STATE CONTROL OF STREAMS. 61 



rank of priority as against others? Only the courts can answer. The 

 records show that the owners of the Rancho Laguna de Tache have had 

 injunctions issued against the use of water by the owners of the Fowler 

 Switch Canal, Centerville and Kingsburg Canal, and the Kings River and 

 Fresno Canal. These injunctions have apparently not been dissolved, yet, 

 in a subsequent action the court has permitted one of these canals to take 

 water and it is being taken. 



It is hardly necessary to follow the pei*plexity of this supposed officer 

 any further. No ordinary mind would be equal to the strain. 



The showing made by these official records is referred to in order to 

 make clear that the State has a duty toward these creators of wealth which 

 it is not discharging so long as it leaves any of them in doubt as to what is 

 their just share of the river's flow, and puts upon them the entire expense 

 of securing that share. Appropriators of water ought not to be subjected 

 to the expense of protecting their rights. That is a duty of the Govern- 

 ment and should be paid for by public taxation. It is the only way in 

 which impartial justice can be assured. Leaving the ownership of streams 

 • to be fought over in the courts and titles to water to be established in 

 ordinary suits at law has never resulted in the creation of satisfactory con- 

 ditions and never will. As it now is the same issues are tried over and over 

 again. Each decision, instead of being a step toward final settlement, too 

 often creates new issues which in turn have to be litigated. The suit of 

 one canal company against another company may settle the rights of these 

 pai'ties as against each other, but it settles nothing with respect to other 

 appropriators not made parties to the litigation, and the whole controversy 

 may be opened up at any moment. A stream with three appropriators has 

 the foundation for at least three lawsuits: A «. B, A v. C, and B y. C. If 

 there are four appropriators the way is open for six adjudications. Often 

 the appropriators of a stream are numbered by scores and even hundreds. 

 It might be interesting to compute the number of legal conflicts necessaiy 

 to a judicial determination of the relative rights on streams like the Yuba, 

 and these will, under the present procedure, increase with years because 

 there will be new appropriations and old ones will be extended. It is not 

 surprising that the petition for this investigation should state that the litiga- 

 tion is appalling. It could not be otherwise. Litigation is as natural a 

 product of the absence of public control as are weeds in a neglected field. 



There can be no stability under the present situation. The law affords 

 no means of enforcing a -right when once adjudicated except through 

 another lawsuit. Irrigators can not live in peace. Litigati<iu and contro- 



