Irrigated India: An Australian View of India and Ceylon, Their Irrigation and Agriclture

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AN AUSTRALIAN VIEW OF INDIA AND CEYLON

THEIR IRRIGATION AND AGRICULTURE

BY THE

HON. ALFRED DEAKIN, M.L.A.

Formerly Chief Secretary and Minister of Water Supply of Victoria^ Australia

WITH A MAP

LONDON W. THACKER AND CO.

CALCUTTA

THACKER, SPINK AND CO.

MELBOURNE

E. A. PETHERICK AND CO.

(All Rights Reserved)

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AUTHOR'S PBBFACE.

The present work is a recast of a series of newspaper articles, the product of a tour through India in the cold weather of 1890-91, undertaken at the suggestion of Mr. David Sjme, p.opS^ietor of the Melbourne Age, in order to afford to the Australian public, in terested in irrigation, a sketch of what is being accomplished by its means in the peninsular empire of Southern Asia. It proved impossible to do this intelligibly without indicating in outline the circumstances of the country and its people, novel to colonists, unique in history, and important to all subjects of the Queen. The past as root of the present, and the present in its political, social, and religious aspects are, therefore, rapidly reviewed in the opening chapters. The physical and other conditions of the several Presidencies are next glanced at, the general character and prospects of native agriculture noted, and some chief irrigation schemes, with their lessons, briefly described. Detailed summaries of the achievements of the several Irrigation Departments and their financial results, proportionately of considerable length and in some parts a little technical, are added as an Appendix.

This volume makes no pretence to adequacy of treatment, even of its special subject. The writer is not an engineer, but having held the portfolio of Minister of Water Supply in Victoria for several years, and having in that capacity reported upon ^he systems of artificial watering in vogue in the United States (1885), Egypt and Italy (1887),*he has gathered a sufficient acquaintance wifti them to become convinced of their applicability to Australian soils and climates. Both in this relation, and in his treatment of other questions relating to India, ^e has suited the manner of his comments, so far as he was- 'able, to the miscellaneous audience addressed through the daily press,-uot hesitating to pass judgment upon the gravest issues with an estsy infallibility that is almosl^' editorial. * t

t vi AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

That many parts of the interior of the Australian Oolonies need the application of water to the land to ensure success in agriculture and horticulture, and to improve pasture, has been demonstrated only too often by the rigours of recurring droughts. The fact that Victoria, South Australia, and Queensland have already legislated, while New South Wales is upon the point of legislating, to provide for irrigation in arid districts is an official recognition of the need. There are at least 10,000,000 acres on the continent commanded by water supplies ample for the maintenance of schemes such as those of Bombay, the Panjab, Southern California, Utab, or Colorado : within the next few years it is certain that several hundred thousand acres will be regularly cultivated by these means, and, judging by the experiments already instituted, with returns as large as have been obtained in y^Lpost favoured localities of the old or new worlds. Any contribution to the study of irrigation, or exposition, however cursory, of its methods elsewhere is of possible value at the present time.

Apart from this, the future relations of India and Australia possess immeasurable potencies. Their geographical proximity cannot but exercise a very real and reciprocal influence upon the forces of national life in each, presenting to both vital problems of common interest, and possibilities of political development as vast as they are vague. The reference to such topics in these pages is slight and incidental, intended to serve as the rudest of finger-posts to such of the writer's fellow-countrymen as take a thoughtful view of their responsibilities and cherish a high ideal for the coming Commonwealth .

