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by these enormous increases of cost, and to-day it is my privilege 
to open a great work, one of the most useful ever undertaken in these 
progressives States — a work which will some day enable the inhabi- 
tants to raise a rice crop from about 70,000 acres of land, which will 
give the people a potable, if not perfect, supply of water which will 
enable them to make the land of their adoption a permanent home, and 
which will result in their building for themselves houses of a more 
durable and comfortable type. With assured crops we may hope for 
the establishment of rice mills, and the people may anticipate better 
prices without paying for the maintenance of an army of small middle- 
men. There are those who will enquire what the interest will be on the 
Government investment. It may be put at 4% — perhaps not at once 
but certainly ultimately, and to that is to be added, what cannot be 
reckoned in dollars, the happiness and well-being of a settled population 
of busy peasants, of foreign Malays who in their own country will 
retail the news of how the Perak Government has ameliorated 
their condition and made of no account the variableness of seasons. 
I wish Sir Frank Swettenham could have seen the completion of 
this work. I wish it had been possible for His Excellency the High 
Commissioner to be present. He has kindly expressed his regret 
that urgent public business has taken him back to Singapore. 1 wish 
that the Resident-General had found it possible to be present. I have 
a message of regret at his absence from His Highness the Sultan, 
who has always been keenly interested in this great scheme, I am 
sure that Mr. Hale, Raja Chulan and Mr. Shaw, whose interest in the 
people and whose experience of the cultivation of rice is of the greatest 
value to Government, will see that their wants are always represented 
and that their Headmen carefully explain the scheme to them. I have 
already alluded to Mr. Trump’s share in this work. I wish to express 
my appreciation of the assistance Col. Murray rendered in extending 
and commending the scheme, I wish to thank Mr. Anderson for his 
devoted work in carrying it out, for his endurance and fortitude in 
sickness and in the face of difficulties and disappointments. I wish 
to thank all the Engineers who from time to time have been engaged 
on the work, and especially Mr. Wilkinson and the present Staff who 
have ably completed it. And I wish to tender my congratulations to 
Mr. Caulfeild, who has been the Head of the Perak Public Works 
Department for a quarter of a century, and whose knowledge of the 
country from end to end of Perak is little short of marvellous. It is 
no little matter to have conceived, argued and fought for a scheme 
seventeen years, and to have been present at its fulfilment. His 
friends and brother officers are glad to see him as well as he looks to- 
day, and hope that he will still remain some time with them. When 
he does leave us it will be with well earned satisfaction that he will be 
able to reflect that something accomplished, something done, have 
earned a full repose. (Applause.) 
Mr. F. St. G. Caulfeild thanked the Resident for his kindly 
remarks about him. In a short summary he gave the history of 
the present great undertaking from its infancy. He eulogised the 
work done by several engineers in years gone by, particularly Mr. 
Brown Dickson and the late Mr. de Trafford. He gave full details 
of the working of the scheme, the lengths of the various canals which 
extend to upwards of 56 miles, and are expected to irrigate over 140 
