In connexion with the building of canals in the waste places of the Punjab, a very important matter was the provision of a sufficient population to till the fields the canal was designed to bring water to. Before the days of organized irrigation on a large scale, the Punjab had a scanty population, and settlers had to be sought from the densely populated provinces of India as much as five hundred miles distant from the scene of operations, Towns and villages had to be built all over the aren served by a canal, and into these villages a peasant population had to be introduced and successfully established. It is a matter of considerable difficulty to induce the peasant class in India to leave their place of birth to go and settle even a short way from home, and therefore an immense task confronted the " Colonization Officer" of a new canal in the Punjab, in his efforts to bring men, women and children from long distances, and by thousands, and estab-lith them successfully in. totally strange and unaccustomed surroundings, to say nothing of a much more rigorous climate.
The problem was to make these i contentedly till the virgin soil they were brought to, for without the successful ce-operation of the agricultural labourer, these vast undertakings must have resulted in heavy financial loss to the Government of India.
The First Breadwinner.
The Lower Chenab Canal is the largest and most profitable canal in the Punjab. It was begun in 1882- was completed rapidly, and soon began to earn revenue, so that by 1898.99 the net curnings had cleared the whole of the capital oust plus the accumulated interest charges to that date—a phenomenal result to have achieved in the short space of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.