DISCUSSION. CCIII. 
the reasons why we have not had the success in Victoria 
was due to the many changes of Government. It was, 
however, spreading, and in the case of the Rodney Irriga- 
tion Trust they were using twelve to thirteen times as 
much water as they did 12 years ago. As irrigation was 
increasing so was production spreading the same way. 
Irrigation has been the means of keeping the people on the 
land, and where the Trusts had not been altogether a 
success, it had kept homes together in districts which 
would otherwise have become depopulated. 
To show the difference between watered and dry districts 
to the west of Echuca there were nine parishes without 
water supply. . T'wenty years ago there were seven hundred 
land owners, and to-day only one hundred and ten; about 
twelve miles east of Hchuca the Rodney Trust was con- 
stituted about twelve years ago, and there population has 
largely increased, while production and values increased 
fourfold. Yet both districts had similar land and facilities, 
the only difference being one had used the water the other 
did not. The people were now becoming seized of the value 
of water and they knew now what quantity of water to 
put on and how to use it. Im one case a man had a dry 
selection of 320 acres, with a stock of sixty cows, which 
were only yielding him fifty gallons of milk per day. He 
removed them to another selection containing 320 acres, 
the result being that the yield doubled in one week, and in 
three weeks was four times as much, just through chang- 
ing from a dry paddock to a wet one. 
The allocation of cost of irrigation works was a complex 
problem, and one of the difficulties was to decide what 
proportion should be borne by the State and what by the 
individual on the land. It was not fair that the whole 
liability should be thrown on those who had to use the 
water, because after the construction of storage works, 
