THE IRRIGA 1 ION AGE. 329 



every provision has been made for their immediate and skilful treat- 

 ment. There is also a building set apart for infectious cases, such as 

 small-pox, where the patients are separated at once' from the other 

 work-people and thus the risk of contagion is avoided. A club has 

 also been started for general recreation, and some highly successful 

 entertainments have been greatly assisted by voluntary performers 

 from among the visitors at Assouan. 



THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT 

 SHOULD AID IRRIGATION. 



A meeting was held by the members of the Chamber of Commerce 

 and Real Estate Exchange of Denver, CoL, May 29th, to listen to an 

 address by George H. Maxwell, executive chairman of the National 

 Irrigation Association. 



Mr. Maxwell said that what he wished to urge more than any- 

 thing else was that the business men of the West should act together. 

 If they did not, there would nothing more come of any movement than 

 came of the one started ten years ago, when nothing was done. 



"Congress," said Mr. Maxwell, "ten years ago appropriated $10,- 

 000 for the making of surveys and the beginning of the work. The 

 plan fell down and went to pieces for no other reason than that the 

 business men of the country, the men who had the most to gain, never 

 came together, and allowed the whole thing to be destroyed by per- 

 sons who had special interests. 



The whole problem, Mr. Maxwell said, he found to be one of 

 organization. If the business men of the entire West, not of one State 

 or one locality alone, should agree on a proposition, and take care that 

 it should be a sound one, when they should all pull together the force 

 would be irresistible. The irrigation problem had passed beyond the 

 stage where private enterprise or even State aid would be of avail. 

 There was only one resource and that was to have the national gov- 

 ernment take it in hand. It was too large to be handled by any other 

 power or authority. 



"Suppose," said Mr. Maxwell, "that you could wake up to-morrow 

 morning with the positive knowledge that this country was entirely 

 changed and was a humid one. There would be such a rush to take 

 up the lands of the State that in ten years Denver would be a city of 

 more than a million population. Well, by bringing all interests 

 together, as it now is, you can put twice the population on those lands. 

 The result we want to accomplish is to put as much population as we 

 can on the arid lands of the West. It is hopeless to try to get it done 

 by private capital. The work must be on so vast a scale that returns 



