492 Joitnial of Agriculture. [lo Aug.. 1909. 



effort has been made to teach the farmers how to utilize the irrigated holdings 

 properly. The water was brought to their hinds, and they were left in their 

 primeval ignorance to do with it as they pleased. Naturally in the great majority 

 of cases the farmers pursued the even tenor of their ancient habits. They lound 

 the water a uselul stand-by in droughty seasons for their stock, but it never 

 occurred to them that it might earn them incomparably larger profits by applying 

 it to the purposes of intense culture all the year round. The consequence is that 

 irrigation in Victoria has been a colossal failure. The irrigation districts, with 

 scarce an exception, instead of being split up into a large number of small intensely 

 cultivated farms, prosperously supporting, as they might, a densely settled popu- 

 lation, are divided into a few broad holdings, whose owners do no cultivation 

 worthy of the name. And the only tangible effect of our lavish expenditure in 

 irrigating those districts has been to increase the value of the land, and thereby 

 to stimulate the vicious process of land aggreijjation. 



The anomaly of land-owners decrying irrigation and maintaining that 

 land is unfit for irrigation in districts where small holdings are giving 

 large returns, is explained by the fact that those who are not irrigating 

 or paying their fair share of the cost of irrigation works seek in this 

 way to justify their position. In the districts where these complaints are 

 made there is no compulsory charge for water whereby all of the lands 

 benefited must pay a proportionate part of the cost of providing water. 

 In the absence of such a charge those who have not used water have paid 

 nothing, and as the large land-owners have not used it at all, or else used 

 very little, they have thereby been made a favoured class, having the pro- 

 tection of irrigation without paying a fair share of the insurance cost. 

 Nearly all the .statements about irrigation being unprofitable and the land 

 unfit for irrigation come from the owners of land in irrigated districts 

 who are seeking to continue to farm them exactly as they did before the 

 channels were built. The man who is using water properly makes no 

 complaint about the cost of water, the man who is not using it at all 

 seeks to justify his action by the statement that it will not pay. 



The absence of a compulsory irrigation charge has made the situation 

 in every Northern district agriculturally unsound, and financially inde- 

 fensible. Being absolutely free to use water, or to let it alone, the large 

 land-owner has most of his land in native grass and follows grain growing 

 and lamb fattening exactly as men are compelled to do in districts without 

 irrigation. If the year is wet he goes through the season without con- 

 tributing anything to the maintenance of the irrigation works. If the 

 next season is dry he claims his proportionate share of the water based 

 on the land acreage. In partly settled districts those who wish to follow 

 intensive methods of cultivation cannot do so. If they prepare their Utnd 

 and begin to cultivate it properly in the wet years they lose their crops 

 in the dry years through the increased demands of the large holdings. 

 This year the holders of 600 acres and over in the Swan Hill and Cohuna 

 districts did not pay enough for water to buy firewood for the pumps; 

 the holders of 1,000 acres and over, aggregating in all 41,750 acres, in 

 the Rodney district paid ^301 for water used in irrigation or less than 

 ifd. an acre; one owner of over 2,000 acres invested jQ\ in water last 

 year — this year he was more prudent and only squandered 13s. 6d. ; last 

 year being dry the owner of 3,796 acres paid ^^96 for water, this year being 

 wet he did not pay a penny; the owner of 1,351 acres paid 8s. for irri- 

 gation water last year and nothing at all this. It is allowing owners of 

 the large holdings to escape payment for water that has rendered irri- 

 gation works unprofitable, has caused the writing off of so much indebted- 

 ness in the past, and has deadened the sense of fair play in irrigation 

 districts. As an illustration of what is meant by fair play: — If I borrow 

 ^i I am under an obligation to do all I can to repay it whether the loan 



