pp. 188–211) and Ronald Hyam’s ‘Bureaucracy and “Trusteeship” in the ColonialEmpire’ (pp. 237–69)in Wm. Roger Louis, ed., Oxford History of the British Empire; theTwentieth Century (5 vols., Oxford, 1999), IV.

69 Furnivall, ‘Some problems of Tropical Economy’, pp. 161–84.


for the transfer of power. To hand over rule too quickly, Rita Hindenreasoned, would be a ‘folly and betrayal of the grossest kind for us toshuffle off our responsibilities’, leaving the colonies with no guidanceafter years of colonial rule.70 Creech Jones declared, ‘If there are graveresponsibilities on us, there are responsibilities no less burdensome ofthe peoples concerned’.71 To transfer power, the partnership requireda special body of administrators, ‘educated as social engineers’, CreechJones described, who would rebuild what had been shaken down.72 SirDrummond Shiels wrote in Fabian Colonial Essays that the ‘test of goodgovernment in the colonies’ lay in the infrastructure ‘provided for thepeople’. Quality doctors, educators, engineers, and other professionswere valued ‘not only because of the immediate effect of their work,but also because of their function in training and guiding those whoare to be their successors among the indigenous inhabitants’.73

The Fabians reconciled the tension of the international outlookinherent in socialism and their own provincial attitudes by assumingthat Britain would lead a Commonwealth of Nations, an attitudeaffirmed by continuously referring to Britain as the ‘Mother Country’,which also reflected an increasing British nationalism in FCBliterature.74 But the Fabians did not blindly support British authority.Instead, they carefully rationalised the need for continued Britishguidance. Echoing the rationalism used by Shaw in Fabianism andEmpire, FCB secretary Rita Hinden pointed out that the MotherCountry enabled the colonies to discover their natural resources andraise their living standards.75 The Fabians did not see British help ashaving ulterior motives; as Shiels said, it was ‘doubtful if, over all, thebalance on the financial side was in favour of the Mother Country’.76

Furnivall may not have necessarily wanted the formality of an officialCommonwealth, but his vision for reshaping Burmese society echoedsome of these Fabian beliefs. While Robert Taylor has acknowledgedthat Furnivall felt the ‘Burmese would have to be made to see what wasin their best interest under continued international tutelage’, Taylor

70 Rita Hinden, ‘Army Bureau of Current Affairs (ABCA): Colonial Problem’,3 Nov. 1945, Box 31, File 2, items 1, p. 10, FCBP.

71 Creech Jones, ‘Introduction’, p. 17.72 Ibid.73 Sir Drummond Shiels, ‘Self-government for Advanced Colonies’ in Fabian Colonial

Essay, p.124.74 Ibid., pp. 99–100.75 Hinden, ‘Army Bureau of Current Affairs (ABCA)’, p. 10.76 Shiels, ‘Self-government for Advanced Colonies’, p. 115.


underestimates the degree to which Furnivall’s social policy proposalsdepended on Western systems of governance being adapted to theBurmese context.77 As a Fabian, Furnivall was most concerned with thedevelopment and welfare of the community; a sudden severance fromBritain would be more detrimental to the Burmese in the long term,hindering Burma’s progress. The current state of Myanmar stands astestament to Furnivall’s fears. Furnivall advocated decolonisation forBurma on the condition that the Burmese accepted ‘the help of someone who was himself a citizen of the modern world in order to complyvoluntarily with new rules about sanitation, infectious diseases and soon’.78 Despite all that he had witnessed of colonial administration inBurma, he was still loyal to the Empire. His opinions were informedby a political milieu that supported a gradual transition for coloniesinto independent states.

The Impact of the ‘Plural Society’ on Fabians

Furnivall did not just draw from the Fabians, but influenced them aswell. Furnivall’s largest contribution to the Fabians was his concept ofthe plural society, which excited many of the researchers in the FabianColonial Bureau into applying the model to areas outside Burma andIndonesia.79 Furnivall had been formulating his plural society conceptfor years in different publications and as it became clear that protestagainst the Empire in the colonies could not be ignored, the FCBadopted the plural society as its own in order to justify partnershipunder the Commonwealth. They too began to address social will andadopted the theories of organisation of consumption that Furnivallhad criticised them for overlooking back in 1910. In short, Furnivall’splural society was incorporated into general FCB literature whenit became relevant to their political agenda. One example wasSelf-government and the Communal Problem: A Study of Colonial ConstitutionalProblems arising in Plural Societies, in which Marjorie Nicholson decried:‘It is simple enough to roll off the usual phrases about “freedom for

