THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



itself, and. give the tenant farmers occupancy rights where they are 

 satisfactory tenants. 



During the construction of a large canal like this, that takes sev- 

 eral years to complete, the accumulated interest charges on the capi- 

 tal cost will amount to a large sum, before any revenne can be ex- 

 pected. But to prevent any loss of revenue that could be obtained, 

 when once the canal is completed, it is desirable that all the land that 

 can then be irrigated, be already colonized, and prepared for cultiva- 

 tion, so that the canal may start working with a fair demand for 

 water. Now government has it in its own power to thus colonize all 

 its own land, and has a perfectly free hand to settle the new colonists 

 when and where, exactly as it requires, and finds best; arranging dif- 

 ferent tribes, castes, and classes, in separate villages or townships; 

 so that those may not interfere with each other's ways and quarrels 

 or disputes among neighbors be avoided. 'But with regard to pri- 

 vately owned lands, government has no guarantee that proper' ar- 

 rangements will be made to ensure early and extensive irrigation. 

 Speculation in land may only hold back their land to sell it again at a 

 good profit afterwards; owners may be unable to obtain sufficient ten- 

 ants, or laborers at once to take up all their land; while the old inhabi- 

 tants of the district are mostly very loth to change their long estab- 

 lished patriarchal mode of life, that cf keeping large flocks and herds 

 on the waste land, and iustead take up irrigation farming. Their 

 favorite recreations also hitherto have been cattle lifting and thieving, 

 a profession easily carried on, and difficult to check in the extensive 

 and uninhabited jungles of the district; but they would have to take 

 to more honest ways with the advent of a large population, and the 

 transformation of the jungle wastes and hiding places, into villages, 

 farms and open fields. So that if the government had to depend on 

 the irrigation of villages and privately owned lands alone for revenue, 

 it might be many years before the canal became remunerative; and 

 meanwhile, annual interest charges would be accumulating as a debit 

 against the account of the canal. In fact it would not pay the gov- 

 ernment to construct a canal for such land in such circumstances, and 

 it needs to have full powers for colonizing the land to be irrigated. 

 In the case of the Jhelam Canal, it does own more than half of the 

 land commanded, and this is sufficient to commence with as a revenue, 

 producing area. 



After the completion of the Jhelam Canal, the next most feasible 

 large project to be undertaken, is the construction of one or more 

 large canals from the left or east bank of the river Indies; to irrigate 

 the doab lying between this river on the west, and the river Jhelam 

 and lower down the river Chanab on the east side. This will be a 

 very large work, and detailed survey of the country have yet to be 



