DISCUSSION. cov. 
cost of construction and management of irrigation works 
in Victoria and has given us a splendid amount of informa- 
tion which is just as applicable to New South Wales there 
remains very little necessity for me to allude further to 
that aspect of the question, but there are other points upon 
which I should like to make a few remarks. The trouble 
has been that the people in Victoria went ahead too fast, 
and started constructing irrigation channels to distribute 
the water before it had been conserved, whilst in New 
South Wales they had proceeded too slowly. Ina matter 
of this kind a certain amount of caution is necessary, 
because the financial prospects are very difficult to forecast 
and the undertaking is a new one in the experience of the 
people, but the time for enquiry and examination has long 
Since gone by and the time for action has come. 
It is now 18 years since the first Royal Commission was 
appointed to enquire into water conservation and irrigation, 
and ever since that report was obtained there has been a 
branch of the Public Works Department making surveys 
and developing schemes but with no result, and quite lately 
the Government imported Colonel Home, a distinguished 
irrigation engineer from India to make a further report, 
which has been received and carefully pigeon-holed. This 
report was considered to be a damper on the prospects of 
irrigation, but I regard it only as the expression of a 
cautious man who saw the difficulty of introducing too 
hurriedly a change in the methods of a very conservative 
people. As no allusion has been made to the report I will 
quote a few extracts, which I think are extremely pertinent 
to the present discussion. 
*‘TIn connection with the financial prospects of irrigation 
projects it may be mentioned that the development of 
irrigation is a comparatively slow process, and that it is 
not reasonable to expect that a canal should pay as soon 
