ITALIAN PROGRAMME.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 176, 25 June 1935, Page 7

ITALIAN PROGRAMME.

BIG PUBLIC WORKS IN ERITREA. An additional, if still incomplete, explanation of the departure of many thousands of Italian workmen for Italian East Africa is contained in the publication of a big programme of public works in Eritrea projected by the High Commissioner, General de Bono. Chief among these works are a wirerope railway 12 miles long which will be able to transport 600 tons of merchandise daily to Asmara; an aqueduct five miles long between Asmara and Adi Nefas; four large reservoirs and the reconstruction of the water distribution plant of Asmara; a road 30 miles long linking the high-lying agricultural zones suitable for coffeegrowing with the plains across the Saberguma zone; an aqueduct in the Dogali region intended to double the water supply of Massawo. This town, which, it is stated, “is destined to become the most important port of the Red Sea,” is also to be supplied with a sea-water distillation plant and an ice-making plant with a capacity of 300 quintals daily. Finally, a scheme is now under consid eration for the construction of an immense artificial lake at Himberti, between Asmara and Adi Ugri, having a capacity of 8,000,000 cubic metres, the water from which would be used to work a hydro-electric station for irrigation purposes and also as a drinking water reserve.