336 THE IRRIGA TION A GE. 



supervisors. And the fact that they may be composed of farmers of 

 the real old honest type does not lessen his fears a particle. He also 

 wants his land under a company that can keep up its works, and knows 

 that the running down of the works means loss to him. He don't 

 want the company injured at any time by any demagogical racket 

 about rates that may result in making them too low. He wants them 

 high enough to make efficient service and good maintenance of the 

 ditch, and for himself and his heirs is not afraid to trust his own judg- 

 ment as to what is such a sufficient sum. 



Now steps in the law and says "No sir this is all illegal. The 

 rates will be fixed by competent authority, you will step up to the 

 office and pay those rates and get the water They having the tvater." 



These last words are in the decisions and constitute a little joker 

 of tremendous proportions to those who know what it is. The courts 

 are right in inserting them as a proviso for no law can make compa- 

 nies furnish more water for irrigation than they have. And it is likely 

 that for several years, at least, it will be left to the companies to say 

 how much money they have and how much water they can get for it. 



There is no way to make a company take more water out of a 

 stream than it thinks advisable and no way to make it increase the 

 height of a dam. In the absence of any contract to carry water for 

 any one it is extremely doubtful if a company would be liable for al- 

 lowing water to run past the head of the canal without taking it in, 

 even if it belonged to the company by unquestioned title. The diffi- 

 culty is in the remedy more than in the right. But as there are most 

 always some other rights on the stream it is almost impossible to say 

 how much a company would have to let pass at the different stages of 

 the stream. In some way or another it will be found that the com- 

 pany.has control of the matter through the control of the evidence. 

 But where they are furnishing water under a contract % it is their busi- 

 ness to have enough except in unusual seasons, perhaps. And there 

 are hardly any instances of a company refusing to carry-out such con- 

 tracts to the best of their ability. He who owns water by contract 

 and the good will of a company has it by the best title in the world. 



It is said that there is no such thing as a "water right" because a 

 company is bound to furnish water to all applicants on tender of the 

 rates fixed by the proper board. As a strict legal proposition this is 

 true. As a practical business proposition there is such a thing as a 

 water right, always has been and always will be. It is impossible to 

 operate irrigation works with safety to the land owner in any other 

 way. The lawyer who tells you there is no such thing is not half as 

 wise as he thinks himself and would do well to study human nature, irri- 

 gation and its requirements as well as abstract principles drawn from 

 entirely different circumstances. 



It is generally supposed that buying a "water right" is buying 

 the privilege of buying water. This is the narrow view of ignorance. 



