The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1886. PRACTICAL IRRIGATION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1433, 16 December 1886, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1886. PRACTICAL IRRIGATION.

It will have been seen by our cablegrams that a day or two agothe Victorian Parliament bad under discussion a scheme of irrgation by Messrs Chaffey. A few particulars as to this scheme may prove of interest. Messrs Chaffey Bros, have made an offer to the Victorian Government to take waste mallee land and to create an irrigation settlement, or colony, in which kind of work it is said the Chaffey’s have done great things in Victoria. That colony has certainly made the most progress of any ot the Australian group in the matter of irrigation, and some time ago she despatched a special commission to California, the “ home of the cult,” to thoroughly investigate irrigation and water conservation, and in the present session of Parliament a Bill was brought down in which one of the Commissioners embodied a scheme founded on what he had seen while acting on the commission in California. This policy involves the expenditure of four millions sterling, if tie Parliament of the future so wills it. The Bill has passed the Assembly, and. is now before the Council. Ihe proposed agreement between the Victorian Government and Messrs Chaffey is, says an Australian piper, a very stringent one. “jTliey will be given 47,000 acres on the Muldura Run, Lower Murray, eleven miles from the junction of the Darling and the Murray, on condition that they expend upon it in irrigation works £05.000 the five years, ■£140,000 me second, £,'75,000 the third, and £40,000 ihe fourth—altogether abeut £3 0,000 in twenty years, or £6 7 s Sd pei acre. Il the Government is satisfied th -t the experiment is a success it will give 200,000 acres more to Messrs Chaff y ; and they will have to expend £420.000 on 250,000 acres and pay £200,000 to the Government. The licensees will have power to sell I a nil in parcels of So acres for fruit growing, and 160 acres for other purposes ; and the land can only be sold to one person. Of course, this is only a rough draft, and a bill must pass Parliament to give the negotiation effect, should the Chaffeys accept the terms. The State will lose nothing if the experiment fails. If it succeeds, the gain will be immense. The experiment will have proved whether irrigation is practicable and profitable in these colonics; how irrigation is to be pursued; and what culture should be followed. The land only gives a rent of one penny per acre, being worth only from 23 6d to 5s per acre. At the end of 20 years the value, say the large block is taken up, will be £2 12s pd per acre in the outlay alone ; while the value of the large area of Crown lands in the Mallee district, fully 10,000,000 acres, will have been immensely increased. The sum of £500,000 will have been expended in Victoria in twenty years. But, above all, the State may have the irrigation problem solved for it without (lie expenditure of a penny; for, if Messrs Chaffey are successful, and show the way, we may be certain that capitalists will take up the matter, as in California ; and all the State may be called upon to do is to construct headworks, making a remunerative charge. Further, if the Chaffeys succeed, other Californian and American capatlists J, \v ill come to the new diggings ; and there will be an influx of capital, which will revitalise Australia. Besides, once irrigation is proved practicable and profitab'e, there will be no difficulty in borrowing money in London for irrigation works to any extent ; for no capitalist will refuse to lend money on reproductive works which pay.” This is the first step towards something practical in irrigation, on a large scale, that has been made in the colonies, and should Victoria accept tiie offer, her experience, while costing her little or nothing, will prove most valuable to her neighbors.