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THE WASTED WATERS OF WALES WALES is rich in water-power but, except to a very W small extent, that power is unharnessed and un- used, and a source of national wealth is neglected and allowed to run to waste. To this condition of things the existence, in both North and South Wales, of an abundant coal-supply no doubt largely conduces but nothing can excuse what a well-known Welsh M.P. the other day described to me as the criminal indifference which has characterised the attitude of the people of Wales towards one of the country's most valuable possessions. Water-wheels have long been known in the land, but the general decay into which such machinery has fallen only serves to demonstrate to what a large extent irf rural districts water-power has become a thing of the past, for the use of water-turbines is practically unknown. This in a country which Nature has endowed with splendid rivers like the Dee and the Severn, the Wye and the Towy. and where streams of lesser note and volume abound on every hand, is deplorable. Nor does Wales stand alone in this neglect of a most valuable national asset. Matters are little, if any, better in the rest of the British Isles, and, as a result, water-power is becoming less and less used. According to a recent writer in the Engineering Supplement of The Times, water-engineers of any standing are practically non- existent as a profession, whilst the manufacture of water- power- machinery has been steadily passing into the hands of our Continental neighbours. Though things have been improving latterly in this respect (a turbine of 8,000 horse- power was completed a few days ago in this country for one of our colonies), there are no British makers of water-turbines seriously comparable as yet with the great Continental builders of water-power units. But it is not with the non-manufacture in England of water-power machinery that I am concerned, but with the neglect of water-power in Wales. It is now a common- but sad-sight throughout the Principality to see mills, weirs, dams, reservoirs and water-courses disused and steadily decaying and falling into ruins. And yet the demand and need for power-driven machinery was never so great as it is to-day. In the large majority of cases no attempt is made to adopt the mill and its power-actual and potential-to other or altered uses. In some cases water-power as a whole is actually regarded as played out; and, instead of the useful but obsolete old water-wheel being replaced by the turbine or other hydro-mechanical contrivance, the driving power so necessary to the farmer, the miller, the sawyer, the manufacturer, the machinist, is obtained, at considerable initial outlay and increasing running charges, by means of a steam-or petrol-driven engine. For the working of this, fuel has to be imported, often at great expense, whilst Nature's motor-power close at hand is allowed to run to waste. Is it any wonder then that local industries which, in times past, have supported entire communities and contributed to the nation's well- being are dying out in rural Wales and not being replaced by others ? Or that farmers who have abandoned the use of the now despised streams which run through their farm- yards have-mainly through lack of available guidance as to how to harness them-installed petrol engines in their farmsteads, only now to find themselves in sore straits owing to the scarcity and prohibitive prices of motor spirit ? How far this neglect of hydro-electric engineering in the educational institutions of our country, and in the workshops and engineering works not merely of Wales but also of England, has gone was illustrated not many years ago when the New Zealand Government required the services of an engineer to supervise all their water-power schemes. He had to be of British birth and the choice ultimately fell, through lack of men with a more suitable training, upon one who had specialised not on water-power, but on steam-power. Water-power engineers of long training and of British birth were not available. Con- sidering that great water-power schemes are, or soon will be, needed in all parts of the British Empire-in New Zealand, in Tasmania (where one of some 40,000 h.p. is already under construction), in Burmah and the Malay States, in India and in Egypt, above all in Africa, as well as in Australia, where the utilisation of the Murray River constitutes one of the greatest of problems for Australian statesmen, in Canada where the wealth of the lakes and rivers is immeasurable-this lack of water-power engineers of British birth will assuredly prove-indeed already is-a very serious matter. For it should not be forgotten that with the engineer rests the placing of the orders for the machinery which is to carry out his scheme-orders which, in most cases nowadays in connection with works of any magnitude, are either placed abroad, or, if executed in this country, are carried out under the supervision of con- tinental engineers, some of whom are by no means friendly to British interests. But in Wales the subject is essentially a domestic and national one. Valuable power, which might be put to a hundred different uses in factories, in farmhouses, in dwelling houses and on our streets, exists in nearly every part of the country. But it is being allowed to run to waste for lack of even elementary knowledge as to how to use it, and that, too, at the very time when increased local milling is urgently needed in order to deal with the home-grown wheat and produce the offal so badly needed for cattle feeding, etc. Again and again one hears the question put — I have a good deal of water-power on my land; what use can I make of it ? Or, sometimes, the need is expressed in these terms-U I have an old water-mill on my estate; the miller is getting old and will soon be giving up but there is no one to take his place, for everyone tells me the days of the local corn-mill are over. What then, am I to do with the mill and the valuable water-power behind it?" On an answer being forthcoming to such questions as these the future of many a thriving little local industry, and consequently the prosperity of a community, sometimes depends as the following illustration shows. The Welsh M.P. to whom I have already referred told me the following story the other day. I give it in his own words A quarry employing a considerable number of men was in danger of having to dose down owing to lack-not of water-power but of knowledge as to how best to utilise it. Two reservoirs, one a large one and the other a smaller one at a lower level, had failed