ORANGE CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA. 63 



producing classes, are among the first and highest duties of 

 government. 



"The aristocracy of a nation are relatively of little account; 

 they could be spared without any great shock to the public in- 

 terest; but when the laboring classes are oppressed, crippled, 

 wronged or paralyzed, the nation suffers. The best interests of 

 monopolies themselves are best promoted, though they may not 

 know it, by a scrupulous regard for the rights of the producer. 

 We look in vain for general prosperity in any nation in which 

 labor is degraded. No State, needs to heed these plinciples 

 more than California, whose prosperity depends so much on 

 immigration from the East, and nothing else has retarded the 

 prosperity of California so much as the insecurity of land and 

 water titles. If we would bring wealth and good citizens to our 

 coast, we must see to it that those who come will be fully pro- 

 tected in their homes and industry. 



"The rights of individual claimants and first appropriators on 

 running streams, and the rights of riparian proprietors, and of 

 subsequent appropriators, are, as regulated at present, sources 

 of perpetual conflict, irritation and obstruction to industry. 

 There is great need of thorough and wise legislation that will 

 deal with the whole subject, and so regulate it as to afford water 

 to the greatest number, and that, too, without injury to any. 

 Whether or not this end can be achieved without the State's 

 asserting entire ownership of the water, is a question. If any 

 better mode can be devised, it should be brought forward with- 

 out delay. I am free to say, for myself, I can think of no other 

 plan so likely to secure the rights of all, as for the State to 

 assume entire control of the water. All vested rights must, of 

 course, be respected; but there is a direct and easy way in 

 which private property may be taken for public use, namely : by 

 . paying its appraised value. When 'civil service reform' shall 

 have secured to us honest men in all public offices, it will then 

 be safe to trust the State, and then will come the 'Golden Age' 

 of peaceful industry, when water suits will be unknown, and 

 when the interests of each individual will harmonize with the 

 best interests of all. May our law-makers possess the virtue 

 and wisdom to hasten a consummation so devoutly to be de- 

 sired." 



