39— IRRIGATION AND- INTER-COLONIAL 

 CO-OPERATION. 



By W. L. Strange, M.Inst.C.E., Director of Irrigation, 



Transvaal. 



I. Introductory. 



It may be taken for granted that most persons who have lived 

 in South Africa, and that all who have made their homes in the 

 sub-continent, desire her prosperity. The far-seeing leaders of 

 men, who have been and who are still with us, have ever held that 

 that prosperity can best be assured by co-operation which will weld 

 her Colonies into one united whole, and fit her to take a prominent 

 place in that still greater combination of varied countries with 

 diverse races, but with one common centre, to which we give the 

 proud title of Empire. The engineer, who, of all professional men, 

 has had the leading share in making the Empire possible — by 

 improving communications, by developing even its most distant 

 possessions, and by increasing the facilities for civilisation — may 

 well feel that he can help forward the good work in South Africa. 

 Each branch of engineering has its sphere of usefulness, and can 

 aid its numerous other branches, so that a bare enumeration of the 

 important matters in which the profession as a whole has played, 

 and will play, a part in ensuring the progress of the Empire, would 

 take up much space. The author would therefore confine himself 

 to that branch of engineering — irrigation — with which he has been 

 connected throughout his professional career. He proposes shortly 

 to describe the necessity that exists for irrigation ; how irrigation has 

 been developed in other countries ; the material advantages which 

 can be secured by it in South Africa ; the objections raised to it and 

 the answers to them ; and how it will serve to weld together the 

 dominant races in the sub-continent. Thereafter, he will discuss 

 briefly the special utility of each of the main classes of irrigation 

 works, and, finally, will deal with the way in which irrigation can 

 best be developed by inter-colonial co-operation, to the mutual 

 advantage of the different Colonies. His experience of South 

 Africa has been limited to three years' service in the Transvaal, but 

 he thinks that the conditions in the other Colonies are sufficiently 

 similar to those which obtain in it, as to make general observations 

 applicable to all. He feels that his remarks could not be addressed 

 more fitly to any other Association than that which has for its object 

 the advancement of science in South Africa, nor in any other place 

 than Kimberley, where the three principal Colonies of the sub- 

 continent may be said to meet. 



2. The Necessity for Irrigation. 



In all tropical and sub-tropical countries where the rains are 

 not regular and seasonable, irrigation is found to be a necessity. 

 There is no reason why the case should be different in South Africa, 

 where the rainfall on most of the area suitable for occupation by 



