The Burma Ordinance

THE reasoned, energetic and dignified protest against the Expulsion of Non-Burman Offenders Bill by a largely attended mass meeting at Rangoon ought, if reason and common sense are not wholly extinct virtues at Simla, to sound the death knell of that supremely obnoxious measure. It was a meeting attended not only by almost all Indian members of the Legislative Council, but by a large number of Burmans, including several well-known members of the community, while the chair was taken by U Tok Kyi, who worthily represents Burma in the Legislative Assembly. What is even more noticeable, all resolutions adopted at the meeting were moved by Burman members of the Burma Swaraj Party, who not only spoke strongly against the enactment of such a measure but severely criticised the Nationalist Party for its support to the government in passing the Bill. The President himself put the whole case against the Bill in a nutshell by saying that it infringed upon the sacred principle of equality, inasmuch as it made distinctions between the communities living in Burma in the eye of the law, and was directed against a particular section. “Ostensibly,” he added, “the Bill is aimed at the exclusion of criminals, but in reality it is directed against Indian politicians and agitators.” He concluded with the highly significant but perfectly just remark that the Bill might appropriately be called the Burma Ordinance, corresponding to the Bengal Ordinance which existed across the Bay of Bengal.