The rain has been fallingin floods, the waters are out
everywhere, and the Times therefore discourses of the way to meet droughts. The argument is that the surplus water ought to be stored against a dry season, which now that drainage has been carried to such an extent, produces on the light lands most costly mischief. No argument could be more sound, and irrigation will yet be attempted in England, but will the Times help us to secure the organisation of the County Councils, through which alone the storage of water can be provided for ? Private enterprise cannot store water, for it cannot distribute it, and Parlia- ment is overburdened with work. We must look to the County Councils, and whenever Mr. Stansfeld or anybody else proposes to establish them the Times treats the project as if it involved a revolution. Is it quite certain, either, that the storage
of water will be so enormously costly a process? We should have thought that with the scientifie knoWedge of topography existing in England, and the engineering skill, the tank system of storms could be carried out withont any feightftil expense. The denity of obtaining a dividend wilfl n doubt be considerable, but it canuot, if the water he worth having, be insuperable.
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