The writer expresses his great obligations to His Excellency the Marquis of Lansdowne, Viceroy of India, to Lord Harris and Sir James Lyall for their generous hospitality, and to their Excellencies the Earl of Hopetoun and Sir Henry Norman for letters of introduction which proved of high value. The purpose of his visit was greatly assisted by the kindness of Colonel Ardagh, private secretary to the 'Wceroy, Colonel Forbes, chief engineer of irrigation to the Central Government, Colonel Ottley, assistanj^ecretary of public works, and chief of the Irrigation Department of the Panjab, Mr. GfctT. Walsh, chief engineer of the Madras Presidency, Mr. C. T. Hughes, chief engineer of the Bombay Presidency, iColonel Neill, chief engineer of Bengal, Colonel Harrison, chief engineer of tbe North-west Provinces, Mr. R. McBride, chief engineer of Ceylon, Mr. A. G. Reid, C.M.G., g.E., Mr. T. Bentoft, C.E., Mr. E. Price, chief secretary of Madras, Mr. R. Ble^hyngen, secretary of the Agricultural

AUTHOR'S PREFACE,

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Society, Calcutta, Mr. D. P. Masson, of Lahore, Mr. A. W. Ferguson, of Colombo, and Mr. Herbert Synie, his comrade in the tour. He has to thank Mr. David Syme, proprietor of the Melbourne Age^ the proprietors of the Daily Telegraphy Sydney, and Messrs. Burden and Bonython, proprietors of the Advertiser, Adelaide, for permission to republish the articles which appeared simultaneously in the three journals above-named.

To the Right Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Bart, M.P., and Mr. Philip Mennell, of London, he is under heavy obligations for their friendly services in seeing the work through tlie press.

Melbourne, Sept 1892.

Preface To The English Edit[on

It may safely be said that the component parts of the Empire know too little of each others' idiosyncrasies and achievements. There is no need to go from under the shadow of the British flag in search of precedents for grappling with the complexities which confront the pioneers in the later developed areas nnder the Imperial rule. To a large extent, even on the continent of Australia, the several colonies carry on their experiments, social and economical, as though they lay abreast of alien communities, of whom pride and patriotism forbade them to learn. Federation will shortly, it is to be hoped, eradicate this fatal provincialism. And in the meantime all honour is due to those who possess sufficient individuality to break through an insularity, which having no warrant from antiquity, is vastly more absurd than that of our tradition-haunted island.

Mr. Deakin fcaught and — he would admit — learnt much during the time when he figured before the British public — or before that small portion of it which pays any heed to Imperial questions — during the era of what red-tapists style the " Colonial," but what those of wider vision rightly misname the " Imperial Conference of 1887."

Having acquired this lesson in cosmopolitanism, Mr. Deakin, whose future rests on the fact that he, best of all Australasian politicians, realises the truth that on the development of the internal and interior resources of the Australian Continent, and not on loan-mongering and land-booming, depends its future status as an autonomous member of the Imperial comity, recently n^e an observatory tour of the great irrigational works of India, the result of which is embodied in the following pages.

As the sponsor qf Irrigation in Australia, Mr. Deakin has thus reinforced the arguments based on local circumstances, and illustrated by American models, with comparisons drawn from the experiences of the greatest irrigating country in the world, and that too included within the bounds of the all-climate, all-condition embracing, British Empire ^ j

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X PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

For English readers the chief interest of the book, outside of expert information, must lie in the fact that it presents an outsider's view of the work, which, largely oblivious of the economic theories which pass current as axioms at home, the British rulers of India have brought into play for the fructification, and even salvation, of their great trust towards the subject myriads of India.

To avoid misconception, the English reader must bear in mind that Mr. Deakin writes from an Australian standpoint, viewed occasionally through purely Victorian spectacles, and that for some anachronisms the fact that the articles upon which the work is based were written in the winter of 1890-91, must be accepted as sufiBcient apology.

There is one technical expression which Mr. Deakin in several instances makes use of, which may puzzle the general reader. It may, therefore, be explained that the term referred to — "the duty of water '' — implies the area of land which a given quantity of water will irrigate. As Mr. Deakin himself puts it in a previous work on American Irrigation : " The quantity of land which any given unit of water will irrigate is governed, first, by the kind of soil, subsoil, the rainfall, temperature, and evaporation of the particular area irrigated ; next by the kind of crop grown, and the method of watering it, as well as by the length of time which that land or neighbouring land has been irrigated ; and lastly by its position with regard to seepage and its capacity of capillary attraction."

