Sentry Page Protection
Extract from

The Rangoon Gazette Weekly Budget, 1918
​
Railways In Burma

​It is somewhat remarkable that calamities occurring in other countries should have helped to expedite the construction of railways in Burma, a correspondent writes.  For the second time it is occurring.  The cause now is the war and the Mesopotamian Expedition.  The Turkish prisoners from there are now usefully employed n the extension of the Southern Shan States Railway line.  If the war should be prolonged, it is possible that there may be more Turkish prisoners from Mesopotamia.  They are good and willing workers and might be usefully employed on the line to join Burma with India when the particular route has been decided on.
 
The other occasion has long gone by.  Nearly half a century has passed away since the first line was laid from Rangoon to Prome.  There was already good communication between the two places by river and a line from Rangoon to Toungoo, about the same distance, would more useful and saved a good deal of money in the conveyance of troops and stores for it often took a fortnight and more to send them by boat up the Sittang at certain times of the year, a journey now accomplished by train in a few hours.  But the line to Prome was decided on, perhaps on account of its being less costly to construct, for it mostly proceeded on the existing road, and there would be fewer bridges required – always a costly item in the construction of railways. 

There was a vast amount of correspondence between Calcutta and Rangoon before construction began.  Mr Ashley Eden was Chief Commissioner of Burma at the time and as there was a famine in Bengal he suggested that some thousands of Bengali labourers might be usefully employed on the proposed Burma railway line as a famine relief work.  This led to further delay and correspondence.  Eventually the Bengal Government acceded to the Chief Commissioner’s proposal, but forwarded a list of the daily rations which would have to be supplied to the labourers.  This included mutton on alternate days and this was a diet Burma in the seventies was not equal to.  The Chief Commissioner pointed out that there was plenty of food to which Bengalis were accustomed to in Burma,  but no mutton!  Even Europeans who wanted this particular article had to belong to a “mutton club,” which imported a sheep once or twice a month by mail steamer and divided it amongst their members on arrival.  The Bengal Government was inexorable.  Mr E.G. Man, Barrister-at-law, was then practising in Rangoon.  He was a personal friend of Mr Eden’s and doubtless saw the whole correspondence.  Whether with or without Mr Eden’s sanction, he took upon himself the novel method of telegraphing to the Secretary of State in London detailing the circumstances.  Lord Salisbury at once took action, and wired to Calcutta that so many thousand Bengalis were to be sent to Rangoon to work on the Rangoon and Prome railway which was to be proceeded with at once without any further delay. 
 
The Bengalis duly arrived and were housed in bamboo barracks, built on what is now East Rangoon.  They were plentifully supplied with food, but got no mutton rations.  A few years afterwards the B.I.S.N. Company ran a weekly steamer which brought sheep to Burma and mutton became plentiful enough.  But it struck the European community of those days in Rangoon as somewhat curious that Calcutta should insist on our feeding people from a famine district with a delicacy they could very seldom get themselves and only then at a high cost.  We might have had to wait somewhat longer for our first Burma railway had it not been for the calamity of the Bengal famine and Mr E.G. Man’s telegram to the Secretary of State.  Lord Salisbury forced the hand of the authorities in Calcutta and they had to abandon their demand for a mutton ration in a province where there were no sheep.