194 Transactions op tiie 



a grand scale, wo can realize how difficult it is to avoid a monopoty of 

 this character; for every exclusive right necessarily amounts to a 



monopoly. 



What can he done, and ought to he done, is to regulate its use and its 

 price by legislation; not to prohibit or limit its use. There is a labor 

 side to this question that can be only protected by legislation. Labor 

 is weak and divided, and must be protected. Capital is strong and united, 

 and can protect itself. The people, at this time, would undoubtedly 

 object to the State, or, the counties of the State, taking an interest in 

 this enterprise. The subject is new to us; the profit not understood, or 

 at least uncertain; the work vast and expensive; the interest local, as 

 it could afford but a small advantage to the mining counties; therefore, 

 private capital must he chiefly looked to for this purpose. 



Already, some of the most wealthy, shrewd, and enterprising business 

 men of the coast have given this subject a start in the right direction. 



They have, with the usual forethought and care of large moneyed in- 

 terests, examined every side of it that I am presenting for your consid- 

 eration, and have thus early mapped off a system of irrigation for at 

 least one of the great valleys of the State (the San Joaquin), of the 

 most comprehensive character. 



This has been contemplated simply as an investment. Money is rarely 

 public spirited or patriotic. It moves in the channels of good invest- 

 ments and large interests. It is a mistake of its possessor if it gets out 

 of these channels. You may therefore rest assured that these capital- 

 ists knew the value of this enterprise before they embarked in it. 



As before stated, in Northern Italy, as in India, the Government pos- 

 sess the right of property in all running waters. In Lombardy, grants 

 of the water in perpetuity have been made; but, says Captain Baird 

 Smith, who is a standard authority on irrigation: " The grant of such 

 material as water, the value of which must necessarily go on augment- 

 ing with the progress of agriculture, irrigation is an act of injustice 

 toward the Government and people. * * * * Hence I am distinctly 

 of the opinion that for the Government of India to follow the example 

 of Lombardy in parting forever with its right of property in the waters 

 of the countrj T on receipt of sums which cannot possibly represent the 

 real value of the article, would be unwise, not only as regards its own 

 interests, but also those of the irrigating community. For there is no 

 point better established by experience in Northern Italy, and particu- 

 larly in Lombar ly, than that the selfishness of the grantees of water in 

 perpetuity has been one of the most serious obstacles to the develop- 

 ment of irrigation." 



"Acting on the principal that they had a right to do what they liked 

 with their own, they were in the habit of arbitrarily suspending the 

 supplies of water to some, of increasing as they saw fit the prices to be 

 paid by others, and in a word pushing to its utmost limits the right of 

 absolute property purchased by them from the State." 



"But an agriculture," continues our authority, "founded under such 

 an arbitrary system, cannot advance." 



M. Giovanitti, a distinguished Italian law} T er and statesman, traces 

 with a master hand the history of property in water in Italy; and after 

 showing that the State claimed no property, as such, in the bed of the 

 river or islands, he says: "Nor does the State claim the water as a 

 patrimony for the community, but simply to place beyond the reach of 

 private appropriation all that was naturally designed for the common 

 good." 