P. M.

London, Dec., 1892.

Contents

I.

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IV.-

Introduction

INDIA AND AUSTRALIA.

Who would comprehend the interest which India has for Australia, must first understand the interest which it has for the rest of the world. This is unique, and inexhaustible, and of many phases. The first place in the visitor's curiosity is usually occupied by the external aspects of modern native life, and some architectural remains, which attest the power, opulence, and artistic taste of one or two epochs, in as striking a manner as even Egyptian rains, or those later and more exquisite fragments which exhibit —

The glory that was Greece

And the grandeur that was Rome.

But there is much besides, vaster, more profound, and more pregnant in appeal to the thoughtful. The aspects of Nature are varied and magnificent, embracing every kind and class of spectacle, from soils fat with the recuperative fertility of inundations, to desert wastes of scorching, dun-coloured sand ; from cosy, homely nooks of fruitful village fields, to sterile, rocky peaks, and fathomless depths of inaccessible gorges; from over-populated, ever-cultivated river fiats, sparsely settled plateaux, and savage-haunted jungles, to craggy wastes, untenanted save by some lonely herdsman, ierce refugee, or sad, outcast clan. Indeed the beauties of many climes and countries are scattered p»ofusely throughout this mighty peninsula, liflib-like rooted in its socket, so near the heart of Asia, and so magnificently mountain jointed.

Less grand, less inspiring, but as various, and more intimately interesting to most tourists, are the multitftdinous branches of the human family whom it maintains in one or other of its regions, o:Sering an infinite wealth of illustration and suggestion to the anthropologist, historian, philanthropist, and fo all seekers amid the

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embers of the past for the far o£E origins of race, language, and religion. Then there is that great political marvel — the British raj — little more stable than in the days of Clive, though immensely expanded and more highly organised. If the Eurasians, or halfbreeds, at present a despised and insignificant body, could transfuse the Caucasian capacity for self-government into a new native caste, or carry into European families a sufficient strain of Hindu blood to render them climate proof, and capable of permanent residence, there would be a brighter outlook for the future. As it is, Mr. Meredith Townsend's warnings are most timely ; the gulf between the two peoples is deepening, if not widening ; and the glacier- like advance of the forces of the White Czar has brought them at last within hail of the gates of India.

Another interest should be the irrigation system — bold, comprehensive, and original — ^by which millions are fed, a monument to the sagaciiy, ability, and magnanimity of British rulers. This until now most travellers have carelessly passed by. The writer was the first civilian unconnected with the Government who had ever taken the pains to visit the Sirhind Caiml, and other important works, which should be the admiration of thousands. Railways of equal and even greater size, and of equal, if not superior, efficiency, we can see elsewhere, but there is not a canal system in the world to compare with that of India. Yet even to the people who created this system it is as if it were not, ** as if it could not be, as if it had not been," so little do Anglo-Indians know about it. When the reproach of ignorance and indifference shall have been removed, critics will undoubtedly award this achievement of British engineers its fitting place in the scale of their interest and attention. To describe it without technicality is the main object of this book, though it touches perfunctorily upon other chief features of the country, sufficiently it is hoped, to render its past and present intelligible to the colonial readers to whom it is primarily addressed.

There are other present-day interests which can only be glanced at in passing. Unquestionably the fame and fortunes of England are silked upon the control of this peninsula. While India is kept intact, the British Empire remains a power of the first rank. If India falls under a foreign yoke, the prestige and influence of the nation fall with it, never to rise again, unless, indeed, the balance be redressed by the growth and cohesion of colonies which have become • commonwealths, dominions, and federations, by whose might and influence the globe will be ringed, and girdled from sea to sea. Meanwhile, within the country, pvoblems multiply apace — problems which go to the root of national and political life, and ^- hibit in full play the seminal principles upon which our whole social order is founded- The limits of authority, and rights of citizens, the sway of conscientious despotism, and demands of a coloured democracy, the strength of hydra-headed superstitions, tenacity of customs which are barbarous^ and unwholesome in their operation, capacity fbr moral and intellectual progress of many mixed peoples, the possibility of a working relationship between the