77 Taylor, ‘Disaster or Release?’, p. 57.78 Furnivall, ‘Planning for Welfare in Burma’ (1948), p. 20, Box 12, File 55, JSFP.79 Some examples include Marjorie Nicholson, Self-government and the Communal

Problem: A Study of Colonial Constitutional Problems arising in Plural Societies (London,1948); Fabian Colonial Bureau, Advance to Democracy: A report to the Fabian Colonialbureau on the implications of ‘partnership’ in multi-racial societies (London, 1952); Nicholson,Co-operation in the Colonies (London, 1953).


the Colonials”, or “the advance to self-government”, but as soon as wescratch the surface of life in any Colony, the complexity of achievingthese goals immediately stares us in the face. Rarely do we finda homogeneous community with an articulate national will’.80 Theplural society was used to describe not only the effects of colonialismon colonial peoples, but to argue how difficult it would be to leavethese countries to govern themselves, and, hence, prompting the needfor social engineers.

The problems arising from governing a plural society underpinnedthe FCB thinking on the fate of the Commonwealth. Hinden wrote in1949:

[H]aving converted dependent peoples into free allies, can our Comm-onwealth framework then retain their loyalty? Can it stand the strain ofthe diverse races and traditions, which will all insist on an equality withinit? . . . The Empire is passing; but it is not by any means established that theCommonwealth by which we hope to replace it can endure.

Do we want this Commonwealth to endure?81

These doubts also pointed to internal dissension in the FCB over aunified platform on the place of colonialism in a modern world. YetHinden remained optimistic that the Commonwealth could provide a‘means by which differing peoples can come together; a bridge acrossthe full of colour, and an alternative to dividing the world on the basisof race’.82

By 1952, the plural society became so popular a concept in Fabianliterature that H. V. Wiseman cautioned against its misapplication,writing ‘All generalisations about the problems of plural societies aredangerous’.83 The Labour Party dedicated its first issue in its Labour’sColonial Policy series in 1956 to the study of the plural society.84 Noneof the Fabian literature acknowledged Furnivall as the author of the‘plural society’. Only twelve years after his death, in a discussion ofthe plural society in Guyana, did a Fabian writer credit Furnivall andthen mistakenly referring to him as ‘Dutch’.85 Despite receiving little

80 Nicholson, Self-government and the Communal Problem, preface.81 Rita Hinden, Empire and After: A Study of British Imperial Attitudes (London, 1949),

p. 191.82 Hinden, Empire and After, p. 192.83 H. V. Wiseman, The Problem of the Plural Society: A Note on the West Indies (London,

1952), p. 1.84 Labour Party, The Plural Society (London, 1956).85 Paul Singh, Guyana: socialism in a plural society (London, 1972). Singh wrote, ‘It

was the Dutch economist, J. S. Furnivall, with first hand experience of the colonial Far


recognition, Furnivall was very important to the Fabians and therebyto the Labour Party’s thinking on colonialism. Furnivall’s inter-nationalisation of Fabianism in Burma was reprocessed by Fabians inthe metropole. But neither FCB nor Furnivall made this intellectualconnection clear. Aside from contributing to Fabian Colonial Essaysand lecturing at several Fabian sponsored conferences,86 all otherreferences to this relationship were confined to internal documents.

In the 1940s and 50s, the FCB made strong efforts to publishliterature on Burma as well as on Southeast Asia in general. Thesuccess of the Antifascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL) insecuring Burmese independence in 1948 attracted the attention ofthe FCB. As the British were being forced to leave Burma, theFCB found former ICS officers, ‘enlightened men “on the spot”’,invaluable for their first-hand expertise and knowledge of the country’spolitical situation’.87 Furthermore, the men reinforced the need for anadministrative elite to run the dependencies. But it seems no recordsexist of a request to Furnivall to submit a tract, despite even Hinden’sown acknowledgement in 1948 that ‘Most of the good stuff on Burmaseems to have been written by him in recent years and he has beensufficiently associated with the Fabian Society’.88 Hinden’s hesitationto call on Furnivall may have been the result of his own personalaloofness. In 1946, Furnivall was asked to review a brochure, but hereplied far too late for his comments to be considered; moreover, hiscover letter to Hinden started with, ‘I will not pretend to thank youfor your letter’.89

Perhaps to Furnivall, the FCB made questionable choices in candi-dates to undertake research on Southeast Asia. In 1944, they turnedto E. E. Dodd to write a pamphlet on Southeast Asia. Dodd was a little-known high school teacher who had just recently turned to the study

East before the Second World War, who first focused attention on the peculiarities ofthe plural society’ (p. 1).

