Irrigation and Inter-Colonial Co-operation. 369 



obtained in all years, and can be divided in accordance with settled 

 arrangements, effected jointly by the Colonies concerned. Thus all 

 chance of inter-colonial friction will be prevented by means of inter- 

 colonial co-operation, which will establish a community of interests 

 that must inevitably form a bond of union. An excellent instance 

 of the benefits of such co-operation is the appointment of the Inter- 

 Colonial Irrigation Commission, upon which are representatives of 

 the Transvaal and Orange River Colony. This Commission is 

 enquiring into the best way in which the existing irrigation law can 

 be amended so as to meet the altered conditions which now exist. 

 Without a new law suitable to those conditions, the proper 

 development of irrigation will be impossible. 



The tendency in new countries (and one which, unless it is 

 extirpated at the outset, may be intensified as time goes on) is to 

 consider first, individual, rather than collective requirements, and 

 to look at everything from a narrow rather than from a broad point of 

 view.^ Fortunately, South Africa has already furnished several exam- 

 ples of the advantage of co-operation. In State affairs there are the 

 Customs Union, and the joint management of railways in the Transvaal 

 and Orange River Colonies, which, it is hoped, will be extended to 

 Cape Colony. In commercial affairs there are the gold fields of 

 the Rand, which, under the most adverse natural conditions, produce 

 the largest output in the world, and the Kimberley Diamond Mines, 

 which, from a congeries of petty individual effort, have developed 

 into the most productive combination known. By this co-operation 

 scientific development has enormously advanced, and, by a similar 

 one, it is probable that irrigation engineering will equally benefit for 

 the good of agriculture all over the Colonies. Agriculture is the 

 oldest and most permanent industry in the world, and is practised 

 by the large bulk of its inhabitants. Anything that tends to its 

 deyelopment and renders it more certain will benefit the whole 

 population, and nothing can ensure this better in South Africa than 

 the construction of large irrigation schemes on well-considered and 

 sound lines. 



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