In a previous book I have referred to the Burmese law that no one may make a will, and to its effect in preventing Burmans building up a business. Moreover, the law of inheritance is so doubtful sometimes that when a rich Burman dies his estate usually goes into Court and, naturally, does not come out again. This is very unsatisfactory, but until there is some real self-government I see no help for it. On a matter of this kind it is of no use collecting the opinions of any number of Burmans as to what should be done, and so passing an Act. It is a fact to which I shall have to revert later that men as individuals will give an opinion, which if combined into an assembly with authority to act they would greatly modify. Moreover, if our Government were responsible, individuals would urge action, which if they themselves were responsible they would not take. No advice that is not steadied by a sense of responsibility is of much value. Our Government cannot deal with such matters. Only a body representing Burmese opinion and responsible to that opinion could do it. There is not now any prospect of any such body. The present Councils are useless. There may be such a body in course of time, but until there is, matters must remain as they are. The result is discontent, naturally. Take another similar point. In Upper Burma a good deal of the land is what is called ancestral land; that is to say, in private hands. Now there was amongst the people a great pride in holding land their ancestors held, and such land is very rarely sold. I am not quite sure that it can be sold. Neither is it mortgaged in the usual sense. What the owner does is to hand the land over to a mortgagee for a sum of money. He pays no interest on the debt because the mortgagee enjoys the land. Such a transaction is called a usufructuary mortgage. The owner can at any time redeem the land by repaying the original loan. In Burmese time there was no period of limitation, but our Limitation Act has imposed a limit of sixty years. Thus a man may hand over a piece of land to a mortgagee, go off to Lower Burma--as many have--and at any time within sixty years he or his heirs can redeem the land for the same sum.