| Year. | Imports. | Exports. | Total. |
| Rs. | Rs. | Rs. | |
| 1871-1872 | 3,15,79,860 | 3,78,02,170 | 6,93,82,030 |
| 1881-1882 | 6,38,49,840 | 8,05,71,410 | 14,44,21,250 |
| 1801-1892 | 10,50,06,247 | 12,67,21,878 | 23,17,28,125 |
| 1901-1902 | 12,78,46,636 | 18,74,47,200 | 31,52,93,836 |
| 1904-1905 | 17,06,20,796 | 23,94,69,114 | 41,00,89,910 |
Internal Communications.—In 1871-1872 there were 814 m. of road in Lower Burma, but the chief means of internal communication was by water. Steamers plied on the Irrawaddy as far as Thayetmyo. The vessels of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company now ply to Bassein and to all points on the Irrawaddy as far north as Bhamo, and in the dry weather to Myitkyina, and also on the Chindwin as far north as Kindat, and to Homalin during the rains. The Arakan Flotilla Company has also helped to open up the Arakan division. The length of roads has not greatly increased in Lower Burma, but there has been a great deal of road construction in Upper Burma. At the end of the year 1904-1905 there were in the whole province 7486 m. of road, 1516 m. of which were metalled and 3170 unmetalled, with 2799 m. of other tracks. But the chief advance in communications has been in railway construction. The first railway from Rangoon to Prome, 161 m., was opened in 1877, and that from Rangoon to Toungoo, 166 m., was opened in 1884. Since the annexation of Upper Burma this has been extended to Mandalay, and the Mu Valley railway has been constructed from Sagaing to Myitkyina, a distance of 752 m. from Rangoon. The Mandalay-Lashio railway has been completed, and trains run from Mandalay to Lashio, a distance of 178 m. The Sagaing-Mônywa-Alôn branch and the Meiktila-Myingyan branch were opened to traffic during 1900. In 1902 a railway from Henzada to Bassein was formed and a connecting link with the Prome line from Henzada to Letpadan was opened in 1903. Railways were also constructed from Pegu to Martaban, 121 m. in length, and from Henzada to Kyang-in, 66 m. in length; and construction was contemplated of a railway from Thazi towards Taung-gyi, the headquarters of the southern Shan States. The total length of lines open in 1904-1905 was 1340 m., but railway communication in Burma is still very incomplete. Five of the eight commissionerships and Lashio, the capital of the northern Shan States, have communication with each other by railway, but Taung-gyi and the southern Shan States can still only be reached by a hill-road through difficult country for cart traffic, and the headquarters of three commissionerships, Moulmein, Akyab and Minbu, have no railway communication with Rangoon. Arakan is in the worst position of all, for it is connected with Burma by neither railway nor river, nor even by a metalled road, and the only way to reach Akyab from Rangoon is once a week by sea.
Law.—The British government has administered the law in Burma on principles identical with those which have been adopted elsewhere in the British dominions in India. That portion of the law which is usually described as Anglo-Indian law (see Indian Law) is generally applicable to Burma, though there are certain districts inhabited by tribes in a backward state of civilization which are excepted from its operation. Acts of the British parliament relating to India generally would be applicable to Burma, whether passed before or after its annexation, these acts being considered applicable to all the dominions of the crown in India. As regards the acts of the governor-general in council passed for India generally—they, too, were from the first applicable to Lower Burma; and they have all been declared applicable to Upper Burma also by the Burma Laws Act of 1898. That portion of the English law which has been introduced into India without legislation, and all the rules of law resting upon the authority of the courts, are made applicable to Burma by the same act. But consistently with the practice which has always prevailed in India, there is a large field of law in Burma which the British government has not attempted to disturb. It is expressly directed by the act of 1898 above referred to, that in regard to succession, inheritance, marriage, caste or any religious usage or institution, the law to be administered in Burma is (a) the Buddhist law in cases where the parties are Buddhists, (b) the Mahommedan law in cases where the parties are Mahommedans, (c) the Hindu law in cases where the parties are Hindus, except so far as the same may have been modified by the legislature. The reservation thus made in favour of the native laws is precisely analogous to the similar reservation made in India (see Indian Law, where the Hindu law and the Mahommedan Law are described). The Buddhist law is contained in certain sacred books called Dhammathats. The laws themselves are derived from one of the collections which Hindus attribute to Manu, but in some respects they now widely differ from the ancient Hindu law so far as it is known to us. There is no certainty as to the date or method of their introduction. The whole of the law administered now in Burma rests ultimately upon statutory authority; and all the Indian acts relating to Burma, whether of the governor-general or the lieutenant-governor of Burma in council, will be found in the Burma Code (Calcutta, 1899), and in the supplements to that volume which are published from time to time at Rangoon. There is no complete translation of the Dhammathats, but a good many of them have been translated. An account of these translations will be found in The Principles of Buddhist Law by Chan Toon (Rangoon, 1894), which is the first attempt to present those principles in something approaching to a systematic form.