INDIA A XI) AUSTRALIA.

advanced east and the advanced west, the applicability of European civilisation to Asia, and the solution of the great diflSculties attending an unrestricted multiplication of the species— all face us in India, where for aught we know the Armageddon of the 20th century may be fought, or from whose decaying altars may be brought the fire to kindle conflagrations in other lands. "Out of the East light'* — possibly in the shape of lightning, to discern the depths over which, and the rocks among which, the modern spirit is drifting. All things are yet possible in this strange land. Any birth is conceivable from the spiritual marriage between the Anglo- Saxon and the Hindu, which is now being consummated. Their strife has brought out the best and worst in both natures; their union may do the same. They must profoundly modify each other, but the extent to which their mutual influence will operate, or the miracles it will work, defy prediction.

Between India and Australia there must soon be Special links and associations. Their irrigation systems will be of perennial interest to all hydrdulic engineers, and especially to those on this side of the line. Our southern colonies are certain to be always in favour with their officials on furlough in search of health, or those who have retired, and seek a home in a temperate climate, free from the tropic heat of their field of labour, or the snows of their place of birth. Australians and Anglo-Indians are therefore bound to be acquaintances. Intimacy between the two countries will doubtless be established in course of time. They are part of oue empire, and thus linked to one destiny.

Those relations which are likely to develop earliest, and be of most immediate impjrtance, may be grouped under two heads — trade and invasion, peace and war. Both depend upon the maintenance of British supremacy in India, and the exclusion of any European rival. Under British domination free trade obtains, and the Indian ports are open to ail our exports. Duties upon Indian pi'oducts in Australia are mainly for revenue purposes, and in Victoria tliat upon tea has recently been swept away. There is no fiscal impediment therefore to a closer union of the two countries, and one would suppose, from the difEerence in age, climate, population, and economic conditions, that commercial intercourse would be likely to prove of mutual benefit. So far this does not appear to have been the case. ^

The future of Northern Australia is alleged to depend upon coloured agricultural labour, and if this be proved, it is certain that th§ cheapest relays could be obtained from Madras or Calcatta. The difficulty hitherto has been the stringency of the conditions imposed by the Indian Government, and its insistence upon the periodical return of its immigrants, in which respects it exactly complies with colonial requirements. If Asiatic labour is indispensable, the Hindu has his recommendations, especially if strictly limited in his absences from home, as indeed be invariably demands to be. If not the equal of the Chinese in enterprise or versatility, some of his tribes are their superiors*in intellect and in war. The

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12 IRBIGATED INDIA, general nature or final consequences of the pacific intercourse between the great peninsula and the newest of continents are too remote even for speculation, though the probability is that trade relations will draw us closer year by year, that trade being to the advantage of both parties, until, if not after, our tropical territories, and future island dependencies, are well developed.

In time of "war the provisioning of troops might occasion a large and sudden demand for horses and supplies generally, though in such a crisis the thoughts of Australians are certain to be absorbed in the conflict and its issue, rather than in the commercial opportunities that may ofEer. The situation would certainly be very serious if it were possible for the Russians to occupy the country, and find at last another of those < penings seawards for which their great Empire has so long been seeking. With India as a base of operations for a hostile power, this continent "would be directly threatened, &nd though it may be doubted if we shall be strong enough, "when the inevitable struggle comes, to lend any eflBcient aid in repelling a Muscovite attack, it would assuredly . be immensely to our interest, not only as Britons, but as Australians, to see that assault repelled. It is probable that the first attack will fail, and certainly the country is to-day much better fitted to receive and sustain the shock than it was a few years ago. The frontier is better known and defined. The hill tribes are more friendly, railway communication is all but completed, and the army itself in finer fighting trim. There are, of course, as there always will be, reforms to be effected and preparations to be made, but it seems clear that there has been a great advance during the past decade, and that the Russians who have fought their -way -with splendid persistency to the heart of Asia, and whose troops are now exploring the Pamir table land to the north of Kashmir, in order to find a road southward, will find a warm welcome when they arrive.

