Page:Arthur Cotton - The Madras Famine - 1898.djvu/14

 he only wished that he were a few years younger, that he might live to see things done in India which he felt sure would be done in the next generation. There was water enough in the Country if it were utilized, and he hoped, even yet, to live to see many excellent admirable Works of Irrigation carried out.” These are pretty strong testimonies to come from the India Office itself, and it is certainly impossible to get over them.

Let us hear another witness, unconnected with the India Office; Mr. Monier Williams, in a letter to the Times, says “All the Belts of Land reached by the grand system of Irrigation, which stretches between the Godavery, Kistnah and Cauvery Rivers—fertilizing the soil wherever it reaches, and forcing even haters of the English Rule to acknowledge that no other Raj ever conferred on India such benefits—present a marvellous contrast to the immense tracts of arid waste which meet the eye of the traveller as he journeys by the great India Peninsula, Madras, and S. India Railways.”

Now let us hear what the Chairman of the Madras Irrigation Company says; in writing to the Times about the Navigation of their Canal, he says, “You make the very pertinent enquiry, how is it that the Madras Company have not utilized their Canal for purposes of Transport? You suggest indeed that it should be the subject of official enquiry, as it is of such paramount importance in the interest of the people now destitute and starving. I wish with all my heart that this enquiry were instituted, for though it would bring no new facts to light which are not well known to the Authorities both here, and in India, it would bring those facts home to the public mind of this country, with a force and weight which would lead to a prompt and effectual remedy.” He goes on to say “however valuable Railways may be, they cannot claim precedence of works which produce, as well as convey food, and having lived in the Madras Presidency 24 years, and having witnessed the effects of a Famine, I know the only remedy for such heart-rending and disastrous visitations is works of Irrigation.” He then