"I have carefully watched events and thought over the matter, and my conclusion is that the dacoits know that the troops have retired and that the police move in small numbers and have taken advantage of the occasion. If this is allowed to go on they will get bolder and will give trouble.... I am inclined to sit tight and wait until the men have learnt their work. The native officers will learn the language and the country.... The commissioners and district officers like to cover their districts with a perfect network of posts at short distances from each other. If they were allowed their own way there would not be a man left to move about. Last August (1887) this was foreseen, and the strength of the movable column to be kept for active operations in each district was laid down, and orders have been given and have been enforced forbidding the formation of new posts without my sanction." Lord Dufferin accepted my views, saying that he would not go into the various considerations which I had placed before him, "except to say that I fully appreciate the calmness and good sense with which you have discussed the matter. A more excitable man might have gone off at a tangent and have been frightened into measures which would certainly have been very expensive and might not have been necessary. I have taken the Commander-in-Chief into counsel, and after going fully and very carefully into the whole matter we are content to accept your views." There was in point of fact no reason for anxiety. Week by week the police improved. The first combined movement attempted with military police was in the difficult Popa country where four small columns under Captain Hastings, Commandant of the Myingyan battalion, succeeded in running Ya Nyun's gang hard, but did not capture him. And in various encounters in this district alone the dacoit gangs loss amounted to: killed, 105; wounded and captured, 29; captured, 486. Eighteen ponies were taken, 316 firearms, and many dahs and spears. The casualties of the military police in Upper Burma, during 1888, were 46 killed and 76 wounded, whilst the dacoits lost 312 killed (actually counted after action), and 721 captured. The casualties in the Army in Upper Burma between the 1st of May, 1887, and the 31st of March, 1889, were: killed or died of wounds 60, and wounded 142. (Par. 26 of the Despatch of Major-General Sir George White, K.C.B., V.C., late Commanding the Upper Burma Force. Dated Simla, July 6, 1889.) The police could not have been more active than the soldiers had been. They probably suffered more in proportion to their numbers owing to their inferior training. During the year 1888 the military police were in the field constantly in almost every district in the province.