History.—It is probable that Burma is the Chryse Regio of Ptolemy, a name parallel in meaning to Sonaparanta, the classic Pāli title assigned to the country round the capital in Burmese documents. The royal history traces the lineage of the kings to the ancient Buddhist monarchs of India. This no doubt is fabulous, but it is hard to say how early communication with Gangetic India began. From the 11th to the 13th century the old Burman empire was at the height of its power, and to this period belong the splendid remains of architecture at Pagan. The city and the dynasty were destroyed by a Chinese (or rather Mongol) invasion (1284 A.D.) in the reign of Kublai Khan. After that the empire fell to a low ebb, and Central Burma was often subject to Shan dynasties. In the early part of the 16th century the Burmese princes of Toungoo, in the north-east of Pegu, began to rise to power, and established a dynasty which at one time held possession of Pegu, Ava and Arakan. They made their capital at Pegu, and to this dynasty belong the gorgeous
descriptions of some of the travellers of the 16th century. Their wars exhausted the country, and before the end of the century it was in the greatest decay. A new dynasty arose in Ava, which subdued Pegu, and maintained their supremacy throughout the 17th and during the first forty years of the 18th century. The Peguans or Talaings then revolted, and having taken the capital Ava, and made the king prisoner, reduced the whole country to submission. Alompra, left by the conqueror in charge of the village of Môtshobo, planned the deliverance of his country. He attacked the Peguans at first with small detachments; but when his forces increased, he suddenly advanced, and took possession of the capital in the autumn of 1753.
In 1754 the Peguans sent an armament of war-boats against Ava, but they were totally defeated by Alompra; while in the districts of Prome, Donubyu, &c., the Burmans revolted, and expelled all the Pegu garrisons in their towns. In 1754 Prome was besieged by the king of Pegu, who was again defeated by Alompra, and the war was transferred from the upper provinces to the mouths of the navigable rivers, and the numerous creeks and canals which intersect the lower country. In 1755 the yuva raja, the king of Pegu's brother, was equally unsuccessful, after which the Peguans were driven from Bassein and the adjacent country, and were forced to withdraw to the fortress of Syriam, distant 12 m. from Rangoon. Here they enjoyed a brief repose, Alompra being called away to quell an insurrection of his own subjects, and to repel an invasion of the Siamese; but returning victorious, he laid siege to the fortress of Syriam and took it by surprise. In these wars the French sided with the Peguans, the English with the Burmans. Dupleix, the governor of Pondicherry, had sent two ships to the aid of the former; but the master of the first was decoyed up the river by Alompra, where he was massacred along with his whole crew. The other escaped to Pondicherry. Alompra was now master of all the navigable rivers; and the Peguans, shut out from foreign aid, were finally subdued. In 1757 the conqueror laid siege to the city of Pegu, which capitulated, on condition that their own king should govern the country, but that he should do homage for his kingdom, and should also surrender his daughter to the victorious monarch. Alompra never contemplated the fulfilment of the condition; and having obtained possession of the town, abandoned it to the fury of his soldiers. In the following year the Peguans vainly endeavoured to throw off the yoke. Alompra afterwards reduced the town and district of Tavoy, and finally undertook the conquest of the Siamese. His army advanced to Mergui and Tenasserim, both of which towns were taken; and he was besieging the capital of Siam when he was taken ill. He immediately ordered his army to retreat, in hopes of reaching his capital alive; but he expired on the way, in 1760, in the fiftieth year of his age, after he had reigned eight years. In the previous year he had massacred the English of the establishment of Negrais, whom he suspected of assisting the Peguans. He was succeeded by his eldest son Noungdaugyi, whose reign was disturbed by the rebellion of his brother Sin-byu-shin, and afterwards by one of his father's generals. He died in little more than three years, leaving one son in his infancy; and on his decease the throne was seized by his brother Sin-byu-shin. The new king was intent, like his predecessors, on the conquest of the adjacent states, and accordingly made war in 1765 on the Manipur kingdom, and also on the Siamese, with partial success. In the following year he defeated the Siamese, and, after a long blockade, obtained possession of their capital. But while the Burmans were extending their conquests in this quarter, they were invaded by a Chinese army of 