Abstract
During the reign of Rama V, the proclamation of the Canal Administration Law of 1870 and the Canal Construction Law of 1877 provided a development of the new policy on public works. In order to secure water transportation facilities for rice trading, the government directed its efforts to the maintenance of the trunk canals linking the local producing centers with the capital port. Furthermore, the government, recognizing abuses of the land system under the old regime, exercised administrative control over the large scale landholdings and encouraged peasants to open rice fields along the newly-excavated canals. Under these sociopolitical conditions of this period, canal systems, based on the traditional transportation-inundation canals, developed all over the deltaic high region on the east and west banks.
In the 1880's, according to the development, to a certain extent, of a national economy, the character of canal construction chaged remarkably. Land which could be used for rice cultivation began to be recognized as a valuable commodity. So the government began to give permission to wealthy official nobles and Chinese for the excavation of private canals and private ownership of land adjoining them. In the case of dredging of the old canals, executors, mostly Chinese, were permitted also to charge transit taxes on cargo boats using the canals. Most of these privately-financed projects were carried out in the delta flat region where there had been swamp and marsh land not suitable for rice cultivation without canals. This newly-opened land was sold and leased to peasants. It may be said that the landlord-tenant farming near the newly excavated canals indicated by some scholars, was caused by the conditions of reclamation outlined above.
The construction of the canal system based on the traditional transportation-inundation canals including the privately-financed canals, ceased around 1900. The government again brought canal projects under the direct control of the Krom Khlong established for introducing a more effective modern irrigation-transportation system in 1903.
