DISCUSSION. si .CCI. 
tainance and management, also for payment of interest, 
with all other particulars of the scheme. This was formu- 
lated by the Trust’s engineer, and sent to the Water Supply 
Department. The matter was then referred to the depart- 
ment’s engineers who went thoroughly into all the calcu- 
lations and statements made, and submitted their report 
to Chief Engineer of Water Supply; after criticism by him 
the petition and reports were referred back to the pro- 
moters of the Trust, for consideration of the various amend- 
ments made and charges proposed. 
When the views of the trust and the department were 
brought to agree, a second petition, which requires to be 
signed by more than half the owners of land owning more 
than half the land in the proposed trust area was prepared 
and signed. The first petition did not bind any one, but 
the second petition made them liable for the cost of 
the works, and on it being sent in the trust was constituted 
and the works commenced. For the first few years no 
interest was charged, after that interest at the rate of 34% 
and 14% sinking fund was charged. The difference between 
a domestic and stock supply and an irrigation supply was 
that the former meant mere existence, while the latter 
comfort and competency. They could not have settled the 
country nor developed the enormous mining fields without 
tt. In the Coleban Scheme there was a loss of nearly a 
million pounds, but without it there would have been no 
Bendigo mines to day. In Bendigo they had turned out 
an average of four thousand ounces of gold per week for 
fifty years, and for that period had yielded forty million 
pounds worth of gold which was an enormous recoup for 
expenditure on water. Bendigo was yielding now and to 
all appearances would continue to yield for generations to 
come. For the last nineteen years a continuous system of 
gauging the Victorian streams has been going on. The 
