FLOOD , DROUGHT , FLOOD By M. G. IONIDES T HE disastrous floods
of the spring were followed by the drought, and now, while water shortages still persist in some parts, they have been overlapped by the first floods of the season elsewhere. Obviously there will always be extremes against which it would be impractical to provide. But at least we should' enquire whether as much has been done as was reasonably possible. It has not. Successive Governments for generations have done very much less than they should. It is a significant measure of their shortcomings that there is as yet no more than a very modest beginning of a survey of our water resources, which was interrupted during the war after only a few years' run and has not yet been re-started. We have topographical surveys, geological surveys, massive statistics of almost every branch of our economy ; yet practically nothing for water, though it is one of our most vital commodities. It is a food, a means of transport, the essential medium of hygiene, a raw material of almost every industry an amenity ; when it has served its purpose it becomes a dangerous waste product which may threaten our health, our agriculture, our fisheries ; in flood it is a direct menace to life and property. Its uses and abuses are so universal and so pervade our lives that of all our natural resources it cries out for national measures of co-ordination. Yet of all things it has been the most neglected.
Economic planners might say that the reason is that we have not yet seen the light. It would be nearer the truth to say that we have let it go out. A century and a half ago, when agriculture was the mainstay of our economy and the canals were in their prime, Ideas for a national water policy began to circulate. For example, Mr. William Tatham, a political economist, published a study of the question. He proposed a grandiose project, nothing less than a "water grid" stretching from top to bottom of the country, with 1,500 miles of trunk mains linking all the gathering grounds, with 600 steam engines at £2,000 apiece and 600 superintendents to work them. To this system all the canals were to be connected. Water was to be led into every house. The canals were to be used as feeders for a great development of irrigation, a subject Mr. Tatham had studied abroad as' well as at home. The whole scheme was a "means to increase the population, wealth and revenue of the kingdom, by an agricultural, commercial and general economy in the use of water." He would not be content till every drop of water in every river had done its duty in one way or another before it was allowed to reach the sea.
In principle his idea of bringing water under national co-ordina- tion was sound enough, though the project itself was a piece of flamboyancy. As an economic planner he has many spiritual great-
grandchildren today. The difference is that he wasn't allowed to get away with it, while we decided in 1945 to give it a trial, and are now learning the hard way. Not even the idea of some real measure of national co-ordination survived from Tatham's times. The switch away from agriculture towards industry changed the whole outlook. Water-supply developed on the arbitrary basis of Local Authority boundaries, diverted from wherever was most con- venient to the rapidly growing industrial centres. The interests of land-drainage, fisheries, river-pollution and the like were covered, often quite nominally, by a patchwork of boards, Local Authorities and joint committees bearing little or no relation to the natural lie of the river basins.
Throughout all those generations of unparalleled prosperity we shut our eyes. We waited till the middle of the last war, the greatest crisis in our history when we were fighting for our very survival, and then, in June, 1944, a white paper on the National Water Policy was published. The Water Act was passed in 1945 by the Coalition Government. Meanwhile the ground-work had been laid for a complementary measure, the River Boards Bill which has now been introduced. The first gives powers to the Minister of Health to promote and co-ordinate the proper development of water supplies throughout the country. The second wraps up the existing patchwork of boards and river pollution authorities under combined River Boards whose boundaries are to be the natural river basins. The wheel has turned full circle, and our water resources are at last coming into their own for national treatment as one of our most important national assets.
Tatham was starting with a more or less clean sheet, and there was some excuse for his magnificent visions. Today we face a very different problem. Powers under the new measures are fairly wide, but it would be a mistake to think that anything in the nature of a national "water grid" or any wholesale replanning of the existing systems will be necessary. What is needed is to look at each area with an eye to the natural sources of water and see how the systems we have already got can be adapted and where possible linked up so that each can assist the next and so that the existing sources, reservoirs and distribution networks can perform the fullest and widest service. Measures should be taken to ensure that the dis- tribution networks in each area are brought to the highest efficiency, with pressures made uniform so that in times of shortage water is equitably distributed. All this is a matter for the water authorities themselves under the general co-ordination of the Ministry of Health. But in addition to this the public themselves have a duty.
Enormous quantities of water are wasted by leaky taps and extravagant use of water. It may amount to as much as to per cent., and if this be capitalised in terms of reservoir-capacity, pumping stations and water-mains it represents a vast unnecessary sinkage of capital. It lies within the power of every member of the public to make a direct contribution to economy in capital expendi- ture, here and now. Perhaps we get our water too cheaply. What other commodity can be bought, ready processed and available at a second's notice right inside every house, for 6d. a ton or less ?
It will be some time before the River Boards are fully operative, but they, too, have a big programme of work ahead to improve the regimen of the rivers in the interest! of all users whether from the point of view of land-drainage, fisheries, industry, flood-prevention or pollution. Irrigation is not much heard of nowadays, and in many parts of the country the sluices and channels which used to water the meadows in days past have fallen into disuse and decay. Perhaps this, too, ought to find some place in the national water policy, in which the Minister of Health and the Minister of Agri- culture and Fisheries are partners. In addition to new works, there are great arrears of maintenance to be made up. A properly balanced programme over the whole field of water interests will pay attention first to those measures, whether of maintenance or new works, which will increase the efficiency of the existing systems. Probably a given sum of money can do more good in a mass of comparatively minor works of this nature than if devoted to a relatively few major works, spectacular though the latter may be.
We do not yet know how the curtailed capital investment plan will hit the national water policy. It has been stated that new works
will be severely restricted, but there is as much danger in unintelli- gent cutting in the future as there was in the unintelligent boosting of the past. " Will anybody compare the idle Pyramids, or those other useless though much-renowned works of the Greeks, with these aqueducts, these indispensable structures ? " That was the capital investments policy of Sextus Julius Frontinus, who was Water Commissioner of the City of Rome in A.D. 97. With some slight adjustments it can be recommended for A.D. 1947. If one could be confident that the Government will really stop swamping our economy with latter-day Pyramids and other useless though much-renowned works and let the engineers and industries concerned settle down to a steady programme of the really essential structures, with common-sense business principles as a guide instead of the text-books of politico-economic theory, we could look forward with a good deal more confidence to getting a fair supply of water in our bathrooms (pace Mr. Gaitskell) and keeping the coal in our cellars dry (if the Minister of Fuel and Power gives us any).
Frontinus never read a text-book of economic theory in his life ; but he knew how to build waterworks. Terms like " inflationary pressure " couldn't have meant less to him ; but he knew what pays and what doesn't. That is something no two economists seem able to agree on, while the Government's plans change so often that no one ever has time to catch up with them. Economic " let's pretend" is a played-out sport. We already have the Water Act. The River Boards Bill is on the way. What we common folk get out of them for our money depends upon how the national water policy fares in the frolics of political " Snakes and Ladders " to which our economy is unhappily subordinate.
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