This is not the place to descant upon military problems, and indeed it is quite unnecessary to attempt them after the exhaustive judgment upon the situation given by so eminent an authority as Sir Charles Dilke in his "Problems of Greater Britain." All present possibilities are there analysed with statesmanlike ability and special knowledge of the issues involved. But it is plain that the struggle is not far off. The motley crowd that throng the bazaars of Peshawur, and Lahore, contains groups who come from the Russian borders** Turkestan, or Independent Tartary, is disappearing from the map, and the rival white races will probably be face to face before long near the sources of the Amoor? The Hindus will probably be true to the British flag, and will resist anything but chsaster. How they will face European troops when themselves led by Europeans remains to be seen, but in the first days of the Mutiny, before they were cowed,they certainly fought with desperate bravery. They are ill fitted to play a losing hazard, and are peculiarly subject to sudden panic, begotten Cby superstition as much as fear ; but certain of t*beir tribes are daring, resolute, and ferocious, and on these the main relis^ce must be placed. The pliancy.

INDIA AND AUSTRALIA. 13

fluidity, and patient persistency of the average Hindu, which enable him to resist innovation, and to assert himself, in a passive way, generation after generation, so as to keep him true, under all his obsequiousness and subserviency, to his national traits, beliefs, and customs, are not martial virtues, and are of no service in the field. The brunt of the battle will be borne by British i^iments, inspired by traditions of the deeds of the Conquest and the Mutiny, which remain, and are likely to remain, among the heroic pages in the glorious chronicle of the race. We should not have known what innate capacity for daring, enduring, and governing, existed in the stock, if it had never struck root in India ; and now that it has survived so many storms, and sealed its title with so much blood and treasure, the prize is not likely ,to be easily surrendered.

Carlyle says — ** Consider now, if they asked us, Will you give up your Indian Empire or your Shakespeare, you English ? Never have had any Indian Empire, or never have had any Shakespeare ! Really, it were a grave question." And concludfs :-*-" Indian Empire will go, at any rate, some day, but this Shakespeare does not go, he lasts for ever with us ; we cannot give up our Shakespeare." Very true, though the " some day " which this rather despairing passage foresees has not yet arrived, and may be long arriving. Granting that, measuring odds and circumstances, it seems impossible for the Briton to keep his hold for another century upon this tropic empire, and its hordes of half- civilised peoples, it must still be remembered that it has always seemed equally impossible, and that its little garrison has surmounted crisis after crisis, and peril after peril. The miracle of valour and statecraft by which it has been subdued, may bo repeated and prolonged by the same agencies — by new troops of resolute and gallant spirits sprung from the old race. It is, at all events, a critical issue for our young communities, which, in their pride of descent, and haughtiness of national feeling, seem apt to forget that they have made their homes neither in Europe nor America, but in Austral-Asia — Southern Asia — and that their fortunes may by this means be linked in the closest manner, in trade and in strife, in peace and in war, with the great continent near to us, whose richest and most magnificent promontory rests to-day under the shadow of the same flag. i$

It is infinitely pleasanter, no doubt, to ignore future possibilities oif this kind, shut the eyes to signs and omens of the times, and preach peace where there is nowhere peace; but is it reasonable to pass by the great changes in locomotion by sea and land, which are bringing us nearer and nearer to the Old World, with its feuds and armed forces, its greed of territory and insatiable ambitions ? In another quarter of a century the map of Asia, as well as of Europe, may be changed, and unless faced by a federated Australia, which, though democratic and pacific, would be prepared to resist aggression, and to maintain its flag, the belligerents inay find our protecting stretch of ocean bridgeabfe, and our people uiiarmed or unorganised. To prepare for such a contingency is not to dread it, but is to render

