140 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



CAUSES OF FAILURES. 



f;~ There have been failures, many of them, so that in time past irri- 

 gation investments have been unpopular and irrigation bonds difficult 

 to sell. Private capital is timid and naturally selfish, sometimes over- 

 greedy for its own success. It is one of the vices of humanity to de- 

 sire to sit at ease and in luxury while the other fellow toils and sweats. 

 Formerly chattel slavery produced the toilers and sweaters, but higher 

 civilization has abolished this cruder form. A more refined method is 

 to get a cinch on the products of the toilers through the operation of 

 stocks, bonds, interest and rents. It is much more satisfactory and 

 more genteel to clip coupons than to own and farm "niggers." 



One of the causes of dear water under so many irrigation systems 

 and of the excessive entail of annual water rental fees, which is one 

 of the chief causes of failure, is due to the operation of this process. 

 Whether crops get sufficient water or otherwise the system is loaded 



Irrigating 1 in Ancient Egypt. 



with watered stocks and long-term bonds, upon which it is expected 

 the settler will shoulder the burden to pay perpetual dividends and 

 interest. 



The cause of most failures is traceable to this principle. The 

 sensible settler is shy of shouldering such a formidable burden and is 

 reluctant to yield the fruit of his toil to those who, while they may 

 have advanced the money to establish the system, have received it 

 back again with interest and profit in the price charged for water 

 rights, and therefore have no just claim to a perpetual royalty derived 

 from subsequent water rentals. 



It is needless to say that if capital will be content with the profit 

 which is its just due for its part in the development of such enter- 

 prises to be realized from the sale of water rights and will not, in ad- 

 dition, attempt to exact an annual rental in other words, will exploit 

 the irrigation enterprise as it would subdivide a body of land and sell 

 it off to settlers, making the water rights perpetual and eventually 

 turning the system over to the owners sf the water rights on the pubr 



