public money, and that it was better finance to build houses and let them as gin-shops?
The management of the works may be so wrong that, as in Orissa, the people refuse to use the water; and this is the case in only one out of the seven vast works which the Government have executed. The actual results are these; the cost of irrigation on these great works has been from £1 to £3. 10s. per acre, including the navigation; and the actual increased value of crop is from £1. 10s. to £2. 10s. in grain only, besides straw.
Is it not only because we are in such a hurry for results that the people seem slow to take water? Irrigation, unless it come from great rivers in flood season, when it renews the soil, requires manure; and manure costs money; and the people have to get a little money or credit before they can use their greatest boon.
Of the value of the canals for transit, the following may give some idea: Up the valley of the Ganges at least a million tons a year are carried at present prices, a small quantity by the rail at 1½d., besides half as much more paid out of taxes, and the main portion at about ½d. by the rivers; by the canals this would cost about 1⁄20d., or £200 a mile for a million tons, against £6,000 by rail, or £2,000 by river; a perfect steam-boat canal, 40 yards broad, on that line costing about £3,000 a mile.
The irrigation works in the north-west yield an enormous profit in all, about £1. 10s. in grain only, on an expenditure of £2. 5s. per acre, or 60 per cent.,
