This Irade Was Issued Upon The Plea That All
Natural Waters (I.E. Streams) Belong To The Sultan.
A wide field for
litigation was thus opened, and the Greek, having more than the usual
allowance of "the
Wisdom of the serpent," lost no time in investing
large sums in the corruption of all those who would be summoned as local
witnesses whenever the case should be brought before the ordinary
tribunals. The result was that after great expense in the costs of
litigation, an appeal to the superior court during the British
administration had been favourable to the plaintiffs, and the Greek
proprietor was held to be legally in possession of all water-rights, to
the exclusion of the original owners. He, however offered to supply them
with water for their farms at a fixed rate; whereas they had hitherto
enjoyed that free right for upwards of a century. This loss, or
abstraction, of so important a supply, upon which the actual existence
of the farms depended in seasons of drought, not only impoverished the
cultivators during the present year of famine, but reduced the value of
their land to an enormous extent, as farms with a water-supply are worth
more than quadruple the price of those which are dependent upon the
seasons. Of course I could not help the poor people; it appeared to my
uneducated sense of equity to be the maximum of injustice. The question
hung upon the Sultan's right to the natural water-supply, which I
believe has been officially declared invalid; by what other right the
monopoly of the water had been conveyed away from the original
proprietors I could not understand. The Greek was not enjoying his
victory in absolute peace of mind, as the neighbouring farmers avenged
their legal defeat by cutting holes in the embankments of his
watercourses, and thereby nightly flooding their own fields, which, as
the channels extended for many miles, would have required the presence
of more than all the police of the district to discover the offenders.
Upon one occasion upwards of forty of these people appeared mounted upon
mules around my camp, to urge my intercession on their behalf, declaring
their perfect faith in the honour and good intentions of the English
authorities, but at the same time lamenting their ignorance of the
native language, which threw the entire power into the hands of the
dragomans (interpreters), of whose character they spoke in terms which
it is to be hoped were highly exaggerated. The people begged me to ride
over to the locality, to see with my own eyes the position of affairs;
which I arranged to do sine die, and after advising them to exercise a
temporary patience, I got rid of the deputation without suggesting "that
under the existing agrarian dispute they should let their farms to some
enterprising Irish tenants from Tipperary."
I mention this incident, which is one of many others upon the same
subject, to exhibit the complications that have always arisen from the
contention upon water-rights, that will require some special
legislation.
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