OBSERVATIONS ON IRRIGATION WORKS IN INDIA. 



165 



Discussion. 



The Chairman.— I am asked to mention that besides members 

 present we are favoured with the presence of visitors, who, I hope, 

 will take part in the discussion and add to its interest as having 

 been engaged in the construction of important works on canals in 

 India. I will therefore call on ^Ir. Buckley to help us in starting 

 the discussion. 



Mr. K. B. Buckley. — Sir, I have just noticed that Mr. Odling, 

 towards the close of his paper, mentions that irrigation officers are 

 always enthusiasts. I am an irrigation officer. Now my experience 

 is that sometimes you get an enthusiast to talk to you on his hobby 

 in a manner which is not always advantageous. However, 

 strengthened by your kind support, I venture to make some 

 criticisms on this paper. 



I have known Mr. Odling for some thirty years, and have worked 

 under him and with him, and therefore know how well he does his 

 work. 



I think the paper seems to throw a little too much importance on 

 the work done by the British Government and by engineers in India 

 in irrigation. Irrigation is rather treated here as though the works 

 that conferred benefit on India had been oris:inated and constructed 



o 



by the British Government — indeed I think the very words are used. 

 That it is not altogether true. Mr. Odling mentions one case where 

 the works paid as much as 18 per cent., which is quite correct; but 

 some four or five of them were not initiated by the British Govern- 

 ment, but by the natives long before our time ; and if we have done 

 many useful works for India, as is the case, we have learnt a good 

 deal from our native subjects before we begun to improve on their 

 methods. 



Irrigation is not new, as the paper leads one to believe, but it is 

 very old ; in fact, what little I know of the garden of Eden I am 

 much inclined to think that probably the cutting of small channels 

 was known at that time. I suppose the first natural overflow of the 

 Ganges and the Indus would help to show the advantage of artificial 

 •channels. The Egyptians appear to have cut channels from the Xile 

 to irrigate their land, and the Babylonians constructed a great many 

 in the vallev of the Euphrates some 300 years B.C. Certainly in India 



