THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



lands into beautiful fields and orchards, there is no 

 use attempting to conceal the fact that the business 

 of irrigation development, as distinct from irrigation 

 itself, and by whatever form of enterprise attempted, 

 has, as a whole, in this country, thus far proved unre- 

 munerative, and quite frequently disastrous. It may 

 be said that the reason is found in the wave of gene- 

 ral depression in all business, which overtook this 

 industry just as it might have resulted differently. 

 In some cases, doubtless, this is so; as a rule, the 

 writer maintains, it is not. The prevailing disap- 

 pointment in irrigation enterprise and investment is 

 broadly attributable to defective irrigation laws, and 

 bad organization and management and scamp engi- 

 neering under them. Irrigation itself has been 

 triumphant. With those to whom these articles may 

 have special interest, it needs no vindication nor up- 

 holding. And, for the general public, its praises are 

 now being well spread throughout the country by the 

 facile pens of able and popular writers. But why 

 are investors in irrigation works and securities disap- 

 pointed, by and large? This is the question. Let us 

 get down and walk and examine the road and the 

 foundations on which it is builded. 



RIGHTS, ASSOCIATION AND CONTROL. 



The ownership of water in common by the people, 

 the association of people, locally, to promote the use 

 of and manage the distribution of water, and the 

 supervision, broadly, by the state, of sources and 

 courses holding community waters, and of diversions 

 therefrom, as I have in a former article shown, are 

 fundamentally accompanying parts of all civil law 

 water systems. Because under the common law 

 waters are not a common property of the people, the 

 idea of communal association for their local use does 

 not follow as a logical sequence; and for this and 

 other reasons heretofore given, state or governmental 

 supervision of streams and diversions, is generally, in 

 common law countries, at first thought to be not only 

 unnecessary, but unjust interference with the privi- 

 leges of riparian proprietors and appropriation water- 

 right holders. 



It does not follow, however, in these common law 

 countries, where water is a public thing, subject to 

 taking by any who may have access to it. that associa- 

 tion for local promotion and control of its use is not 

 equally desirable and necessary as where the funda- 

 mental principle of its ownership directly suggests 

 such organization. Nor does there appear to be any 

 point in the common law which might conflict with 

 such community associations as exist for this purpose 

 in countries under civil law. Nevertheless, during 

 the earlier stages of development of countries which 

 have adopted the common law there seems in- 

 variably to have been a very active opposition to the 

 introduction of those forms of organization. Ap- 

 parently this is due to the prejudice of large land 

 owners, the selfishness of men who seek to profit in 

 private enterprise to the exclusion of community 

 effort, and the public's lack of experience of such 

 communal association. 



Precisely the same may be said of state super- 

 vision. Under the common law status of water 

 ownership the conclusion does not follow, logically, 

 as a part of a line of reasoning, that the state must 

 maintain an administration of streams and water 

 diversions therefrom. The fundamental starting 

 point the people's community of property in water 

 separate from streams does not exist. 



But though this reason is absent, there is an equal, 



if not greater necessity, in the public interest, for 

 both, "association" and "control,'' as respects irriga- 

 tion, under the common law rule. If water is practi- 

 cally that class of property, like birds and wild 

 beasts whose ownership is in no one until surrounded 

 and captured fenced in and "preserved,'' as it were, 

 by riparian proprietors or diverted and "bagged,' 1 

 so to speak, by appropriators then is there all the 

 more necessity for those persons who must use water 

 in irrigation, but who cannot individually compass 

 the end of supplying if, associating themselves 

 together for that purpose to join in the chase to do 

 some capturing, as it were, for themselves or, more 

 plainly, become appropriators, collectively, on their 

 own account. And, if this is the basis we are to go 

 on if water is practically rts nullius, the property of 

 no one, like the wild beast or bird to be hunted or 

 trapped by rival huntsmen, called by the law "appro- 

 priators,'' then in place of the beneficent supervision 

 of the people's common property by the administra- 

 tion of streams, we must have a police of waters, a 

 control to prevent these eager (naturally and com- 

 mendably enterprising) huntsmen from coming in 

 conflict, to the public detriment, or unnecessarily or 

 wantonly killing the game, as it were. 



For, this water beast is a curious thing; it keeps on 

 running after it is caught. It is a long-drawn-out 

 animal, whose possession is never quite in hand. It 

 must continue to run at large in the public stream, 

 yearly to re-enter its captor's trap. Even though 

 once caught and identified, it cannot be branded so 

 as to make the annual "rodeo" 1 reclamation and 

 separating of herds, so to speak a peaceful function 

 among the claimants; the taking has to be done all 

 over again each season. This sort of thing leads to 

 trouble; the weak say they are oppressed, the honest 

 claim they are robbed, the first come are first served, 

 in public opinion, regardless of right or justice. 

 There is turmoil. Unsettled conditions prevail. The 

 courts become clogged with disputes which should 

 never have reached them. The "frozen-out" get out 

 and abuse irrigation as an institution. Monopoly, 

 termed "consolidation of interests," ensues. A law 

 and custom which admits of abuse is taken advan- 

 tage of by dishonest promoters and schemers. Un- 

 sound schemes are floated on the market. The 

 country gets a bad name, popularly. "There is no 

 demand for lands." All irrigation enterprise, the 

 good with the bad, is paralyzed. 



This sort of thing is preventable. The public, as 

 represented by the states, is the party chiefly at in- 

 terest. A principal prevention and remedy are to be 

 found in state and governmental administration of 

 streams and diversions, and state promotion of asso- 

 ciation effort, and state protection of business enter- 

 prise in irrigation, under a system that will lead 

 irrigation to develop for the advantage of land 

 owners and irrigators, and the protection of business 

 energy and capital legitimately invested in it; and 

 not merely to be the prey, as a whole, of destroying 

 litigation, ill-advised private promotion, scamp en- 

 gineering, and dishonest management, operating in 

 many particular cases. 



THE LOGIC OF ASSOCIATION. 



The logic of association in irrigation may be out- 

 lined as follows: Water in due proportion at stated 

 intervals of time is an absolute necessity to the suc- 

 cess of each cultivator. By nature water is a thing 

 not permanently divisible, or once-for-all distrib- 

 utable. The water must be acquired in bulk and 



