To benefit the rural interest the governor proposed a grand scheme of irrigation. An eminent engineer, Major Cotton, was employed to report on the subject, and suggested the detention of the waters of the vast lakes which overflow from the heights of the western mountains. A rate to be imposed on the various estates was to discharge the cost. Thus in those seasons of drought which sometimes occur the lowlands would be made increasingly fertile. The immediate object--the employment of probation labor at the colonial cost--detracted something from the charms of the project. Nor did it seem just that the settlers should risk the ultimate cost of an undertaking they could not limit. Sir E. Wilmot earnestly recommended the scheme to the home government, but Lord Stanley hesitated until the evils of the probation system enforced a change, and lessened the labor at the disposal of the crown. Had the men been employed on a work so popular they would have been withdrawn from the colonial eye, and the interest of their new labors might have extinguished the prevailing discontent. But while the governor waited for instructions the men were idle, or employed in useless attempts at cultivation on barren land, of which the produce rarely defrayed the cost of the implements destroyed. The charge for police and gaols had always been borne by the legislative council with impatience. The estimates were accompanied by an annual protest against entailing on the colony any pecuniary consequence of British crime. But when the convict labor was withdrawn from the roads, and new taxes demanded, the time arrived for the most decided resistance, and the event proved that the councillors who refused their consent acted with prudence. The minister himself was compelled to own at last, that the exaction of twenty shillings per head for police, was unexampled in civilised governments.