"Periodically we hear of a proposal to dredge the channels of the river a5 to deepen them toa point of safety, but forthe most part these proposals are made by people without any' mathematical comprehension of the size of the task. To deepen the Yangtze river from Ichang to. the coast by only three, feet would re-Guire 827 dredgers of the type now ised on the Fairy fats and, based upon the cost of operating" these dredgers, including interest. etc, an annual expense of over ~§900,00,000 would be required, Obviously, that hum is cut of the question, but which is more important, the silt Brought down by the river'each nliht would lt'up the holes dug by these dredgers during the day! Dredgers undoubtedly have their place in a proitramme of flood control, but only at points where the dredger nature, instead of trying' to arch forces with it "Simillarly we often hear proposed a series of reservoirs to impound and clay the run-off after storms, and the: perennial optimist of this" stage comes forward with a. proposition that afforestation is the remedy. Undoubtedly it is the remedy, ni, for various reasons, both suggestions are Impractical.
The Question of Dykes have come back from a trip of aerial observation over he flooded regions in Shantung, along the Yang-fie, and over north-western "Hupeh, Very much encouraged over the pros peels of rendering floods. less "tre-fluent by means of improved dykes, improved dyke maintenance, have come back with the feeling that 4£'1 wore general manager of China, with he job of making the country poy, T should budget heavily for dykes. With minor exceptions, the work done along the Yangtze river in 1932 in rebuilding, raising and strengthening the dykes has held and has protected the "Territories which they were intended to protect. "Very definitely, Hankow has been saved this year—Arst, by the raising of the dykes along the bund of that city and, second, by skilful engineering advice and efficient executive handling of labour, when the dyke defences were "on the point of collapsing.
T cannot prove my point, but I have reasons to believe that had the same adequacy of preparation, and the same intensity of supervision, been applied to the Yellow river dykes, that break would not have occurred, Similarly, the floods to the west of the Poyang Lake and the Tungting Lake are the result either of half-hearted concentration, or of deliberate policy which contemplates the breaking of the dykes, when extremely high water occurs. Tu my judgment the dykes of that region are evidences of a wise policy: they save crops during years When the full storage capacity of. those lakes is not required, but they break when this capacity is required, but no dyke policy should be expected absolutely to guarantee that floods would never occur.
It is a fact that the dykes on the Han river which broke, were not those constructed by the NF.R.C. in 1992, but, if the reports concerning the height of the flood are true, no dykes which might have been built would have restrained the waters. Somewhere on the continental plateau, probably in southern Kansu_ Shensi, a cloud-burst occurred which simultaneously sent torrents down in all directions, so that breaks occurred on the Wel, ihe Yellow, and water, dykes, came tearing down the Han, spilling out in all directions, until it struck a sharp bend in the' channel, whereupon it Knocked out that sec-ion of the dyke, as an automobile might flatten out'a dog-tract in the dust! It is quite probable that no, dyke, which ordinarily might have been' constructed, would have withstood such a shock,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.