Of the many other parts which go to make up the working machinery of a great province nothing has been said, as the object of this account is to show how peace and order were restored, or rather given, to Burma. Along and step by step with this rough work, however, every part of an advanced administration began to take shape. There was none which was not, at the very least, called into existence.

The revenue of Upper Burma increased from ￡222,000 in 1886-7 to ￡1,120,000 in the year 1889-90. No new taxes were imposed. The revenue grew by careful administration. From the year 1888 I had the assistance of Mr. Fryer as Financial Commissioner in dealing with this branch of the work, and the subject of the land revenue of the Upper Province was examined more minutely than had been possible before. In 1889 a regulation declaring the law relating to rights of land and formulating a complete system of revenue law for Upper Burma was framed in Burma, and passed by the Governor-General in Council. In it provision was made for the gradual survey and assessment of the land; and before the end of 1890 the cadastral survey had broken ground in two districts in which the cultivated area was largest.

The Forest Department had been busy from the first, and progress had been made in ascertaining the condition and resources of the great teak forests of Upper Burma.

The Government of India had treated Burma with generosity in the matter of money for public works. The extent of our undertakings was limited by the difficulty of obtaining a competent staff, rather than by a deficiency[338] of funds. The expenditure on barracks and other accommodation for troops at stations where garrisons were to be permanently kept was necessarily large. At district headquarters in civil stations, court-houses, and (where necessary) jails had been built, and court-houses had also been provided in many subdivisions. The irrigation works in Kyauksè were not neglected, and the Mu Canal scheme in the Shwèbo district had been taken in hand. The railway to Mandalay was opened in March, 1889, and the surveys for the Mu Valley line, which was to take the rails up the right bank of the river and through all the difficult country traversed by Major Adamson\'s expedition in 1887-8, had been completed and construction had begun.

Great attention had been paid to the improvement of communications, including several difficult hill-roads. A good cart-road had been made from the river to the ruby mines. Another from Mandalay to Maymyo was being taken on to Lashio; and, from Meiktila to Kalaw on the Shan plateau, seventy-six miles, a road was well advanced. The land-locked Yaw country had been opened up, and a mule-track from Kalewa on the Chindwin to Fort White in the Chin Hills had been finished. Roads over the Yomas, which had sheltered the Magwè dacoits, had been completed.

The money, poured into the country for roads and buildings, apart from the railway expenditure, was nearly all spent on native labour and on material produced in the country. In the aggregate it was more than the sums received as revenue. That it, along with the railway expenditure on labour, helped largely in settling the country directly and indirectly, is certain. If Indian and Chinese Shan coolies were employed, it was because Burman labour was not forthcoming.

Nor had some of the refinements of administration been neglected. In the larger towns a simple system of municipal government was introduced, care being taken not to hurry a somewhat primitive people accustomed to corrupt methods and with little sense of responsibility along the slippery paths of local self-government.

In the middle of 1890 a Judicial Commissioner was appointed for Upper Burma. I accepted this refinement[339] more reluctantly than I would have welcomed a reduction of the garrison. But the character of the man appointed to the post (the late Mr. Hodgkinson) was an assurance that there would be no display of judicial pyrotechnics, such as lawyers sometimes indulge in, and that some regard would be paid to the conditions under which our officers were working.

The provision of medical aid for the people was taken in hand energetically, under the guidance of Dr. Sinclair, who administered the medical department of the whole of Burma. It was not possible to provide substantial public hospitals, and at first only temporary buildings were erected. Excellent permanent hospitals had been built for the military police, and on their withdrawal it was intended that these buildings should be converted into civil hospitals.

Vaccination was introduced also, and every district was furnished with the means of protection against smallpox. The people came readily to be vaccinated, and no Burman, so far as I............