ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 165
It seems at first sight strange that before the Japanese war
there was no link up of the Burma railways with those of India,
Siam or French Indo-China. Overland trade between India and
China was practically non-existent, and Burma possessed no
important overland communications with her neighbours. The
natural outlet for the trade of Western China was eastwards
down the great rivers to the Pacific, while, so far as Siam and
French Indo-China were concerned, as their exports were
almost exactly the same as those of Burma, there existed no
economic demand for intercommunication.
After the Margary murder in 1875 the chaos of Thibaw's
reign interrupted for some years British attempts to establish
communications with Yunnan and Szechuan through Bhamo.
Up to 1904 Anglo-French rivalry for the control of the Upper
Mekong was intense. It was believed to be the key to the trade of
Yunnan, the economic and strategic importance of which was
still much exaggerated. During Thibaw's reign the old projects
of using Moulmein as the base for overland communication
with Western China was revived by Archibald R. Colquhoun
and Holt S. Hallett, who after much prospecting advocated a
plan for a railway across the Siamese frontier to Raheng, and
thence to Szumao and Yunnan. But neither the king of Siam,
who was suspicious of its political implications, nor the Govern-
ment of India, distrustful of its economic soundness, would
look at it; and in any case the annexation of Upper Burma in
1886 rendered it valueless.
This event, followed by the annexation of the Shan States
. previously under Burmese suzerainty, opened a new phase of
Anglo-French competition on the Mekong. The demarcation
of the frontier between Burma and French Indo-China caused
much heart-burning on both sides, and in 1895 a serious quarrel
over an incident in the little trans-Mekong state of Mong Hsing,
not unlike the Fashoda affair slightly later. On this occasion
Britain climbed down and handed over the state to France. In
1897 an Anglo-French agreement permitted the construction of
a French Yunnan railway to be connected up with the Burma
Railways; but nothing came of it. Between 1894 and 1900
Major H. R. Davies made a series of valuable surveys of
possible railway routes to Yunnan. He reported that the