322 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 May, 1902. 
Mr. Willcocks intimates to Lord Milner that the whole of South <A frica,. 
from one end to the other, is looking to him to take the first step in the two: 
colonies which he administers, declaring that the self-governing colonies of the 
Cape and Natal must follow suit or take up an inferior position. 
He then cites Italian precedent as worthy of imitation. On that head he 
descants thus :— 
“ When Victor Emmanuel consolidated Italy into one country, he decreed at 
the outset of his reign that the whole of the rivers and torrents of Italy were 
part of the public domain, and, as such, the property of the Government 
representing the people. Old irrigation rights of thousands of years’ standing 
‘stood in the way of such legislation, but the Government of Count Cavour 
possessed a strong hand. Having decreed the rivers and torrents as public 
property, the Government in the same bold and decisive manner defined with 
great accuracy all the indefinite and vague claims of centuries, and then set. 
itself to legislate for future concessions. Modern Italy owes much of its 
prosperity to this wise and strong legislation. The irrigation laws of Italy are: 
given in great detail by Mr. W. Ham. Hall, in his book, ‘ Irrigation Develop- 
ment : France, Italy, and Spain.’ These Italian irrigation laws, in great part 
developed by the Ancient Romans, might be taken as a model for all arid and 
semi-arid countries in the possession of Europeans. It is to laws such as these 
that vast tracts in India and the whole of Egypt owe all their prosperity. And 
it is to legislation such as this that all thoughtful men in South Africa are: 
looking forward, confident that the Nation possesses in Your Lordship a man 
qualified in every way to take his stand by statesmen of the type of Cavour.” 
He next deals with a point on which different opinions have been held in 
the past, but on which to-day there is a great convergency to one point of view,. 
and that is that in many countries statesmen have considered that irrigation 
works should be left to individuals and concessionaire companies, which we in. 
Queensland call syndicates. Such works, he says, have been, as a rule, con- 
epicnous failures in the hands of companies impatient to realise profits, and 
which have, in consequence, forced their engineers to overtax their reservoirs: 
and canals in their early and undeveloped stages. 
With works carried out by States the results have, on the contrary, been 
decidedly encouraging. Canals, which in their early years have not paid their 
working expenses, have gradually paid their interest charges, and in the course 
of seven and eight years have paid profits of 5 and 6 per cent.on many millions 
of capital, even when the capital accounts have been swelled by all the interest 
charges during the early years of loss and slow development. Having served. 
for twelve years in the Indian Irrigation Department, where the Government 
has spent £30,000,000 on irrigation works, and is on the eve of spending as: 
much again, and having served for eighteen years in Egypt, when Lord Cromer’s. 
Government has carried out irrigation works which can only be approached in 
magnitude by the great works of the Twelftlt Dynasty Pharaohs, he naturally 
considers the execution of important irrigation canals as the first works which 
an enlightened Government should carry outin an arid or semi-arid country. Not. 
only do well-conceived and well-executed irrigation works bring in a direct. 
benefit to the State if allowed to develop on slow and natural lines, but the 
also bring in all the indirect benefits which a State reaps from increased Sih 
of every kind. 
Mr. Willcocks then goes on to show how concessionaire companies haye- 
proved a failure in America, and says that if private enterprise cannot succeed 
in irrigation works of magnitude in America it will surely not succeed in any 
other country in the world. There is one side of the question which he con- 
siders should not be lost sight of in a country like the Transvaal. ‘There the: 
mineral wealth is extraordinarily great, but it is exhaustible—some say in 50, 
some in 100 years. It would be a disaster indeed if none of this wealth were 
devoted to the development of agriculture. Agricultural development is slow, 
but it is permanent and knows no exhaustion. If the companies working the 
