IRRIGATION.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 197, 14 May 1908, Page 7

IRRIGATION.

A. FACTOR IN COMMONWEALTH'S FUTDRE. ADDRESS BY MR. GOCMLAN. EXAMPLE OF INDIA AND EGYPT. BY TELEORAPII —PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT(Rec. May 14, 0.51 a.m.) ' • London, May 13. . Mr. T. A. Coghlan, Agent-General for New South Wales, read a paper before the Colonial Institute on tho possibilities and prospects of irrigation in Australia. Ho insisted that with the development of irrigation and settlement will oomo tho salvation of tho pastoralists. Ho dokribod six schemes ill progress for water storage, and claimed that irrigation works immediately doubled and sometimes quadrupled tho raluo of irrigablo land. Even if tho six systems projected cost £7,100,000, that was a very moderate outlay compared with tho advantages reaped. Mr.' Camithers, ex-Premier of New South Wales, said that Australians recognised that they would never havo a large population without ovorcoming natural disadvantages by large waterworks and storage. This was really insuranco agaiust disaster to Australia's great industries, and also aided tho creation of other industries. Ho emphasised the growingly prosperous condition of New South Wales's finance, and anticipated a surplus cf two million this. year. New South Wales was ablo to financo her own great wator schemes. Lord Jersey, tho Chairman (and a' former Governor of New-South Wales), said that irrigation in properly chcsen plaoes must provo in tho long run as useful and beneficial to Australia as to India and Egypt. - Tho experience of the Australian irrigation colonies, Mildura' and Renmark, justified tho belief that irrigation on a largo scale elsewhero would prove equally satisfactory. /