112 COLONIAL KEPORTS MISCELLANEOUS. 



though technically a part of British India, are administered by 

 Hie Shan Chiefs or Sawbwas under the general supervision of the 

 chief political officer, known as the Superintendent of the S. Shan 

 States, and his assistants. 



As I was for several years in charge of the forests of these States, 

 and was in part instrumental in eventually getting their manage- 

 ment put on a sound footing, I had ample opportunities of seeing 

 how the arrangements worked. The Sawbwas are allowed to 

 govern their own States subject to certain restrictions regarding 

 the more serious criminal offences and civil suits in which property 

 over a certain value is involved ; such cases are brought to the 

 courts of the political officers and are tried there, or, if tried in the 

 native courts, the. judgments are revised and confirmed or not, as 

 the case may be, in the British courts. The chief political officer 

 also controls the amount of revenue raised, its allotment to the 

 different heads of expenditure, and the manner in which it is 

 utilized. Each State submits an annual budget estimate, which 

 has to be confirmed by the superintendent before it can be used as 

 a basis to work on. Otherwise the chiefs have complete control 

 over the management of their States, and their customs are not 

 interfered with unless they are repugnant to civilized ideas of law 

 and justice. The British Government exercises a certain amount 

 of control over the succession of the native chiefs. 



In all these respects it will be seen that the Shan States are in 

 very much the same position with respect to the .suzerain power 

 that our protectorates in West Africa are. 



Now, as regards forestry in those States, the Upper Burma 

 forest regulation No. Y. of 1908 was, during my tenure of office 

 as Divisional Forest Officer for those States, in theory applicable 

 to them, as they formed part of the territories of Upper Burma, 

 but in actual practice only a few rules relating to the protection 

 and regulation of the exploiting of teak timber, which in Burma 

 is a ' : Royal tree," and as such the property of the British Govern- 

 ment, were directly applied to them ; they were in respect of the 

 other rules framed under the regulations especially exempted 

 from their operations. The paramount Government thus, whilst 

 formally reserving to itself the right (in the regulations, which 

 correspond to the principal ordinance or proclamation of our 

 AVest African Colonies and Protectorates) to control the question 

 of forest conservancy in the States, actually did not do so, except 

 in the few cases indicated above. Nevertheless, as the measures 

 for legally creating reserved forests are contained in the principal 

 enactment itself and not in the subsidiary rules, they were always 

 directly applicable at any time when, 011 the advice of the forest 

 officer in charge, it appeared desirable to take up any particular 

 wooded area as a reserve. Since I left that country the pines, 

 P. KhaRjja and P. Merkusii, extensive forests of which exist in 

 those States, and the protection of which was urgently called for, 

 have been declared as " reserved trees " and specially protected 

 under the forest rules. All other measures of forest conservancy 

 were carried out by the chiefs themselves under the advice of the 

 divisional forest officer, backed up, if necessary, by that of the 



