64 IRRIGATION INVESTIGATIONS IN CALIFOENIA. 



heritage.' The doctrine that air, water, and sunshine are gifts from God 

 should not be hghtly set aside even in arid lands. There is need for 

 adequate jJi'otection for investments in canals and ditches, but this can be 

 aiforded without having the water they carry become private property or 

 the stream itself become subject to private ownership. The growth and 

 danger of monopolies in oil, copper, coal, and iron afford a warning of the 

 greater danger of permitting monopolies in water. The growing belief in' 

 the public ownership of public utilities applies especially to water, that 

 most essential of all utilities 



In monarchies streams belong to the king, but in a republic they belong 

 to the people, and ought forever to be kept as public property for the benefit 

 of all who use them, and for them alone. 



SHOUIiD APPROPRIATIONS BE MADE PERPETUAL OR LIMITED, LIKE FRAN- 

 CHISES, TO A NUMBER OF YEARS? 



The iiTigation laws of all the arid States make rights to water perpetual. 

 This was formerly the policy of many European counti-ies, where it has 

 since been abandoned, the practice now being to treat appropriations as 

 franchises and limit their life to a definite period, usually fifty or ninety- 

 nine years. It is worthy of consideration whether or not it will be well 

 for California to make a similar change. In-igation is as yet in its infancy, 

 and our laws and policies are undergoing an evolution. A franchise to 

 use water for fifty years would serve every purpose of development as 

 well as a grant in perpetuity. It would be more eff'ective if this franchise 

 were adequately protected, while a grant limited in time would permit of 

 any modifications which experience might prove advisable when these 

 franchises expire. 



The present tendency in cities toward the municipal ownership of public 

 utilities will, it is believed, extend in time to the management and distribu- 

 tion of rivers. This is the tendency in all older irrigated countries where 

 many of the works are operated as government property. Practically all 

 of the ditches and canals in Ital^ are owned by the Government, as are all 

 the more recent ones in India and Egypt. 



What has been done in this country in the giving away of rights to 

 rivers is only a reflection of the early policy of cities where perpetual fran- 

 chises were not looked upon with any particular disfavor. The philosophy 

 of this, as ajjplied to streams, has been so well stated by Baird Smith, in his 

 history of irrigation in Italy, that it is inserted: 



A grant in perpetuity of siuli a material as water, whose value must necessarily go on augment- 

 ing with the progress of agricultural irrigation, is an aot of injustice toward the Government. * * » 

 For there is no point better established by experience in northern Italy generally, and in Lorn- 



