FOOTNOTES:
[106] The Pall Mall Gazette had quoted part of the preceding letter, and had spoken of "a remedy which Mr. Ruskin himself appears to contemplate, though he describes it in rather a nebulous manner."
[107] "A Talk respecting Verona and its Rivers," February 4, 1870. (See Proceedings of the Royal Institution, vol. vi. p. 55. The report of the lecture was also printed by the Institution in a separate form; pp. 7.) The lecture concluded thus: "Further, without in the least urging my plans impatiently on any one else, I know thoroughly that this [the protection against inundations] which I have said should be done, can be done, for the Italian rivers, and that no method of employment of our idle able-bodied laborers would be in the end more remunerative, or in the beginnings of it more healthful and every way beneficial than, with the concurrence of the Italian and Swiss governments, setting them to redeem the valleys of the Ticino and the Rhone. And I pray you to think of this; for I tell you truly—you who care for Italy—that both her passions and her mountain streams are noble; but that her happiness depends not on the liberty, but the right government of both."
[From "The Daily Telegraph," February 4, 1871.]
THE WATERS OF COMFORT.
To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."
Sir: I did not see your impression of yesterday until too late to reply to the question of your correspondent in Rome;[108] and I am hurried to-day; but will send you to-morrow a precise statement of what I believe can be done in the Italian uplands. The simplest and surest beginning would be the purchase, either by the Government or by a small company formed in Rome, of a few plots of highland in the Apennines, now barren for want of water, and valueless; and the showing what could be made of them by terraced irrigation such as English officers have already introduced in many parts of India. The Agricultural College at Cirencester ought, I think, to be able to send out two or three superintendents, who would direct rightly the first processes of cultivation, choosing for purchase good soil in good exposures, and which would need only irrigation to become fruitful; and by next summer, if not by the end of this, there would be growing food for men and cattle where now there is only hot dust; and I do not think there would be much further question "where the money was to come from." The real question is only, "Will you pay your money in advance for what is actually new land added to the kingdom of living Italy?" or "Will you pay it under call from the Tiber every ten or twenty years as the price of the work done by the river for your destruction?"
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. Ruskin.
Oxford, Feb. 3.