[20] The population was 8,048 in 1891, and 10,734 in 1901, of which number 3,000 were natives of India. These numbers include the garrison. [21] This was written before the removal of the capital of India from Delhi to Calcutta. CHAPTER VIII DISARMAMENT: TROUBLE IN PAGYI It was in Rangoon at this time that I made up my mind to disarm the whole province, Upper and Lower, rigorously, as soon as possible. I wrote to Lord Dufferin on September 30, 1887, as follows: "I am of opinion that the time has come for the complete disarming of the whole province, except perhaps on some exposed frontiers. The firearms in the hands of dacoits are evidently much fewer, but they continually replenish their stock by taking arms from villagers and Burman police. I would temper the measure in the Lower province by giving arms to selected Karens and Burmans, who should enrol themselves as special constables. As the Burmans hate nothing so much as signing any engagement to serve for a term, few of them would enrol themselves. "I should fix the number of such special police myself, for each district." The Baptist missionaries, I feared, would not look upon the scheme with favour. The loyalty of the Karens and the benefits of their organization under their missionaries, to whom the Government, as I have said on a former page, owes much, were not questioned. But it was not admissible that the Government of Burma should prefer one race more than another, and I had been warned by one of the missionaries themselves that Burman ill-will had been excited by the preference given to Karens in raising bodies of police auxiliaries during the disturbances. By laying down conditions, fair and necessary in themselves, which men of the one race were likely to accept, but would be less acceptable to the other, as much discrimination was made between Karens and Burmans as was needful or decent. In Upper Burma, Sir Charles Bernard had ordered the withdrawal of firearms from the villagers, soon after the annexation. It was not possible to carry it out effectually at that time. It was not until 1888 that I had arranged all the details and could put the orders fully into force. It is admitted generally to have been a beneficial measure, and to have helped very much to pacify the country and to put down dacoity. It is a pity that the disarmament of Lower Burma had not been enforced many years before. But no accumulation of facts are enough to destroy a prejudice, and for a long time my action was violently, I might say virulently, denounced in the Press and in Parliament.