Rural Mariners Water is plentiful everywhere—such is the verdict of
one enquirer who has been making a water survey for one county council, on the urgency of the Medical Officer of Health. Water is everywhere but in many places there is not any drop to drink or at any rate to wash with or water with. I have watched cottagers raising painfully a bucket from several hundred feet below the surface ; and it came up with about three-quarters full with a dark and cloudy fluid. How backward is our civilization ! If a 4-inch pipe were driven 20 feet or so lower down, and a pump inserted and an engine affixed those cottagers (of whom some 50 are dependent on one well) could be supplied with bright clean water in any quantity at a negligible cost. Councils hotly discuss the cost and labour of bringing water to such a place, when the place stands above an inexhaustible lake which can be permanently tapped by three men working for a week. About £120 and a daily cost of 2d. would do all that is required ; and yet local councils, often urged by owners and local dwellers, argue and argue interminably (though always with a negative conclusion) whether the expenditure of £10,000 or £20,000 or £30,000 on a water supply is justified ! Meanwhile the cottagers continue to drink dark water and to go dirty. That is one reason at least for the rural exodus that is described as the worst evil of our civilization.
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