86 ‘The Far East and International Economic Relations’ and ‘Southeast Asia’ SixthSession of the conference on the Far East, Culton Hall, Clacton, 1–4 Feb. 1946,sponsored by Fabian International Bureau, lecture manuscript, J61/13, ff 27–33,ff 16–21, FSP; ‘Economic Problems of the Colonies’, Nuffield College Conference,Oxford, 1941, lecture manuscript, Box 10, File 36, JSFP.

87 Arthur Creech Jones, ‘Some Considerations of Social Policy and its Cost’ inFabian Colonial Essays, p. 69.

88 Letter to David A. Wade from Hinden, 6 Oct. 1948, Oxford, Rhodes House,Fabian Colonial Bureau Papers (FCBP), Box 150, File 2, f. 4. It appears Wade hadwritten to Hinden seeking information on Burma.

89 Letter to Hinden from Furnivall, 1 Sept. 1946 Box 31, File 4, f 2, FCBP.


of Southeast Asia, but Hinden had wanted him to let his ‘imaginationrun riot, and say that you have been a close student of South EastAsia for many years’ for his biographical sketch. Dodd refused toexaggerate to such a degree.90 He sent in an initial memorandum on‘British Southeast Asia’ that bore striking resemblance in languageand analysis to an earlier article of Furnivall’s, ‘The Political Economyof the Tropical Far East’.91 In this article, Furnivall wrote:

In the first half of the last century economics praised the Economic Man;during the latter half they explained that he did not exist. Unfortunately,they were mistaken. He was cast out of Europe, but found refuge in the East;now, I fear, we see him returning, with seven devils worse than himself.92

Using very similar language, Dodd wrote:

Economic Man, it has been said, is not dead but has taken refuge in theEast . . . . [eliminating Imperialism] certainly does not solve the problemscreated by our occupation—perhaps rather the house swept and garnishedwill harbour seven new devils.93

Dodd failed to acknowledge Furnivall in his references, though he didwrite to Hinden that ‘there is no one on whose opinion I should puta higher value’ than Furnivall’s upon discovering that Furnivall was areader for another of his pamphlets, the aforementioned one to whichFurnivall had sent Hinden the tart reply.94

Considering himself to be foremost a scholar, Furnivall may havedistanced himself from the FCB because of its own increasing politicalnature, departing from the careful research unit that the FabianSociety first established it as. In editing a pamphlet on Malaya writtenby Tom Silcock in 1949, Hinden expressed dissatisfaction to DorothyWoodman over its nonpolitical stance. ‘I have a certain feeling ofunsatisfactoriness about it—it is so obviously not written by a politicalperson’, wrote Hinden.95 Despite having little knowledge of Malaya,Woodman anonymously reviewed the pamphlet with the objective of

90 Letter to Dodd from Hinden, 6 Sept. 1946; letter to Hinden from Dodd, 8 Sept.1946, Box 31, File 4, f. 35 and f. 37, FCBP. For examples of Dodd’s pamphlets, seeThe New Malaya (London, 1946); ‘Reconstruction in Burma and Malaya’, in ColonialQuestions: How Should Britain Act? ed., Fabian Colonial Bureau (London, 1944).

91 E. E. Dodd, ‘Memorandum on British S.E. Asia’, September 1944, Box 150,File 1, item 8, FCBP.

92 Furnivall, ‘The Political Economy of the Tropical Far East’, pp. 195–210, 205.93 Dodd, ‘Memorandum on British S.E. Asia’, p. 294 Letter from Dodd to Hinden, 4 July 1946, Box 31, File 4, f. 24, FCBP.95 Letter to Woodman from Hinden, 28 July 1949, Box 33, File 2, f. 96, FCBP.


making it more political and Left-leaning. As a professor at RafflesUniversity in Singapore, Silcock’s relatively conservative perspectivehad been shaped by the Communist insurgency in Malaya and hishostile response to Woodman’s assessment questioned her politicalmotivation. ‘I am afraid . . . I can accept few, if any, of your reader’ssuggestions’, he wrote to Hinden. ‘I presume your reader is a democratand not a Communist, and that we are on the same side, differing onlyabout how courageous our methods should be . . . but I really believeI have more in common with Sir Richard Winstedt in my attitudeto Colonial problems than with the author of this letter’.96 Silcock’sopinions reflected more of the overall shift in the colonial movementtoward the right rather than an ostensible conservatism.

