Whatever political considerations are attached io the British credits to China, much of which are expected to be devoted to developing communications between Burma and Yunnan, the economic importance and timeliness of the work to be undertaken cannot be ignored. If under the impetus of hostilities China has been compelled to open the "back door" it is one of the few material advantages accrue ing from war. The Burma-Yunnan highway, now completed, and the parallel railway at present in the survey stage, are historic plans long delayed, China long viewed with askance proposals to penetrate the Yangtze Valley from the west. Up to the Boxer rebellion, Burma made decennial tribute to the Imperial Court at Peking and as early as 1897 the British Government proposed a loan to China for the construction of a railway from Burma to the Yangtze. Prior to this proposal the ordinary route to Yunnan was via Canton although the construction of the French railway from Haiphong established this as the most important of all the routes, Several British parties explored possible routes, one of these parties under Mr. A. R. Margary being massacred by the Chinese in the district and causing estrangenient between Britain and China. As far as can be ascertained, the projected railway will follow the general lin of the old plan while the highway con-neets old roads which have been improved and links the difficult gap across the mountainous border, the major portion being constructed on the Chinese side over a distance of about 500 miles from Yunnan to Muse. On both sides the advantage. is tremendous and will be more so if the railway is constructed. To Burma, whose mineral and agricultural resources are being developed, this main highway constitutes one of the most important construction works in years, The Irrawaddy, its great river, is navigable as far as Bhamo, 900 miles from the sea and its tributary, the Chindwin, for about 300 miles. There are about 10,000 miles of roads, most of which are unmetalled, and 2,000 miles of railways, but the Burma-Yunnan highway provides a magnificent stretch of 800 miles of metalled road from Lashio, the railhead on the branch line from Mandalay, to Yunnan, or Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan, It is impossible to estimate on present information the volume of traffic the road is able to carry because this depends on the type of motor truck used and the strength of the road but an estimate of 100 trucks of 30 cwt. each daily has been mentioned. Taking the journey time of eight days it means a minimum of 1,600 trucks both ways which should represent a useful traffic load.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.