Final judgment in revision has been given by the High Court of Upper Burma. in the great jadestone case, the Judge coninning the conviction, but remitting the fine of Rs. 500 imposed for breach of one of the forest rules. The accused therefore suffers 6 months' rigorous imprisonrient and a fine of Rs. 500 on another count and has his jadestone confiscated. The judgment was a very long and elaborate one, turning in a great mbasure on the' proper meaning of the word "forest" as used in the Forest Regulations of Upper Burma. The judge holds that the whole of Upper Burma comes within the definition with the exception of certain places, such as town and village sites, religious land, and cultivated areas, which thus cease to be forest. The presence of trees is an accidental and not a necessary characteristic of forest, either in its popaler or technics! meaning.
Another and still more interesting jade smuggling case is coming to the front before be Crongit from China; but of that more Jong, in the defence of which witnesses will
anon.
RAILWAY PROSPECTS, Mr. F. R. Bagley, the chief engineer of the Burma Railways Ca,, whose opinion I quoted in a recent letter, has written interesting pamphlet on the proposed extension of Burma railways into China, and another on a proposed Burma-Siam railway. Mr. Bagley begins his first pamphlet with the remark: "A great deal has been written the prospects of opening up Western China to British trade from the side of Burma, and there is no subject on which more erroneous ideas prevail owing chiefly to the persistent repetition of the exaggerated estimates framed by Mr. Holt-Hallett and his followers." The writer then proceeds to show that the trade of Szechuan must go down the Yangtzekiang to Shanghai, and that of Kueichou and Kuangsi down the West River to Canton, leaving only the province of Yunnan as possible of exploitation from the Burma side. The western portion of Yunnan, which is the most easily accessible from Burma, is a thinly populated and poor country hardly any richer than our_own is-Salween Shan States, To Exsteru Yunnan "the simple and evident approach," as stated by Mr. Baber, is from the Galt of Tongking, as also. the southern portion round Szemao which is on the headwaters of the Black and Red rivers, and about half the distance from Hanoi that it is from Rangoon or Moulmein.
The trade of Szemao also has been greatly exaggerated; "the latest information shows that the trade in Puerh tea (15,000 mule Toads) is smaller than the export of our pickled tea from Taungbaicg and that all the traffic of Szemao is probably little larger than what comes to Mandalay now from Thitaw."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.