A NEW COUNTY. T HE Daily Chronicle, in its search for
projects which would provide work for the unemployed, has revived the scheme for making a new county out of the Wash, with which Sir John Rennie fascinated England fifty years ago. Under his plan 150,000 acres of land—more than the whole of the present Crown lands—would ultimately be added to England, and land as good as that of the Fens, which is as good as any in England. The i Fens were originally what the Wash s now, and there- fore the comparison is a fair one. The Daily Chronicle is naturally greatly attracted by the scheme. The unem- ployed might, it thinks, do the work of reclamation, and when that was done, it would be possible to carve the new county into small holdings. Here would, indeed, be a Socialist paradise, the very ground being created by the direct action of the State, and the in- habitants State tenants. It would be as perfect a piece of nationalisation as heart could desire, and all pro- duced by the unemployed. We fear, however, that a very little consideration must show that the plan of using the unemployed is delusive. You could no more reclaim the Wash by the labour of the unemployed than you could have dug the Manchester Ship Canal by such labour. Great engineering works can only be done efficiently and quickly by the employment of first-class labour. The very first thing a, contractor thinks of when he undertakes a really big job, is bow to get men of muscle, go, and energy to do the hard manual labour—men on whose physique he can depend in those cases of strain and difficulty which occur in every great engineering work. But these men are not to be found among the unemployed. Remember the result of Mr. Shaw Lefevre's experiment in pulling down Millbank Prison. Though the contractors gave a great deal of supervision gratis, and paid only very small wages to the un- employed, it would have answered better to have employed regular and capable workmen at high pay. If the plan of doing a great engineering work by the unemployed were to be attempted, what would happen would probably be this. The contractors would say, "If you make no conditions, we will do the work for so many millions. If, however, you force us to use an inefficient class of labour, we can- not do it under so much." Under such circumstances, the nation would probably conclude that it would be better to save the difference on the two sums, and to give doles to the unemployed. And even if a bona fide attempt were made to use the labour of the unemployed by doing with- out contractors, it would probably break down. After six months the engineers in charge would say, "If this job is ever to be finished, you must let us have efficient labour, and not the listless, half-hearted work of broken men."
As a, plan for getting rid of the unemployed, we may, then, leave the proposal for draining the Wash out of con- sideration. If suitable work is ever found for them, it will be piecemeal and. in small lots, and not in a gigantic engineering enterprise. It remains, however, to consider the proposal from other points of view,—those of a com- mercial speculation and a feat of engineering. Would the new county be worth what it would cost to call it into existence ? That is a very difficult problem ; but if, as is stated, land reclaimed from the Wash in the course of the last forty years or so is worth from 30s. to 40s, an acre to rent, and £40 an acre to buy, even at depressed prices, the answer must be "Yes." If by spending £2,000,000 —the sum stated—and waiting some fifteen years for the silting process to complete itself, 150,000 acres of land can be obtained, which will pay 30s. an acre, i.e., £225,000 a year, it is clearly worth some one's while to do the work. But this is not the whole of the benefit that it is asserted would be derived from the reclamation of the Wash. It is claimed in addition that the scheme would enormously benefit the present Fen district, which covers 900,000 acres. Of these, 100,000 acres are at present very ineffectively and expensively drained by means of steam-engines, in some cases at a cost of 10s. or 12s. per acre. The treatment of the Fen rivers under Sir John Rennie's scheme for reclaiming the Wash would, it is asserted, provide for "the complete natural drainage" of the Fens. Next, the four ports on the Wash, Boston, Spalding, Sutton Bridge, and Lynn, would be so much improved that the cost .of freight to and from these places would be very much decreased. The deepening of the river channels, which is part of the scheme, would admit of vessels of the largest size reaching those ports. Further, it is said—though no details as to this are given by the Daily Chronicle—that the carrying out of the scheme would involve the creation of a much-needed harbour of refuge and roadstead. But if the Fen district were to contribute in consideration of its drainage being done for it, and the four ports just named were also to pay for the improve- ment in the channels by which they are connected with the sea, the chance of the improvement really pay- ing would be greatly increased. Why, then, should not a. Company be formed with the right, not only to let or sell the reclaimed land, but to charge the Fen districts so much —to be levied like the old drainage-rate—for draining of their surplus water, and also to levy certain dues on the shipping passing to the ports of the Wash ? If a Company could be induced to undertake the work, it would be a sign that the work was worth undertaking. If not, there would be something very like proof that the scheme was unsound financially. A word must be said upon the modus operands pro- posed by Sir John Rennie. Our readers must not suppose that the plan is to treat the Wash like a great puddle,—that is, to throw a huge dam across the mouth of the Wash, and then pump out the water. That might answer with a certain kind, of lagoon, but not with an estuary like the Wash, into which four rivers flow. As we understand it, the situation is this. The Wash is an expanse of low-lying land only completely covered_ by the sea at high-tide. There is a natural tendency for the soil held in solution in the tide-water to be deposited and for the estuary to silt up ; but this process is disturbed by the action of the rivers, whose currents pre- vent the deposit of the soil. The rivers are always shifting their channels, and so spoiling the process of settlement which goes on in those parts of the Wash where the tidal water is left to itself. The plan proposed is to confine the four rivers first in deep artificial channels of their own, and then in one large artificial channel in the centre of the Wash. When this has been done, the process of silting up in all the creeks and inlets, and on the sandbanks, will go on without interruption. In other words, what will happen will be this. The rivers will, with regularity and despatch, bring down their alluvial matter to the sea. The sea will receive this alluvial matter, and, augmenting it by its own washings from the Yorkshire coast, will, by means of the tide, deposit soil in even layers on the Wash. Further, human ingenuity will assist this process by various devices. Apparently Sir John Rennie calculated that if the rivers were properly controlled, and the beneficent work of the soil-laden tide properly assisted, it would not take more than fifteen years to complete the reclamation of 160,000 acres. That these 150,000 acres would ultimately be worth having seems probable. The making of a new outfall for the river Nene, according to the Daily Chronicle, allowed of the creation of some "5,000 acres of splendid land" by this semi-natural process. As we have said above, the real—indeed the only—question is, Will it pay ? If it will, then there should be no difficulty in getting a Company to undertake the work ; for a Company would manage far more economically than a Govern- ment Department. If it will not pay as a com- mercial speculation, it would be as criminal an act to undertake it as to tax the food of the people in order to keep the villagers on the land. It would be a waste of the national wealth ; and a waste of the national wealth means an injury to every man, woman, and child in the country. Any plan for finding work for the people which is not sound commercially is a form of Protection, and against it are available all the arguments that destroyed the Corn-laws and the old tariff. Socialism and Protection have economically the same base. They differ a little in appearance, but the man who proposes great public works, not because they are wanted, and would pay, but to find employment, is only asking for 111c1Cinleyism under an alias.
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