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of Ceylon irrigation schemes was unique, visited Krian. The people 

 he met stated their desire for a supply of potable water, and he repre- 

 sented their needs. In April 1892 Mr. Trump wrote a report of 

 which Mr. Caulfeild approved, and it is remarkable that in that report 

 the present scheme, tinkered and criticised as it has been, was largely 

 outlined. The impounding area is the same ; the position of the spill 

 weir is the same. The figure at which he placed the discharge of 

 water has been all along adhered to. Mr. Trump estimated that 

 52,000 acres would be brought under the influence of the scheme. 

 Mr. O'Shaughnessy cut this down to 45,000 and then to 42,000. It 

 is interesting to note that it has worked out to over 51,000 acres, and 

 that Mr. Trump was right. He referred to the Storage scheme, which, 

 on the advise of Col. Murray, six years afterwards, was carried out, 

 and he recommended the road which will shortly, fourteen years 

 afterwards, join the district of Selama to that of Krian. It must 

 have been intensely gratifying to Mr. Trump to read, as it is 

 to me and to all who knew how well, how long, and how unob- 

 trusively Mr. Trump has served the Government, to recall the 

 graceful compliment paid by Col. Murray to his work of investiga- 

 tion, performed as it was under circumstances of the greatest difficulty. 

 But the pressure of Railway construction, and the necessity for many 

 other public works occupied the attention of the powers that then w r ere, 

 and the question slept. In 1893 I visited Krian and was impressed 

 with its great potentialites as a rice-producing country. I was, I am 

 glad to think, to some extent instrumental in rescuing the scheme from 

 that oblivion which, in official language, is styled keeping in view. 

 Sir Cecil Smith, than whom few men had a quicker grasp of situa- 

 tions, invoked the aid of the Government of India, and Mr. Claude 

 Vincent came to study the question and reported on it in February 

 1894. He recommended the scheme but desired to raise the levels 

 i\ ft. all round, and gave an estimate of $300,000, or only $15,000 

 more than Mr. Caulfeild's scheme was to cost. His estimate was 

 flagrantly wrong. The extra earthwork entailed by his proposal must 

 have cost $140,000 more than the sum he put it at. It is only just to 

 say that Mr. Vincent did not regard his estimate as accurate. The 

 Indian Engineer who came after him, Mr. O'Shaughnessy, working 

 on his lines, put the cost of the work, in July 1897, at $859,000, or a 

 mere matter of over half a million more than Mr. Vincent's figures. 

 It is a question that will never be settled, and need not be debated, 

 whether the raising of the levels was necessary. There are those 

 present who will never be convinced that it was. But the progress of 

 Perak has, happily, been such that a matter of a few hundred thousands 

 has not been of recent years an insurmountable obstacle. After further 

 discussion and a report by Mr. Anderson, the opinion of Col. Murray 

 was invited. He adopted the Storage scheme suggested six years 

 earlier, but never included in any estimate, and this has been carried 

 out and has brought the Selinsing area of an additional 20,000 acres 

 under the scheme. Col. Murray's estimate was $785,000. The work 

 was actually commenced in 1899, ten years after the preliminary 

 survey. In 1900 Col. Murray's estimate was increased to $977,000, 

 and in 1903 it was again increased by Mr. Anderson to $1,596,837. 

 That sum, say $1,600,000, is what the scheme has cost. It is to 

 the lasting credit of the Perak Government that it was not daunted 



