The Japanese colonies appeared to benefit most from infrastructural investment and
agricultural development services, partly because the main colonial crop - rice - was widely
spread geographically and was also the main staple, so investment to increase productivity
also benefited local consumers and some subsistence producers (Ka, 1995; Haggard, 1995).
There were variations in the structure of Colonial government, notably between direct and
indirect rule. But in both, P/C was the overwhelmingly predominant mode of operation. A
French Governor in 1908 stated that “What must be put in place above all is the undebatable
principle of our authority”. (Governor Gabriel Angoulvant of the Cote D’Ivoire, quoted in
Young, 1994, p101). In an analysis of The Imperial Experience in SubSaharan Africa Wilson
states that “The exercise of a protectorate in an uncivilised country imported the right to
assume whatever jurisdiction may be needed for its effectual exercise” (Wilson, quoted in
Young, p 92). The Indian Administrative system was “imposed ready made from above”
(Harvey, 1925, p563). Burma’s structure of government was typical, with a hierarchy which
went from the Chief Commissioner, the deputy Chief Commissioner, to subdivisional and
township officers or local headmen in the rural areas.
The system of indirect rule - i.e. reliance on local ‘traditional’ chiefs for administration in
rural areas - did not alter the hierarchical P/C mode of operation. This was the system adopted
in Burma in the rural areas, with traditional Circle Headmen transformed into appointed
officials, and also in much of SubSaharan Africa, where traditional chiefs were allocated
responsibility for most rural administration. But these Chiefs were appointed by the Colonial
government, and could be dismissed if they failed to carry out colonial policy. The Governor-
General of Afrique Occidental Française made this abundantly clear in a statement in 1908:
“Alone the Cercle Commandant [the french official] commands: alone he is responsible. The
indigenous chief is only an instrument, an auxiliary” (quoted in Young, p108). Revocations,
public whippings and imprisonment of chiefs for failing to fulfill their duties were common,
especially in the early period (Young, p129). The chiefs themselves became mini-despots,
“judge, police chief, military commander, prison superintendent, tax collector, chief medical
officer” (Fugelstad, p81). Prior checks on their power, via popular assemblies or customary