Nile Dams Make Egypt Wealthy

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 780, 28 September 1929, Page 29

Nile Dams Make Egypt Wealthy

TWO CROPS ANNUALLY IRRIGATION WORK “Egypt had no rank as a productive country until 35 years ago when the great water project was begun,” says Hector J. Diacono, representative of’the Anglo-American-Nile Company, when interviewed by the representative of a San Francisco newspaper, recently. With no personal property nor income tax, Egypt today is one of the most prosperous countries in the world, says Diacono. British supervision is gradually being relinquished, although the presence of a British Residency in Cairo has never been oppressive nor retarded in any way the development of great engineering projects. Government revenues, derived from railways and customs, are being utilised each year in road building, dam construction and education. An example of the improvements added within the last few years is given in the building of the Assuan dam and the new Makwar dam, which is considered the largest in the world and which opens up millions of acres of desert land to cultivation of wheat, cotton and sugar cane. “Since the waters of the Nile have been controlled by these mammoth

] dams." Diacono states, "Egypt has ' changed from the nonproductive. : Biblical land of Pharaohs to one of ! the great exporting countries of the j world. “Egyptian cotton, of a peculiar silky, long-thread variety, is the principal ! source of supply for the great artificial silk industry of Manchester. Sugar cane and wheat, produced In two crops each year by means of irrigation, make it unnecessary for Egypt to import these products as she has done for centuries. "Whereas the visitor to Cairo and i the lands along the Nile in former ' i years saw only vast stretches of yel- * : low sands with picturesque caravans . i crossing the dunes, today he wit- - i nesses in the thousands of miles of , 1 fruit orchards, well-kept fields and produce gardens the miraculous pos- - j sibilities of irrigation. And the same s ] rapid progress in shipping facilities ! | has been made possible by damming - j the annual overflow of the Nile . Vessels of every nation are now able i to dock at Port Said, entrance to i the Suez canal, hence the increase in " the number of tourists who spend the ; summer season in Cairo and at its - numerous hot spring resorts. > “Because Great Britain controls - the largest number of shares in the Suez Canal it is still under British i supervision, but at the expiration of s the statutes written by Ferdinand i de Lesseps. French builder of the , canal, control and revenues will pass l into the hands of the Egyptians. - The Suez alone brings into the - country a revenue of approximately ■ £20,000 a day. A vessel of the tonnage of the Empress of Australia, > one of the largest ever to pass i through the canal, pays a toll of

■ JC7,000 for the privilege, a great pe ; cent age of this fee reverting to th< Egyptian government. With the passing of compulsoreducational laws. Egypt hopes t* break the ancient bondage o children and emancipate them inithe modern world. Schools fo manual training and science are beir. constructed. However, the great influx of monr in recent years and the contract win travellers from every modern com try is having an effect upon the mode, of living among the people of Kgyp and as miraculously as the deser changed into green fields will thpeople themselves forsake thei ancient habits and adopt the new.