16 JANUARY 1932, Page 2

Irrigating Sind

The opening of the great Sukkur Barrage, in Sind on Wednesday serves opportunely to direct attention to one of the most hopeful aspects of this country's associa- tion with India. It may be true that no amount of material advantage will compensate for the non-fulfilment of political aspirations, in India or anywhere else, but the two are not alternatives, and the self-governing India-of the future will have good reason to recognize its debt to British skill, experience and foresight. Sind, about to be separated from Bombay and become a separate province, is about the size of England, and has depended hitherto for irrigation on the Indus, whose unregulated vagaries make it almost as much a menace as a benefit. The new barrage, and the seven canals radiating from it, will enormously increase the yield of the peasants' land. There is, unfortunately, at this moment a glut of most of the crops the peasant produces, but that is not to be accepted as a permanent condition, and though the cost of the barrage must fall ultimately on the taxpayer, he ought in the end to find himself substantially better off, 4, * * *