500 REPORT—1905. 
irrigation, on rules carefully considered and rigorously enforced, through the agency 
of officers absolutely above suspicion of corruption or unfair dealing. Such is 
the condition in Egypt and in the British possessions in India. Objections to it 
are evident enough. Officials are apt to be formal and inelastic, and they are 
often far removed from any close touch with the cultivating classes. But they 
aa impartial and just, and I know of no other system that has not still greater 
efects. 
Even if the agricultural classes in India were much better educated than they 
are, it would still be best that the control of the irrigation should rest with the 
Government. By common consent it is the Government alone that rules the 
army. Now the irrigation works form a great army, of which the first duty is to 
fight the grim demon of famine. Their control ought, therefore, to rest with the 
Government ; but the conditions are very different when the agricultural classes are 
well educated and well fitted to manage their own affairs. 
Irrigation is too new and experimental in America for us to look there for 
a well-devised scheme of water control. The laws and rules on the subject vary 
in different States, and are often contradictory. It is better to look at the system 
evolved after long years in North Italy. 
The Italian System. 
I have already alluded to the great Cavour Canal in Piedmont. This fine 
work was constructed by a syndicate of English and French capitalists, to whom 
the Government gave a concession in 1862. Circumstances to which I need not 
allude ruined this company, and the Government, who aiready had acquired pos- 
session of many other irrigation works in Piedmont, took over the whole Cavour 
Canal in 1874, a property valued at above four millions sterling, and ever since the 
Government has administered it. 
‘The chief interest of this administration centres in the Irrigation Association 
West of the Sesia,! an association that owes its existence to the great Count 
Cavour. It takes over from the Government the control of all the irrigation 
effected by the Cavour and other minor canals within a great triangle lying 
between the left bank of the Po and the right bank of the Sesia. The association 
purchases from the Government from 1,250 to 1,300 cubic feet per second. In 
addition to this it has the control of all the- water belonging to private canals and 
private rights, which it purchases at a fixed rate. Altogether it distributes about 
2,275 cubic feet per second, and irrigates therewith about 141,000 acres, of which 
rice is the most important crop. The association has 14,000 members, and con- 
trols 9,600 miles of distributary channels. In each parish is a council, or, as it is 
called, a consorzio, composed of all landowners who take water. Each consorzio 
elects one or two deputies, who form a sort of water Parliament. The deputies 
are elected for three years, and receive no salary. The assembly of deputies 
elects three committees—the direction-general, the committee of surveillance, and 
the council of arbitration. The first of these committees has to direct the whole 
distribution of the waters, to see to the conduct of the employés, &c. The com- 
mittee of surveillance has to sce that the direction-general does its duty. The 
council of arbitration, which consists of three members, has most important 
duties. To it may be referred every question connected with water-rates, all dis- 
putes between members of the association or between the association and its 
servants, all cases of breaches of rule or of discipline. It may punish by fines any 
member of the association found at fault, and the sentences it imposes are recog- 
nised as obligatory, and the offender's property may be sold up to carry them 
into effect. An appeal may be made within fifteen days from the decisions 
of this council of arbitration to the ordinary law courts, but so popular is the 
council that, as a matter of fact, such appeals are never made. 
To effect the distribution of the water the area irrigated is divided into 
districts, in each of which there is an overseer in charge and a staff of guards to see 
to the opening and closing of the modules which deliver the water into the minor 
1 See Mr. Elwood Mead’s Report on Irrigation in Northern Italy, printed for the 
Department of Agriculture, Washington, 1904. 
