THE NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS 329 



reserves, and the revocable system of leasing is, of course, not a satisfac- 

 tory one for the purpose of inviting the capital needed to put in proper 

 plants for the transmutation of power. 



The statute of 1891 with its amendments permits the secretary of 

 the interior to grant perpetual easements or rights of way from water 

 sources over public lands for the primary purpose of irrigation and such 

 electrical current as may be incidentally developed, but no grant can be 

 made under this statute to concerns whose primary purpose is gener- 

 ating and handling electricity. The statute of 1901 authorizes the 

 secretary of the interior to issue revocable permits over the public lands 

 to electrical-power companies, but this statute is wofully inadequate 

 because it does not authorize the collection of a charge or fix a term of 

 years. Capital is slow to invest in an enterprise founded on a permit 

 revocable at will. 



The subject is one that calls for new legislation. It has been 

 thought that there was danger of combination to obtain possession of 

 all the power sites and to unite them under one control. Whatever the 

 evidence of this, or lack of it, at present we have had enough experience 

 to know that combination would be profitable, and the control of a great 

 number of power sites would enable the holders or owners to raise the 

 price of power at will within certain sections ; and the temptation would 

 promptly attract investors, and the danger of monopoly would not be a 

 remote one. 



However this may be, it is the plain duty of the government to see 

 to it that in the utilization and development of all this immense amount 

 of water power, conditions shall be imposed that will prevent monopoly, 

 and will prevent extortionate charges, which are the accompaniment of 

 monopoly. The difficulty of adjusting the matter is accentuated by 

 the relation of the power sites to the water, the fall and flow of which 

 create the power. In the states where these sites are the riparian owner 

 does not control or own the power in the water which flows past his 

 land. That power is under the control and within the grant of the 

 state, and generally the rule is that the first user is entitled to the 

 enjoyment. Now, the possession of the bank or water-power site over 

 which the water is to be conveyed in order to make the power useful, 

 gives to its owner an advantage and a certain kind of control over the 

 use of the water power, and it is proposed that the government in deal- 

 ing with its own lands should use this advantage and lease lands 

 for power sites to those who would develop the power, and impose con- 

 ditions on the leasehold with reference to the reasonableness of the rates 

 at which the power, when transmuted, is to be furnished to the public, 

 and forbidding the union of the particular power with a combination 

 of others made for the purpose of monopoly by forbidding assignment 

 of the lease save by consent of the government. Serious difficulties are 



VOL. LXXVII. — 23. 



