problem of administration was essentially different in the two Provinces. In the Punjab the people had been accustomed to obedience to a ruling class. Lord Dalhousie transferred their allegiance from the native ruling class to the British Government. In this process the previous ruling class of the Punjab disappeared as a military confederacy; but retained their position as an important social factor, intermediate between the masses and the new Ruling Power.
In Burma there was no such ruling class. There were only the King, the people ground to dust beneath him, and the officials who were the instruments of his oppressions. To the officials the people entertained no sentiment of allegiance, nor, indeed, any feeling save one of detestation. The official class in Burma were appointed, dismissed, imprisoned, promoted, mutilated, or beheaded, at the caprice of the Monarch, or as the result of an intrigue in the women's apartments. When, therefore, the English took possession of the sea-coast strip of Burma in 1826, they found nothing like a hereditary ruling class or a native nobility who might act as intermediaries between themselves and their new subjects. Exactly the same difficulty repeated itself on Lord Dalhousie's annexation of Lower Burma, in 1852. Exactly the same problem has been severely testing the British capacity for steady effort in the teeth of slow