Just a few years after its establishment, the FCB was now debatinginternally its stance on colonialism and Empire in regards to itsfunction as research unit to the Labour government. Hinden’s effortsto infuse FCB literature with a more conventional socialist perspectiveincurred rancour from headquarters. In a letter to a friend abouther own resignation from FCB, Hinden admitted that, ‘we have beengetting a lot of criticism from the Society that we do not engage in“fundamental research” but are too much of a “political action group”which they claim is not truly “Fabian”’.97 The review of yet anotherpamphlet revealed what direction the FCB was orienting itself toward.In response to a pamphlet on Burma, the secretary of the new Fabianchairman, Lord Farringdon, wrote on his behalf: ‘Lord Farringdonfinds the pamphlet interesting to read, but judged by Fabian standardsnot quite factual enough. He finds the tone (also for Fabian needs)somewhat too anti-British’.98 This pamphlet was eventually deemedtoo inadequately researched to be published.

The Fabian Socialists acknowledged the immorality of imperialismyet still continued to defend the Empire and to interpret theimperialist actions of the British authority as humanistic. Thisconstant mediation of sentiments was not just experienced by thoseFabian politicians and writers in London. Fabianism in this sensehelped justify the role of the colonial bureaucrats to themselves;these men on the peripheries consumed and transformed Fabianismto suit their own needs. The Fabians in the metropole drew on the

96 Letter to Hinden from Silcock, 30 July 1949, Box 33, File 2, f. 100, FCBP.97 Letter to Wilfrid Benson from Hinden, 4 Sept. 1950, Box 64, file 1, f. 67, FCBP.98 Secretary of Lord Farringdon, ‘Burma Pamphlet: Comments by Lord

Farringdon’, n.d., Box 38, File 1, f. 5, FCBP.


expertise of these ‘men on the spot’ and reprocessed the Fabianismthat had been internalised in the peripheries—as attested by theFabian Colonial Bureau’s fervent search to prove the existence ofplural societies in dependencies everywhere. As a research unit to theLabour Government, the FCB was able to bring the ‘plural society’into the mainstream thinking on colonialism. There was a continuousexchange of thinking on Empire and nationalism that resulted incontradictory notions and solutions, trying to accommodate the needsof both those in the metropole and on the peripheries. Furnivall’s ownlife sheds insights on how these intellectual interchanges transpired.

Furnivall and an Independent Burma

When Furnivall published his seminal Colonial policy and practice; acomparative study of Burma and Netherlands India in 1948, the same yearBurma achieved independence, Rupert Emerson wrote in his reviewof it: ‘If one overall criticism is to be made, it might be in lookingto the future Mr. Furnivall is over-rationalistic and over-optimisticconcerning the likelihood that those who destroy a civilization cansuccessfully assume the responsibility which he places to build “anew and more highly organized civilization in its place”’.99 Emersonrecognized a caveat of Furnivall’s theory that has now been largelyoverlooked: that only British help could enable Burma’s entrance intothe modern world.

Furnivall was decidedly critical of the colonial machinery, but evenby contemporary political standards, he was not considered radical oreven overly controversial. Furnivall had never supported revolutionarynational movements or repudiation of former colonial masters. WhenFurnivall wrote ‘Colonial autonomy is not merely a humanitarian idea,a privilege to be graciously or grudgingly conceded, but an end that weshould pursue in our own interest’, the ‘our’ is on behalf of the British.100

Because Burma declared independence too late for Furnivall to take itinto consideration in Colonial Policy and Practice, his words revealed thathe did not yet believe Burma was ready for self-governance. Despitehis doubts, Furnivall was keen to help the newly independent Burma.

99 Rupert Emerson, Review of Colonial Policy and Practice, by J. S. Furnivall. PacificAffairs XXI, 4 (December 1948), p. 429.

100 Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice, p. 517. Author’s emphasis, not in theoriginal.


