XX. . H. G. McKINNEY. 



drafting of the resolutions which embodied the results of 

 the deliberations. In these resolutions the effects of what 

 the Americans term "paternalism" were a prominent 

 feature. The representatives asked that the Governments 

 of the States should take action separately in one direction, 

 collectively in another, and in unison with the Federal 

 Government in another ; but there was not the least indi- 

 cation that the people were either able or willing to do 

 anything by themselves. When the landholders of India 

 reach the stage at which they will begin to hold Irrigation 

 Conferences, it will be easy to imagine such a conference, 

 at say Agra or Lahore, passing resolutions closely corres- 

 ponding in character to those passed at Corowa. On the 

 other hand, those resolutions would sound strangely if 

 repeated before a conference like that held at Los Angeles, 

 where the spirit of the representatives was most clearly 

 indicated in the phrase "We want no paternalism." 



Various considerations led me to take up the subject of 

 the systems under which the principal engineering works 

 are constructed and managed in different countries. In 

 the first place, so far as the development of the resources 

 of New South Wales and of Australia generally is concerned, 

 the country is still in its early youth. It is out of the 

 question at our present stage to imagine that we have 

 arrived at the best systems for utilizing these resources, 

 just as it would be absurd to conclude that we have nothing 

 more to learn from other countries in regard to the con- 

 struction and management of engineering works. It may 

 be urged that the system under which large engineering 

 works are or should be constructed is a political question, 

 and so it is to a certain extent. For this reason I have 

 adhered to simple facts and the conclusions directly declu- 

 cible from them, and have avoided the advocacy of any 

 particular system. Probably there is not much in what I 



