After the annexation of Pegu in 1853, an attempt was made to raise a military battalion of Burmese. By an unintentional irony it was called “The Pegu Light Infantry.” It was found that they were altogether too _light_ and lacking in the spirit of discipline ever to make good soldiers, and the Pegu Light Infantry was accordingly disbanded. For this reason Government has had to look elsewhere for its police, and they have been recruited chiefly from amongst the warlike races of Northern India, with a sprinkling of Burmans, who are necessary for the detection of crime, and for such work as their knowledge of their own people and language the better fits them. During the troublous times of 1886-89 there has been a force of twenty thousand civil and military police, about two-thirds of whom were natives of India. But as the number of crimes of violence decreases, it becomes possible greatly to reduce this number. Of all the numerous innovations on Oriental methods of government which we have introduced, that of local self-government, as applied to municipalities, is perhaps the most noteworthy, not for what it does at present, but for what it leads up to. This little seedling of _representative government_ we are sedulously planting everywhere throughout our Indian Empire, and nurturing it with patient and sympathetic care; and he would indeed be worthy of the name of prophet who could say whereunto it will grow. Never under any Indian or Burmese rule was there a vestige of representative government, but we think it well to train them up to it. The schoolboy in India has the History of England put into his hands, and there he learns what Englishmen think of liberty and self-government; and he finds that the ruling power has broadened down in the course of ages from the one to the few, from the few to the many, and from the many to the whole population, who now really govern themselves. Our British policy is to organise municipalities in every considerable town. We, the governing power, call together a native municipal committee, as representative as we can make it by nomination, and then we say in effect, “Now we have called you in to consult with us, the leading English representatives of government, and by your votes to show your opinions on such questions as the cleaning, the lighting, the paving, and the sanitation of the town, its water supply, the regulation of its markets, and a number of other local matters, and we ask you to vote supplies of money for these things, and to levy taxes and rates accordingly.”