The European Association at Rangoon proposes pressing for the appointment of a committee of officials and non-official Europeans and Indians to enquire into and report on the financial relations between Burma and India in view to the ultimate goal of separation of the former from the latter country. Sir Reginald Craddock’s wish to keep Burma “unspotted” from India is very natural, but as we have said before Sir Reginald is a bird of passage and India and Burma go on for ever. In her palmiest days, Burma was never able to get on without India. Antiquarian research both in India and Burma prove that the very closest relations existed between the two peoples for centuries, and if Burmans now, as it is alleged, desire complete political separation, they must be doing it in ignorance of the great assistance India is to them materially and morally. It only wants railway communication between India and Burma to accelerate the best interests of both countries. Without India to back her, and cut off from the control of the Viceroy and placed under the bureaucratic control of a Lieut-Governor, Burma would fast develop symptoms of atrophy political and social — and lend herself to foreign spoliation only too easily.
