38 IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS IN CALIFORNIA. 



Wyoming anyone desiring to use water must obtain a permit to use it 

 from the State. To have regulation precede the asserted individual own- 

 ership or control has two advantages. It enables everyone to understand 

 from the outset just what one's rights are and commits the Government to 

 the protection of the rights officially indorsed. 



APPROPRIATIONS FOR SALE, RENTAL, OR DISTRIBUTION. 



It is the belief of the writer that rights to water should be for use only; 

 that appi'opriations for irrigation purposes should not belong to either a 

 canal company or an owner of land, but should attach to the land irrigated 

 and be inseparable therefrom. Where this doctrine prevails, canals and 

 ditches become, like railroads, great semipublic utilities, means of convey- 

 ance of a public commodity, their owners entitled to adequate compensation 

 for services rendered, but having no ownership in the property distributed. 

 Believing this, the law which permits appropriations of water for sale, rental, 

 or distribution is regarded as unwise and dangerous. It accomplishes no 

 good result that the attachment of appi'opriations to the land irrigated 

 would not promote. On the other hand, permitting individuals or corpora- 

 tions to appropriate water which irrigators must have in order to live, gives 

 rise to antagonisms and makes possible grave abuses, the nature of which 

 is shown over and over again in the reports which follow and which has 

 been characterized in the following striking statement made by William E. 

 Sraythe : 



If we admit the theory that water flowing from the melting snows and gathered in lake and 

 stream is a private commodity belonging to him who first appropriates it, regardless of the use for 

 which he designs it, we have all the conditions for a hateful economic servitude. Next to bottling the 

 air and sunshine no monopoly of natural resources would be fraught with more possibilities of abuse 

 than the attempt to make merchandise of water in an arid land. 



The doctrine of private or speculative ownership of water has not thus 

 far benefited those who have appropriated water to rent or sell. It has made 

 them trustees or agents for users and thrust on them all the expense of 

 fighting rival appropriators in the courts for control of the supply. It makes 

 every user of water feel that he is the victim of an unjust discrimination 

 because, while the appropriator gets the water from the stream as a free 

 grant, he has to pay for the share he enjoys. 



The relative merits of laws which attach appropriations to tlie land and 

 those which, like California, make the ditch or canal owner the appropriator 

 is not a matter of theory or conjecture. In every country where rights attach 

 to the land irrigators are prosperous and peace prevails. In countries where 

 control of water and ownership of land are separated controversies and 



