300 LAND MONOPOLY. 



misrepresentation of facts, -or such a mistake as affects the sub 

 stantial rights of parties, it may be set aside, or a trust de 

 clared, and a conveyance decreed by a court of equity, to be 

 made to the party entitled. 



Another fine opportunity for founding a permament landed 

 aristocracy was given by the State in her management of swamp 

 and overflowed lands. The speculator, having seen that the 

 State proved a better nursing mother to his interests than the 

 United States, was interested in getting the largest possible 

 quantity of land under her jurisdiction. The Surveyor-Gen 

 eral says: &quot; The conflicting claims of the State and the United 

 States for the past ten years, have rendered uncertain the title 

 to a large amount of land sold by the State as swamp and over 

 flowed. Surveys for a large amount of land which the State 

 had previously sold, have been received the re-survey having 

 been made by the second party apparently on the hypothesis 

 that the original sale was illegal. There are also many conflicts 

 caused by two or more surveys having been made for the same 

 tract. In such cases an appeal to the courts is necessary. A 

 large area of land has also been t surveyed and returned to this 

 office as swamp and overflowed which is not shown to be such 

 either by State segregations or United States maps.&quot; Lands 

 are so held to-day, which cannot be cultivated without irriga 

 tion.* 



Under the possessory law of California, which allows both in 

 dividuals and corporations to make some temporary enclosure 

 or abode good for a possessory right, pre-emption settlers have 

 been kept and driven away. Tracts of from two to twenty 

 thousand acres of government land are thus held by State laws. 



Even the tide-lands have not been safe from the operations of 

 the grabber. The Surveyor-General says: &quot;In some cases 

 long, narrow strips were surveyed by the owners of the adja 

 cent high lands, to protect themselves; but often these surveys 

 were made in the interest of parties who did not own any land 

 in the vicinity, evidently with the view of obtaining control of 

 the water front.&quot; 



More than seven hundred and fifty thousand acres of East 

 ern Agricultural College Scrip has been located in California. 

 Realizing too little from the munificent scheme of the national 



*The leader who desires to know more oi th.s mibj^ct is referred to the &quot;Reports of the 

 JMnt Conuuittees on Swamp and Overflowed Lands and Land Monopoly,&quot; presented at the 

 Twentieth Session of the Legislature of California. 



