54 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



we any men in America who would build 

 a large and expensive irrigation work out 

 of their private fortunes, without hope of 

 profit for the public good? Well, Rhodes 

 is doing that sort of thing all the time. 

 He seems to me also to manage the na- 

 tive question with admirable tact and 

 judgement. The railway northward from 

 Cape Colony through Bechuanaland, 1,000 

 miles or so in length, has been largely 

 financed and managed in construction by 

 Mr. Rhodes. He is also supplying most 

 of the money for the telegraph line, which 

 is being pushed northward across the Zam- 

 besi, through the the great lake country 

 of central Africa,to join the Egyptian tel- 

 egraph in the Soudan. 



Mining 

 Industry 



The gold and diamond mining 

 industries are immense and 

 very impressive, although their develop- 

 ment is only about twelve years old. Cal- 

 ifornia has had a half century of that de- 

 velopment under favorable conditions, and 

 yet we are just now entering upon a most 

 prosperous era of gold production. So it 

 seems to me that South Africa, with time 

 and the removal of restrictions and difficul- 

 ties, must show tremendous mineral re- 

 sources. Vast areas of the Transvaal and 

 Rhodesia and other parts of South Africa 

 are known to be mineralized in the 

 same general way as California, and the 

 development of the mineral belt there is 

 likely to pass through the same experience 

 as here. The gold output of the Rand is 

 not falling off, but is steadily increasing, 

 notwithstanding the hampering conditions' 

 There are fifteen dividend-paying mines 

 on the Johannesburg Rand, but there are 

 probably four times fifteen which could be 

 made to pay dividends if the conditions 

 were as favorable as they are in the United 

 States. 



South African politics and industrial 

 development present one of the most inter- 

 esting fields of study I ever entered. It is 

 a field in which most colossal mistakes 

 have been made, immense sacrifices have 

 been suffered, and infernal injustices have 



been inflicted." Mr. Hall expects to re- 

 turn to South Africa in about two months. 



Control! 01 Tlie whole countr y is depend - 

 Water ent on irrigation and the con- 



ditions of rainfall and opportunities for 

 storage are such as to indicate that irriga- 

 tion, will be very succeessful. All the lo- 

 cal colonial and state governments are act- 

 ively interested in the subject. The Cape 

 government constructs irrigation works, 

 and having recouped the cost by the sale 

 of its own lands served by the works, 

 turns them over for use to the owners of 

 the lands. It also subsidizes or encour- 

 ages private irrigation enterprises in sev- 

 eral ways, but it regulates and controls all 

 works, and there no such thing as the 

 unlicensed, unrestricted grabbing of water 

 and construction of works which in the 

 United States has done so much to prevent 

 irrigation development. 



There are magnificent lands for irriga- 

 tion in South Africa, rich, deep soils which 

 will raise any crop of fruits or grains 

 which southern California can produce. 

 As the seasons are the reverse of those of 

 England, and of all the countries which 

 supply England's markets, South Africa 

 can always be sure of an ample market 

 without competition. High class, delicate 

 fruits can be put on the London market 

 within fifteen days from Cape Colony, and 

 at reasonable cost of transportation. 



Why the The failure of the Arizona Im- 

 Arizona Com- .. _ 



pany Failed provement Company noticed 



elsewhere in this is*?ue was not unexpected 

 to those who have followed the career of 

 this enterprise. The failure of this, the 

 largest irrigation project in Arizona, is 

 another instance of the futility of rapacious 

 greed. Its history, with a few exceptions, 

 is the general history of many irrigation 

 enterprises. It obtained land for practi- 

 cally nothing and built an irrigation sys- 

 tem to water it, purposing to sell the land 

 and the water to settlers at mamy times 

 the original cost, pocketing the tremendous 

 profit for their "enterprise". Taking it 

 for granted that the land could be readily 