50,000 men from the province of Yunnan. This army was hemmed in by the skill of the Burmans; and, being reduced by the want of provisions, it was afterwards attacked and totally destroyed, with the exception of 2500 men, who were sent in fetters to work in the Burmese capital at their several trades. In the meantime the Siamese revolted, and while the Burman army was marching against them, the Peguan soldiers who had been incorporated in it rose against their companions, and commencing an indiscriminate massacre, pursued the Burman army to the gates of Rangoon, which they besieged, but were unable to capture. In 1774 Sin-byu-shin was engaged in reducing the marauding tribes. He took the district and fort of Martaban from the revolted Peguans; and in the following year he sailed down the Irrawaddy with an army of 50,000 men, and, arriving at Rangoon, put to death the aged monarch of Pegu, along with many of his nobles, who had shared with him in the offence of rebellion. He died in 1776, after a reign of twelve years, during which he had extended the Burmese dominions on every side. He was succeeded by his son, a youth of eighteen, called Singumin (Chenguza of Symes), who proved himself a bloodthirsty despot, and was put to death by his uncle, Bodawpaya or Mentaragyi, in 1781, who ascended the vacant throne. In 1783 the new king effected the conquest of Arakan. In the same year he removed his residence from Ava, which, with brief interruptions, had been the capital for four centuries, to the new city of Amarapura, "the City of the Immortals."
The Siamese who had revolted in 1771 were never afterwards subdued by the Burmans; but the latter retained their dominion over the sea-coast as far as Mergui. In the year 1785 they attacked the island of Junkseylon with a fleet of boats and an army, but were ultimately driven back with loss; and a second attempt by the Burman monarch, who in 1786 invaded Siam with an army of 30,000 men, was attended with no better success. In 1793 peace was concluded between these two powers, the Siamese yielding to the Burmans the entire possession of the coast of Tenasserim on the Indian Ocean, and the two important seaports of Mergui and Tavoy.
In 1795 the Burmese were involved in a dispute with the British in India, in consequence of their troops, to the amount of 5000 men, entering the district of Chittagong in pursuit of three robbers who had fled from justice across the frontier. Explanations being made and terms of accommodation offered by General Erskine, the commanding officer, the Burmese commander retired from the British territories, when the fugitives were restored, and all differences for the time amicably arranged.
But it was evident that the gradual extension of the British and Burmese territories would in time bring the two powers into close contact along a more extended line of frontier, and in all probability lead to a war between them. It happened, accordingly, that the Burmese, carrying their arms into Assam and Manipur, penetrated to the British border near Sylhet, on the north-east frontier of Bengal, beyond which were the possessions of the chiefs of Cachar, under the protection of the British government. The Burmese leaders, arrested in their career of conquest, were impatient to measure their strength with their new neighbours. It appears from the evidence of Europeans who resided in Ava, that they were entirely unacquainted with the discipline and resources of the Europeans. They imagined that, like other nations, they would fall before their superior tactics and valour; and their cupidity was inflamed by the prospect of marching to Calcutta and plundering the country. At length their chiefs ventured on the open violation of the British territories. They attacked a party of sepoys within the frontier, and seized and carried off British subjects, while at all points their troops, moving in large bodies, assumed the most menacing positions. In the south encroachments were made upon the British frontier of Chittagong. The island of Shahpura, at the mouth of the Naaf river, had been occupied by a small guard of British troops. These were attacked on the 23rd of September 1823 by the Burmese, and driven from their post with the loss of several lives; and to the repeated demands of the British for redress no answer was returned. Other outrages ensued; and at length, on March 5th, 1824, war was declared by the British government. The military operations, which will be found described under Burmese Wars, ended in the treaty of Yandaboo on the 24th of February 1826, which conceded the British terms and enabled their army to be withdrawn.
For some years the relations of peace continued undisturbed. Probably the feeling of amity on the part of the Burmese government was not very strong; but so long as the prince by whom the treaty was concluded continued in power, no attempt was