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staffs and a devotion to duty which is almost unbelievable. It also demonstrates the capacity of the Chinese to improvise repairs in the shortest possible time with nothing but hand power, a process of which no other country but China would be capable. The attached maps(") show the portions of the railways that were still being run by the Chinese when I was there and also the new railways now under construction. There is little or no difficulty in the completion of the earth- works for these railways, the limiting factor is the provision of the rails and of the rolling-stock. Some of the rails have been taken up from railways abandoned in the now occupied territories, and these have often been carried by coolies for hundreds of miles to their new destinations. There is a supply of rolling-stock available, but not sufficient for the new railways.
From the point of view of external traffic the only railway at present operating is the Haiphong-Kunming Railway. Unfortunately since the Japanese landings in Kwangsi and the capture of Hainan Island, this railway has been subjected to constant bombing with serious results. It is one of the most difficult pieces of railway construction in the world, and has a number of bridges over very deep gorges between precipitous mountains. These bridges are very vulnerable points on the railway, and their destruction or weakening is a serious matter, since the repair is a most difficult affair owing to the kind of terrain in which they are situated. Two of them have already been damaged seriously, but at the beginning of March traffic had been resumed on the entire length of the railway, and now that more efficient steps have been taken for protection, it is to be hoped that the services may be maintained.
At the best, however, the railway is capable of handling only 600 tons a day as owing to the gradients the maximum train-load is 100 tons, and trains can only be run safely at night over most of the route. Even at this full rate it would take something like eight months to clear the present accumulations at Haiphong, apart altogether from the goods which are arriving almost daily.
66. On the Russian side the railhead is at Alma Ata, the capital of Kazakistan, some 200 miles from the Sinkiang frontier town of Ili. A road runs from Alma Ata through to Urumchi and on to Lanchow and Sian. This road is known as the North-West Highway from the point where it leaves Sinkiang, and it is said that it has been used a great deal in the past for bringing in goods from Russia. The terrain from Ili to Lanchow is in parts mountainous and very difficult for railway construction as well as being very sparsely inhabited, as a great deal of it is over the deserts.
There is no prospect of a railway through this area at the present time. Moreover, such a railway would not give connexion to any port and would only tap Russian supplies. The only remaining possibility of through connexion by rail with the outside world is through Yunnan, either to some other part of Indo- China or to Burma. On the Burmese side there is already a railway up to Lashio, which is some 120 miles from the Sino-Burmese border, and it is by this railway that the goods are now brought which are carried by truck over the Burma-Yunnan highway.
67. A line to connect up with the Burma railways at Lashio has been surveyed, and is shown on the accompanying map.(5)This line roughly parallels the road from Kunming to Hsiakwan, and then passes south of the road across the Mekong River and down the Nam Ting River to Kulong, slightly north of east of Lashio. The earthworks for this line are in an advanced stage. We saw a good deal of the construction work on our way up the road, and visited the head- quarters of the western section close to Hsiakwan, where we saw all the detailed construction plans. Since that date they have, on my recommendation, started work at the frontier end. If the line could be completed even for a portion of its length, it would save a great deal of road transport and so assist in solving the difficult petrol problem, but at the present time there is no practical possibility of getting the rails through, though there are many hundreds of tons at Haiphong. There seems to be no solution to this problem of getting the rails except by the extension of the railway from Lashio to the border, when they could be brought up from Rangoon and laid forward from the Lashio end. It was to facilitate this method of construction that work was started at the Burmese frontier. On the Chinese side it is estimated that the railway could be completed within a year, and I see no good reason to doubt this estimate in view of the way in which
(5) Not reproduced.
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the construction of the road went forward and the amount of work that has already been done. There is not the slightest question but that the building of the railway on the Burmese side would give very great immediate moral encourage- ment to the Chinese, and that when it was completed it would be of immense assistance to them in maintaining both their import and export trades.
In view of the work that they have themselves done on their section of the railway and its vital importance to their present needs, it will undoubtedly be a great disappointment to them if the Burmese end is not constructed, and it will certainly not encourage them to assist British interests in the future.
68. The Chinese Government would be perfectly prepared to enter into some form of guarantee, either as to the volume of traffic or as to interest on capital, if such considerations stand in the way. I understand that the Burmese railway authorities do not consider that the railway will be an economic proposition, though they must, even at the present time, be making a very good thing out of the large volume of Chinese traffic that they are carrying on their railways. However, this difficulty could be got over by the suggested guarantee of the Chinese Government. There are, I understand, two other difficulties which have in the past influenced the Burmese. The first is the strategic situation, and the second is the problem of Chinese immigration into Burma. So far as the first is concerned, this seems to me to be imaginary. The likelihood of a Chinese attack upon Burma, provided friendly relations are maintained, is negligible, and, in any event, it would not be increased by the building of the portion of the railway on the Burmese side. Even if the Burmese section is not built, the Chinese will go forward with theirs, as they want the railway to open up Yunnan, especially the new tea districts in the south-west, and also to save road transport as far as they can. I cannot therefore believe that there is any substance in this objection, which has the sound of Japanese propaganda. The Generalissimo pointed out that there well might come a time when Great Britain would be glad of the help of the Chinese man-power to protect her interests in the Far East and that then such a railway would prove of great strategic value to Great Britain. 69. As to immigration of Chinese into Burma, this, if it takes place at all, will not be by railway, but over the mountain paths and the caravan tracks. In fact, the Chinese have difficulty in getting their people to go into Yunnan, which is very sparsely populated, having only 14 million inhabitants, and there is no likelihood for the present of any sort of mass immigration into Burma through Yunnan. Other forms of immigration can be controlled by arrangement between the two countries without any difficulty.
70.
As regards Burma's future, her safety and prosperity must depend entirely upon her relations with her two large neighbours: India, with its 350 million; and China, with its 450 million. Burma, with only 15 million, obviously cannot protect herself against these two countries by force of arms, but only by maintaining a friendly relationship for which they are both of them anxious. Her prosperity and her safety will be ensured by cultivating the closest political and economic ties with her two great neighbours. It is certain that in the future a considerable and perhaps a large trade will develop between China and India, and this trade will, if there are transport facilities, naturally pass through Burma. If those facilities are not available, then it will go through Indo-China or by some other route.
71. With the opening of Western China, which is resulting from the war, a large new area of export production will be gradually brought into operation. and, in respect to some of this at least, it would be possible to make Rangoon the exporting centre. This would not only help in the securing of British participa- tion in the development, but would bring very considerable employment to British shipping between Rangoon and western ports.
72. Apart from all these arguments in favour of a through rail connexion from Burma to China, there is, in my view, the overriding consideration that this is the most effective way of giving perfectly legitimate assistance to China in the attempt she is making to reconstruct her economic life and to develop the resources of her western territories. There would seem to be no valid reason for refusing to provide this commercial facility to the Chinese, provided adequate economic arrangements can be made. Indeed, to refuse in the circumstances of to-day is almost tantamount to an act of hostility by denying China the power to increase her resistance to Japanese aggression.
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