Printed papers on the political situation and military policy in Egypt [‎57v] (114/176)

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324. In addition to these experiments, the Director of the Delta Barrage
continued the successful series of refinements in the measurement of the Nile’s
discharge that have been in progress for several years. The remarkable
experiments at Assouan, which still continue, are referred to later in the section
dealing with the Physical Department. % «
325. The report on the Assouan power scheme, which was referred to in last
year's report, was duly prepared and presented to the Council of Ministers, but
this most useful project is still in suspense. It may involve the concession of
important rights to a commercial concern able to manufacture and market artificial #
fertilisers, and it was felt that, until the administration of the country was in a
more settled state, the final consideration of this question might be temporarily
postponed.
326. Of the total sum of £E. 1,030,000 granted in the budget for new irrigation
works, £E. 400,000 were allotted to the operations upon the White Nile (or Gebel
Aulia) dam. This important work, which is now suspended, has suffered since the
beginning of the war from repeated interruption and delay. In 1919 the project
was like other undertakings affected by the slowness that was everywhere experienced
in the resumption of civil works upon a large scale, and in addition, the disturbed
state of Egypt at that time was prejudicial to an undertaking of the kind. In 1920
it was thought advisable to cease constructional work upon the dam for several
months in order to satisfy public opinion, which had been led to believe that it was
an undertaking which might be disadvantageous, and even dangerous, to Egypt. To
examine the grounds of this belief and, if possible, dispel it was one of the objects
of the Nile Projects Commission which was appointed that year. It was while they
were deliberating that work was stopped, and it was not until midsummer that,
upon the issue by the commission of a favourable interim report, the order could
be given for work to proceed. In 1921, the rise of prices, both of material and
labour, had reached such a point that a new estimate of costs was made : this
amounted to £E. 6,512,750 as against the previous estimate of £E. 2,500,000.
Expenditure since 1917, when the work effectively began, already amounted to
£E. 597,500, but, notwithstanding this, it was felt that there was no option but to
postpone operations, and this was ordered by a Decision of the Council of Ministers
on the 25th May. It may be remarked that, even at these greatly enhanced prices,
the cost rate of the water supplied from the White Nile reservoir would have been
less than that from the reservoir at Assouan, the former being designed to supply
4,000 million cubic metres of water and estimated to cost £E. 6,500,000; the latter *
supplying 2,340 million cubic metres and having cost over £E. 4,750,000.
327. Two other considerations, however, besides the bare fact of the increase
in cost, influenced the decision to stop the work. The first was that, coupled with
the estimate already quoted, was an estimate for other undertakings, forming one
group with the dam, and which, added to the cost of that work, brought the total
proposed expenditure up to £E. 12,000,000. This provided in particular for the
construction of a barrage at Nag Hamadi. The scheme for such a barrage has
always been associated with the project for the Gebel Aulia dam, as it will be
required in order to enable the storage water provided by the dam to be used for
the purpose of converting an area of Upper Egypt from basin to perennial
irrigation. Greater insistence was now, however, laid upon the fact that it would
not be possible to regard such a barrage as a luxury which might wait until the
Gcbel Aulia dam had been completed, the new storage water being used meanwhile
to relieve sundry urgent demands for larger supplies. On the contrary, it was urged
that the barrage and the dam must be built at the same time, because, by the
withdrawal of water from the river in flood annually required to fill the reservoir,
the levels of the river at that time would be lowered, and this lowering would, if
the flood were not a good one, adversely affect the flood crops in the Upper Egypt
basins. This question might have been further examined at the time, had there
not been a second consideration, which made continuance of the work inadvisable :
this was that it seemed inadvisable to proceed further with the damming of the
Nile within Soudan territory at a moment when the local political situation was
so indeterminate. The attacks upon this and other schemes, to which reference was
made in the last report, were finally disposed of early in 1921 by the verdict of a
jury at the Cairo Consular Court, but apart from this it was realised that the fact
that the Gebel Aulia dam would be outside the boundaries of Egypt placed it in ♦ #
a peculiar position, and the Nile Projects Commission in 1920 actually recommended
that, in the future, questions relating to the distribution of the supply of the Nile
should be referred to a joint board representing the various national interests
concerned.