H IRRIGATED INDIA.

it incapable of occasioning dread. It is not to qaestion the naval BUfji-emacy of the mother country, or its readiness to come to our aid, but it is to recognise the responsibility of every virile people to protect itself, if it wera only to maintain its aelf-reapect. Snch proBpects, and each a policy, are not popular in the ordinary sense of the term. The average elector and his representative alike prefer to discasB matters nearer home, more local, more parochial, promising early profit, presenting means and ends more closely related, and in which there is a smaller element of chance, and narrower openingfor prophecy. It seems better even to sport with the Amaryllis of Irrigation, and with the tangles of State socialism, rather than look so far ahe^id and travel so far afield. And yet snch issnea mast have their place in our prevision, for in the event of the great catastrophe occurring, the local interests which we hold so dear, and the industrial democracy which it is our first aim to pres<;rve, might perish in a common wreck. It is in the interests of home thatwe^honld look abroad, .and in the interests of peace tliat we should bo prepared for war.

It shonld count for something in onr mental development that in this youngest part of the world we are actually within bait of the oldest portions, and that almost within the shadow of its most absolute military despotism our nation should be bnilding np ultra democracies of the most pacific type. Cynics may profess to discern a likeness between them, or at least a kinship, but between wjiat institutions or practices of humanity is there not some propinquity 'i What is there that exist* which can give itself airs of exclusiveness, or proclaim its separateness from the universe of which it forms a part p That intellectual give and take which is everywhere a stimulus to thought should be especially quick and prolific between Australasia, or Southern Asia, and its northern continent. We are near enough to readily visit India and be visited. Its students might come to the universities of our milder climate, instead of facing the winters of Oxford, Paris, or Heidelberg. Onr thinkers may yet become authorities upon questions which need personal acquaintance with India and its peoples.

It would be as idle to dwell upon forecasts of this order as tt is foolish to discard them altogether. Until it be demonstrated that there is some reason why the nearest great country to us ^ should be tabooed, its people, its products, and its destiny ignored, and all the flowing tides of its spiritual life and teaching excluded from those far-reaching currents which set to us past its shores, aud influence men across the whole circumference of our planet, we may hold it to be inevitable, as well as natcral, that one of the first outward going movements of our expansive Australian life wfil bring us into contact, and then into communion, with India. The fascination that it exercises upon out kindred will possibly be deepened for us, for th4' difiereuces between our conditions and those of the East remain even greater than theirs. Until we cease to feel the pulse-beat of human thonghtjiand to move in accordance with the mental and mferal unfolding of the race, we cannot refuse

IXDIA AND AUSTRALIA, 15

the attraction which the ancient wisdom of the Aryans exercises up )Ti reflective persons ; until we have ceased to feel the last faint touch of patriotism towards the islands in the Atlantic from which our fathers came, we cannot listen unthrilled and unfired to the story of the heroism by which this superb dominion was won, and has been held in defiance of all adverse fortunes ; until the last spark of romance has faded from materialised breasts, given over to the gospel of greed and selfishness, we must be moved by the marvellous panorama which history has unrolled across the Himalayan snows, and along. the valleys of their mighty rivers. Beethoven's march in the Ruins of Athens suggests in sound just such barbaric splendour, fiery impetuosity, martial pomp, and rhythmic sweep of tribal movement, as are displayed in this romantic tale of invasion, conquest and revolt, the stirring and recurring cadence, incoming and outgoing like a tide, echoing in the ear long after throb of drum and clang of cymbal have grandly and gradually died away. •

" If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power, and beauty that nature can bestow — in some parts a very paradise on earth — I should point to India. If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant, I should point to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we, in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted, in order to make our inner life more perfect, more

comprehensive, more universal, in fact, more truly human

again I should point to India." — Max Muller.