All parts of Egypt are to benefit in a greater or less degree from the extra summer supply. The original calculation assumed an amount to be distributed of 1,065,000,000 cubic metres. It was allotted as follows:
| Cubic Metres. | |
|---|---|
| South of Assiout | 170,000,000 |
| Assiout to Cairo with the Fayoum | 510,000,000 |
| Gizeh Province | 85,000,000 |
| Lower Egypt | 300,000,000 |
This division meant that 52,000 acres could be reclaimed to cultivation in the Fayoum, and 120,000 acres in the Delta. Further, south of Assiout 200,000 acres could be converted to perennial irrigation by means of pumps upon the Nile banks. In Middle Egypt 458,000 acres could be converted to perennial irrigation, and in Gizeh Province 106,000.
A low Nile on the average comes about once in five years, but assuming that it happened every year, these results may be expressed in terms of money on the basis that conversion to perennial irrigation increases the yield per acre by £2 annually, and that reclaimed land produces a yield valued at £5 annually. This gives an increase of value in the annual yield:
| £E | |
|---|---|
| South of Assiout | 420,000 |
| Middle Egypt and Fayoum | 1,176,000 |
| Gizeh Province | 212,000 |
| Lower Egypt | 600,000 |
| Total | £E2,408,000 |
while the direct annual gain to the State Exchequer in rental and taxation would amount to £E378,400.
This does not exhaust the full extent of the benefits of the Reservoir on which a money value can be placed. For some time Egypt had been living beyond her real resources in the matter of water. Encouraged by a series of good years, the acreage of cotton had been greatly extended. The cotton-plant is very hardy, and can retain its vitality for a certain period on a very scanty and irregular supply of water. Cultivators, especially in the Delta, had taken advantage of this quality up to the very hilt, and the annual crop had reached an amount of 6,000,000 kantars.
Taking the not very high price of 175 piastres per kantar (1 kantar = nearly 100 pounds), the annual value reached £10,000,000. A season like that of 1889, when the summer supply was very low, and not the lowest on record, would mean the loss of at least one-tenth of this amount, and even more, in spite of the most successful working of the Barrage, and the most careful system of rotations. Against such a loss the Reservoir is a complete insurance, and, as a low year cannot safely be reckoned as occurring less than once in five years, the annual value of such insurance must be set down as £200,000. The figures give some idea of the value of the new supply. The estimate does not err on the side of exaggeration. It was framed in the most cautious and conservative manner possible, and, in fact, it would be by no means rash to put the total annual value a good deal higher.
According to the financial arrangement, the first payment towards defraying the cost of the works was included in the budget for 1903, but no fresh taxation for the purpose was to be imposed till 1904, and even then the full amount of direct benefit to the Exchequer will not be realized till 1910. Time is thus given for the full effects of the change to be felt, and the Reservoir will be paid for out of its own profits. The alteration of the basin lands to the new system must take some time, and their cultivators will thus be given full opportunity to familiarize themselves with the new methods of agriculture which they will have to employ.
The scheme of distribution allotted nearly 50 per cent. of the Reservoir supply to the Fayoum and the province between Assiout and Cairo. Just south of Assiout is the head of the great Ibrahimiyah Canal, which not only supplies these provinces, but also feeds the Bahr Yusuf, which waters the Fayoum. It was necessary, in view of the increased discharge, to widen the upper reaches of this canal, and to provide it with a new regulating head. But more than this was required to insure its receiving the proper proportion of water whenever the sluice-gates of the Dam were opened. Accordingly, at the same time that the foundations of the Dam at Assouan were laid, a new Barrage was begun at Assiout just downstream of the head of the Ibrahimiyah Canal.