Page:Arthur Cotton - The Madras Famine - 1898.djvu/36

 above the present works, a wonderful site for a tank which, if constructed would produce enormous results. At a place called Valavapoor, nearly West of Bellary, there is a position where the river has a rapid slope downwards; but above, there is an extremely gentle rise of less than a foot a mile, so that a low bund of 50-ft. would retain the water back for 40 miles, giving a water surface of perhaps 150 square miles; such a bund would give a capacity of about 1500 million cubic yards, and as the river Toombudra has an immense supply of water, this tank, besides supplying a continual stream of 2 million cubic yards an hour during the 5 months that the river is in flood, would leave the tank quite full at the end of the Monsoon, providing 300,000 cubic yards an hour for the whole of the dry season. The canal from this would extend in an easterly direction to the present Companies Canals, thus completing the communication from Madras of 500 miles, and from the Upper Godavery of 1000 miles. An immense plain of from one to two million acres in Bellary would thus be watered, and 100,000 cubic yards an hour might be sent down the Kistnah to keep the Canals of that Delta full, or at least navigable during the dry season. The total value of this work could not be over estimated. It has been very well investigated, and we have very good data for estimating its cost at 20 ru. an acre, while the value of crop would be about 35 ru. above the present dry crops. This would be 175 per cent. besides the Navigation. Compare such an employment of capital with a Railway costing £20,000 a mile, and requiring a large subsidy from Government. I only give these as specimens of the works that might and ought to be undertaken without a moments loss of time. There is in fact an unbounded field for the employment of people and capital throughout the districts now suffering, and this great calamity can certainly be turned into as great a blessing. I should mention that a noble project for a vast scheme of Navigation through the 8. Mahratta country, that is the S. districts of Bombay, has been long under consideration, which is exactly suited for execution at this time. It has been in contemplation to form a company for this for the last year or two.

Besides the total failure of the railways to carry cheaply, which is now ascertained beyond all doubt, they are at this moment found to be unequal to the conveyance even of the small quantities required for mere food. The papers are full of such notices as the following; “the whole length of the beach is covered with piles of rice, and the railway is unable to convey it into the interior as fast as it is wanted.” The Railways could not carry a fifth part of what would be required if they could carry cheaply. Steam boat Canals would carry any quantity that could be required. The Railway reports states the enormous increase of receipts at present, but they don’t add, but the money has been paid out of the Treasury, for the carriage of grain,