Title: Ballads of Burma (Anecdotal and Analytical)
Author: Oolay, T. MARTIN JONES (illus)
ISBN: –
Publisher: W. TRACKER & CO, 1912
Condition: Hardcover, decorative cloth. Well bound and well-aged. Extremely scarce, first edition.
PREFACE.
Most of these ditties have already been published in the Rangoon
Gazette, and others have appeared in the columns of the Rangoon
Times and the Burma Critic. They have been revised, and are
now republished in book form at the suggestion of some of
my friends, the illustrations being the work of Mr. T. Martin
Jones, who has spent many years among the varied types of
mankind in Burma.
In introducing my book to the British public, I feel that
some apology is due for an occasional intrusion of provincial
politics, but the unjust treatment of Burma at the hands of
the Indian Government has been of so glaring a nature, that
I have been unable to avoid alluding to it in a book dealing
with current topics in Burma.
Burma is rich, and she naturally feels aggrieved that a
grossly disproportionate amount of her surplus revenue should
be diverted into the coffers of the Indian Government, instead
of being spent upon her own improvement. Moreover, India
has not hesitated to make use of her satellite as a convenient dumping ground for her own refuse population.
Ceylon, which is merely an island separated from the
mainland of India by the Palk Strait, enjoys the dignity
of independence. Burma, with an area greater than France,
is a dependency of India, although the vast expanse of the Bay of Bengal divides them, and there is no affinity either of race
or of religion between the peoples of the two countries.
To my European readers I must apologise for the inclusion
of Anglo-Indian and Anglo-Burmese expressions, but I assure
them that I have only employed those in ordinary everyday
use, and have been as sparing as possible : where I have con-
sidered it necessary, an explanatory footnote has been appended.
M. C. CONWAY POOI.E.
June, 1912.