The Burmese did not forget the progressive efforts Furnivall madeon their behalf in his earlier years, and when Burma declaredindependence in 1948, the newly established Union of Burmagovernment asked him to return to Burma as Planning Advisor.Furnivall only accepted this new post on the condition that Burmadid not accept Dominion status in the Commonwealth; this decisionoperates as another event in his long life that proves his commitmentto Burmese nationalism and independence to current scholars ofSoutheast Asia.101 His conditional acceptance of the new post seemsto contradict the Fabian platform of supporting former dependencies’membership to the Commonwealth. Perhaps by the time Burmaachieved independence, Furnivall was against the Commonwealth.However, as late as 1943, he supported it to some degree, writing thatreconstruction efforts should ‘make Burma capable of independencebut tied by interest and affection to British Commonwealth’.102

Furnivall may not have explicitly advocated formal membership in theCommonwealth, but then again, even Rita Hinden had voiced doubtsas to its future. Moreover, in his new position, Furnivall continued toexpress the need for independent Burma to maintain a relationshipwith Britain and seek its guidance.

The Burma Furnivall returned to after 17 years was in crisis. Asidefrom serious administrative problems caused by the radical change-over in government, independent Burma also faced major financialproblems. Big corporations that were forced to pull out of Burmaduring the war began to claim compensation; during negotiationsfor independence, it was left unclear if Burma or their Imperialgovernment would cover damages.103 Furnivall himself wanted tocompensate these corporations in government stocks or bonds.104 Thecollection of land taxes, which had been the ‘backbone of nationalrevenue’, had ceased temporarily.105 Furnivall noted that 55 per cent

101 ‘British Planning Expert for Burma’, New Times of Burma, 2 July 1947; ‘To aTune of £100 Millions’ n.d., n.a.; ‘Burma Asks Englishman to Advise Them’, The Age,19 October 1950; Alan Nicholls, ‘Burma expert is he study of Asiatic’ and ‘A quietWesterner’s part . . . Putting Burma on the road back’ (Australian newspapers, circa1950), H.M. ‘J. S. Furnivall—An Appreciation’, The Guardian (Rangoon), 14 July 1960,clippings, JAP.

102 Furnivall, Reconstruction, p. 89.103 Letter to Dunn from Furnivall, 28 Feb. 1948, Box 1, File 1, pp. 4–5, JSFP.104 To a tune of £100 Millions’, circa 1949, newspaper clipping, JAP.105 Hugh Tinker, The Union of Burma; a study of the first years of independence (3rd ed.,

London, New York, 1961), p. 137.


of land revenues for 1946–47 had yet been collected as of 1948.106

The conditions only worsened. After 1948, the hierarchy of Britishand district administration suffered a decline in power, hurting thecollection of land revenue, and the upheavals in 1948–49 resulted ina complete breakdown of district administration.

From his early years in Burma, the British government perceivedFurnivall as having an ‘ingrained prejudice against British firms’.107

Furnivall was, after all, a socialist. But he became more open tothe idea of foreign investment as the economic conditions in Burmaworsened, a position he made public in his 1949 lecture, ‘The FinancialCrisis and how to meet it’.108 The New Times of Burma publishedextracts of this lecture to the Council of World Affairs, an influential,albeit non-official, organisation that discussed political, economic andsocial problems especially pertaining to Burma.109 In this lecture, hestressed:

we have not the capital, we have not the managing skill, or the machinery,or the technicians of the labour. It will take generation before we can beindependent of foreign help in these matters. meanwhile we must encourageforeign enterprise and foreign capital on any terms that will promote the nationaldevelopment of Burma not merely the economic development but the nationaldevelopment. WE need foreigners to work for us, to help us and to teach us.110

Furthermore, Furnivall said that there was no ‘scapegoat’ for thefinancial crisis, that it was ‘nonsense to blame’ the government,capitalists, communists, or the Karens.111 The British Ambassadorto Burma J. Bowker wrote to Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin thatFurnivall’s statement was the most ‘outspoken’ economic analysisFurnivall had made yet. Bowker was relieved that Furnivall had ‘at lastdecided that he must speak out, instead of waiting for the Burmeseto come to their senses in their own way, and it is regrettable thathe did not take this decision earlier in his present spell of service

106 Letter to Dunn from Furnivall, 28 Feb. 1948, Box 1, File 1, p. 5, JSFP.107 Leslie Glass, Foreign Office Minutes, 10 Oct. 1949, London, Public Records

Office (PRO), Foreign Affairs-Burma Collection, FO 371/75691. I am indebted toChristopher Bayly for giving me the references to the archival documents from thePRO used in this article.

