is at an unobjectionable depth below the surface, say sixteen feet. But it does not follow from this that, during and immediately after the rains, the sub-soil may not give out fatal malaria.
If the water rises too high during the rainy season, the difficulty in a rice-growing district is how to lower it.
The moment you cut a drain the ryots complain of it as injuring their crops by drawing off the water in which they always keep the rice standing to a depth of three to six inches, if they can get enough.
This is, of course, the consequence of partial work. What is wanted is a general regulation of the water, so that everywhere water shall be kept at the level required: some inches over the surface for rice: some feet under the surface, where irrigation is not needed.
Where the laws of drainage have palpably been violated, of course the remedy is plain and will be certain.
And much may be done by selecting new sites for villages on higher ground.
Rice cultivation, which consumes an enormous quantity of water, has greatly increased in the upper part of the Ganges Canal, and no doubt has been one cause of supersaturation. It is said that it has been determined to check this by raising the water rates! In the case of one large town where the fever had been severe, a committee recommended that the rice cultivation, which had crept right up to one town, should be prohibited within a certain distance of all dwellings.
Scientific sanitary irrigation is in its infancy. The danger is lest the abuse, or ignorant use, of irrigation should lead to its undue restriction, and cause the Government to hesitate in carrying out works on the scale required, at least, to secure the food supply of the country. Possibly, Sir G. Campbell, for one, was unduly influenced in this way; but his Government is so imperial that he never had time to think properly of the subject.
