INDIAN FAMINES - Institute for Social and Economic Change

218 PREVENT/VE AND
I question if the whole world could supply
them!
Of other preventive measures, the opening
out of the country by roads, canals, and railways,
and by all other means of communication.
is of equal importance with the extension of vast
irrigation schemes. Of these, except navigable
canals, nothing more need be said beyond stating
the fact that they are being constructed as fast
as the resources of the country will admit; but
the want of funds which impedes the extension
of irrigation schemes is also the great stumbling-block
of our communication projects. Of
navigable canalB, it is necessary to remark that
they never can be advantageously combined
,vith irrigation canals, as has lately been proposed.
Of a necessity the former are all directed
toward the large cities, while the latter carefully
avoid them,-firstly, because the country is their
raison cfe"tre; and secondly, because from a sanitary
point of view it is advisable to avoid large
centres of population, where the level ot the
water is liable to fluctuation. Moreover, in
times of drought, when these canals ought to be
of the greatest service, the requirements of the