IRRIGATION IN INDIA. 1*75 



in the following table, which is derived from the official 

 reports of the East Indian Government : 



Capital invested. Annual revenue. 



North Western Provinces $17,827,225 5 1 /* per cent. 



Punjaub 15,671,000 5 



Madras 9,467,200 22V* 



Bombay and Sind 11,113,940 12 



Ganges Canal 14,400,890 4'/ a 



Eastern Jumna Canal 2,350,000 ll'A 



Western " " 6,532,003 TV. 



Godavery Delta Works 3,418,525 39Y 4 



Kistnah " " 2,337,135 13'/ 4 



Canvery " " . 1,468,000 86V, 



Sind Inundation Canal 5,930,000 18 1 /, 



The revenue to the government is the least portion of 

 the profit derived from these works. The profit to the 

 people themselves, amounts to a vastly greater sum, one, 

 in fact, the amount of which is not to be computed in 

 money; for the famine, cf frequent occurrence before the 

 completion of these works, destroyed thousands of human 

 lives, and caused thousands of square miles of fertile 

 land to be abandoned to grow up to jungle. In 1860, the 

 Ganges canal preserved grain crops from destruction, 

 which fed a million of people ; in 1874 the Soave canal 

 saved the crops over a large territory, which would other- 

 wise have been devastated by drouth, and many of the 

 newer works, water regions which have heretofore been 

 visited with some of the most destructive famines men- 

 tioned in history. And the whole of this work has been 

 undertaken and successfully manage.d by the government. 



Economy in the use of the water, and in the con- 

 struction of the works also, calls for such extended sur- 

 veys, perhaps over hundreds of miles of territory, that 

 no private persons, nor associated companies, could pos- 

 sibly perform them, unless they were endowed with legal- 

 ized monopolies or exclusive rights ; and in the light of 

 past experience with huge chartered corporations, farm- 

 ers could not wisely submit to have their interests so 