108 Glass, Foreign Office Minutes.109 Extract of Furnivall’s original lecture in ‘The Financial Crisis and how to meet

it’, New Times of Burma, 10 April 1949, FO 371/75691, PRO.110 J. S. Furnivall, ‘The Financial Crisis and How to meet it’, address delivered in

Rangoon, 10 March 1949, manuscript, Box 1, File 1, JSFP. Emphasis in original.111 Furnivall, ‘The Financial Crisis and How to meet it’.


in Burma’.112 In respect to his conservative turn, Professor B. R.Pearn, who had been associated with the wartime British governmentin exile in Simla as an advisor, commented that Furnivall was ‘atlast disillusioned.’ Pearn wrote that Furnivall was as ‘wooly-mindedas ever—e.g. his suggestion that foreign groups be brought in torestore order: no Burmese Government would contemplate such ameasure—nor hope to survive if it had become known that theyhad even considered it! [sic]’.113 Taylor also criticised Furnivall foroverestimating the willingness of Burmese nationalists to embraceWestern methods after finally managing to gain independence.114

Furnivall had long expressed doubts as to when Burma would beready to participate in the modern world, and probably still believedthat when he arrived in Burma as Planning Advisor. Rather thanbeing overly idealistic, Furnivall was just being true to form as anindependent thinker who adhered to his beliefs of what was right.Just as he took relish in provoking the British business community inBurma back when he was a young ICS officer, he enjoyed annoying theBurmese nationalists about accepting British assistance. Ultimately,he did not completely side with the Burmese nor the British, butfollowed his own conscience as to what was best for Burma. Like H. G.Well’s Samurai, Furnivall envisioned planning as ‘Utopian’. ‘We nevermay,’ he wrote in 1950, ‘probably we never shall land in Utopia, but ifwe do not direct our course towards it, we get no where [sic]’.115

∗ ∗ ∗

J. S. Furnivall aimed to integrate Burma into the modern world onits own terms while salvaging the human bonds necessary for forminga common social will that would enable social progress. Althoughhe pinpointed Burmese nationalism as the cure to reintegrating thesociety, Furnivall supported Burmese nationalism only with cautionbecause he posited that liberal democracy might not work in aheterogeneous society such as Burma. It was not only in the interest

112 Letter to Ernest Bevin, M.P. from J. Bowker, 26 April 1949, FO 371/75691,PRO.

113 Handwritten comment on ‘Minutes from Mr. Bowker, Rangoon. 26/4/49 on“Lecture by Mr. J. S. Furnivall, Planning Advisor to the Burmese Government, to the‘Burma Council of World Affairs’” in Rangoon’, FO 371/75691, PRO.

114 Taylor, ‘Disaster or Release?’, p. 55.115 J. S. Furnivall,‘Planning in Burma’, 4 Jan. 1950, New Times of Burma, Box 11,

File 46, JSFP.


of the Burmese that Burma modernised, but also in that of theinternational community as a whole and of Britain. Two years intohis tenure as Planning Advisor to the Union of Burma government,Furnivall still insisted that the fundamental problem lay in the need‘to develop the human and material resources of the region forthe greatest welfare of the world . . . . apart from a few remote andbackward peoples, we are all living in one economic world, but we arevery far as yet from success in building up one social world. If we are toachieve that, we must incorporate the peoples of South Asia as citizensof the modern world’.116

Furnivall’s social policies did not originate solely from his first-handexperience as a colonial administrator as much as existing scholarshipsuggests. In this, he was not alone; other colonial bureaucrats had alsobeen drawn to Fabianism. Furnivall’s own internalisation of Fabianprinciples exemplify how this school of thought was reinterpretedby the colonial experience and manifested in the analysis of localconditions. His Fabianism was something he carried with himeverywhere. Though Furnivall had been roughly outlining the pluralsociety while he lived in Burma, he did not articulate his mostimportant concept until he left Burma in 1931 to live in Europe.The origins of Furnivall’s social policy stemmed from the subtletransactions of ideas between the metropole and imperial peripheries,resulting in sites of knowledge formation throughout the Empire.Understanding the political and historical context that gave life toFurnivall’s plural society is critical to unravelling his ambivalent viewson colonialism and Burmese independence.

116 J. S. Furnivall, ‘South Asia in the World Today’ in Phillips Talbot, ed., South Asiain the World Today (Chicago, 1950), p. 20. In this article, Burma is included in ‘SouthAsia’.

J.S. Furnivall and Fabianism

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