PRIVATE VS. PUBLIC INTEREST. 325 



ness 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 interests, examined every side of it here presented for 

 consideration, and have thus early mapped off a system of irri 

 gation for at least one of the great valleys of the State (the San 

 Joaquin), of the most comprehensive character. This has been con 

 templated simply as an investment. Money is rarely public spirited 

 or patriotic. It moves in the channels of good investments and large 

 interests. It is a mistake of its possessor if it gets out of these 

 channels. You may therefore rest assured that these capitalists 

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



As before stated, in Northern Italy, as in India, the government 

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

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

 Baird Smith, w r ho is a standard authority on irrigation, &quot;The grant 

 of such material as water, the value of which must necessarily go 

 on augmenting with the progress of agriculture, is an injustice 

 toward the government and people. * * * * Hence I am dis 

 tinctly 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 country, on the 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 particularly in Lombardy, than that the self 

 ishness of the grantees of water in perpetuity has been one of the 

 most serious obstacles to the development of irrigation.&quot; 



&quot;Acting on the principle that they had the 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.&quot; 



&quot;But an agriculture,&quot; continues our authority, &quot; founded under 

 such an arbitrary system, cannot advance.&quot; 



M. Giovanetti, a distinguished Italian lawyer 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: &quot;Nor does the State claim 

 the water as a patrimony for the community, but simply to place be 

 yond the reach of private appropriation all that was naturally de 

 signed for the common good.&quot; 



As respects California irrigation, this in time will be another of 

 the problems of doubtful solution. Here under our laws the owner 

 ship of the water of the unnavigable streams of the State can be 

 acquired by the first appropriator. No legislation at this time could 

 change this rule, or afford an ample remedy, for much of the water 

 is already in private hands. 



The only power, then, left in the State, and one which sooner or 

 later it must exercise, is to regulate the use and the price of water 

 for irrigation, not with the view of making the property in water 

 less valuable, but to avoid oppression and discrimination, and thus 

 make it, like all public enterprises, of value to the whole people. 



