THE VICTORIAN IRRIGATION FAILURE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXX, Issue 181, 3 August 1896, Page 4

THE VICTORIAN IRRIGATION FAILURE.

- v SECRET HISTORY 6¥ THE MILDOBA X' •'•' ' SETTLEMENT. " ';" ' " . -tWe have already heard something of Mr Stephen Cureton and his con necti"ii^'with MildtWa (says the ; Ohf istohMcn:' " Press ") , but the . cabled tSport of his evidence before „ .'i)lid Miijinra Commission now sitting '.-;. in .Melbourne did notjgive anything ..Xlikelan idea of his refreshing canXdburV- The Btory he had to tell did "it-uot reflect any particular credit on ' ;,him, though.it showed him to be ; possessed of a large amount of •■' Smartness," bnt he seemed anxious to f tell. everything lie knew, and several tnjoes , invited questions. To MY. Cureton belongs the honour of having "discovered" jMildura. An Amerioan in all _bnt girth, he came . out to Australia" in"l&82, having got / into a shooting scrape in California which he wished to Wow oyer before i he returned; there, He went down the Murray and got the idea of an < irrigation settlement from that trip, when he got baok to California and saw, the Ohaffeys, with, whom he had ' /previously been connected in busi;,:';ness., He declared that when the ■Qhaffeys fixau came to Australia they -had no. money at al}, and had to ■ borrow to pay' their living expenses. "To tell the truth," said Mr Cureton, " I don't believe ajiy of the promoters put any money in the thing at all. W. B.Chaffey," | said the witness, "should have known something aboW irrigation ! matters, but the other brother was merely a meohauical engineer, jA concession was, however, obtained from the Victorian Government, and on the suggestion of Mr Levien, the financier, "the concern was' turned into a . liability company. Ont '. of the first flotation Si the capital • 'of/toe'Oompany'MrClareton, as a partner to the, extent* of, one-six- . teenth interest, received £12,500 in 1 paid-up sorip and fo^ty acres of land. . He soon, sold tne shares for £7600, and" before' long severed his Connection with the Ohaffeys,' in consequence of a disagreement with them. "Later on Mr Oureton, by his own account, appearsaal the Mlldura and Renmark correspondent of a London monetary journal, to which he sent adverse reports^on the prospects'of the 'settlement under its ' then 'managers. These letters, he was satisfied, blocked ithe* London moneyXnarkefc To the second loan '. ,the Ohaffeys desired to raise. While he was writing the letters the. paper sent'' out a competent Senginee'r to < report upon the irrigation appliances at the settlements, His verdict on the pumping plant 'at Mildura, •' considering the work- it had to ,do f was that it was]"a monument of mechanical; ignorance and wasteful folly," and that the channels were of the crudest possible > , f drin, ; apparently being; made for show, instead of use.' Mr Oureton .voluntarily referred tq the state'.:,;.U6n^''OU-' i; wliioh, > < l sb piach em'phMis wisi placed in the adyer . tising Ipainphletß of Mildura, that " the soheme was controlled and regulated by Act of JParlian^enc. That, he said, was his suggestion^ and he .'.; expecied^ the Goyernment would :i .brder . its withdrawal, nothing was said, and it 3 effect was that seven-eighths of the pjeople who went -to; Mildura from countries • outside Australia were induced to Igd.^by: seeing that. Ojf this Mi* Cureton declared himself satisfied, as he" came in contact With many 'X • -•..*;' The beat thing about Mr Oureton's ■^evidence .is the prfcol ij; affords of / the' uhimpeaohable integrity of a ; ' Minister of the CrownjMr Alfred Deakin, who waß Commissioner of Xlrlifer-'Sup^ly 'nt'the jimei The Mildura concession was (valued by > the Ohaffeys at £200,000, and that at Renmark at £280,000. ( They had no trouble, the witness said, in carrying the. conceasion through, ! Everybody seemed anxious for them to oome to Australia,! and the yoduhtry" supported th^ ': Scheme. ('■["Bni.Jh^,: promoters haid trouble. ; [.yjVLn Mr DeAkiia. "Hefought üßinoh ,by inch through it all. He fought asm the generalities of the soheme and in fie details. ' He insisted on the concession being granted in such ,a; shape. that if we failed to fulfil our obligations the land would revert to the Crown, Only on that coneidera- ' tion would he place the soheme before the Cabinet. From firßt to last he was too much for us/ in other Words, he got the best of the bargain/ Mr Cureton admitted that he tried to , get better terms, that he jasked for . half a million aores of land instead of ft quarter of a million, and; £200,000 in cash, bat Mr Deakin would not entertain this modest request. "Then you think the Minister did his duty thoroughly ?•' he was asked. " See," was' thf/reply • " bisone desire seemed to be to do the best he oould ior the colony, and he faithfully oarried out the trust reposed in him by the country and hia colleagues." They discussed among themselves the question of trying to influence Mr ueakin by offering him a slice of the ;^ land-- 1 -" such thingß are! done in Amerioa "—but they did not do so, . ' •? The man was unapproachable in that /respect, We all recognised his sterling honesty and integrity of purpose. He wanted to get us here as an object lesson to the oolony." Referring to this matter later oh the witness said Mr Deakin's conduct all through was aB pare as a blook of orystal ice. "He puts me in mind," he added, "of those senators of past days of whom Maoauiay writes in his 'Lays of Anoient Rome,' who held the bridge till their last gasp, and then swam the Tiber af terwards." Mr Oureton's Btrong point ib evidently not ancient history, bat his - meaning is obvious. " I have come to the conclusion," he said, in connection with this subject, "that Eublio men in* Victoria are more onest in matters of thia kind than publio men in Amerioa," which is something Viotoria can be sincerely thankful for, especially coming, as this testimony does, from an evidently unbiassed witneßß.