CONCLUDING SUGGESTIONS. 69 



improvements will be well worth their cost, and, as it is a recoo-nized field 

 for the expenditure of Government appropriations, a proper presentation of 

 the situation will, it is believed, lead to the extension of the required aid. 



TERM OF OFFICE. 



The value of any system must depend largely on the capacity of those 

 who administer it. Incompetent men can make a failure of any law, while 

 good men can do much with an imperfect one. The administration of an 

 irrigation law in California will be a difficult matter under the most 

 favorable conditions, and the broader the experience of those in charge the 

 better will be the results. A water commissioner is not made in a day or a 

 year. The longer a State engineer or member of the board of control 

 serves the better equipped he will be to perform his duties. For these 

 reasons the term of office of the members of the board of control, State 

 engineer, and water commissioners should not be limited to two years. Six 

 years is short enough term for the members of the board of control and 

 State engineer, and not less than four years for the commissioners. 



The reform of the inngation laws of California involves the future of a 

 great commonwealth. What is done should be done with the purpose of 

 promoting the gtowth of the State and. insuring the peace and prosperity of 

 its citizens for generations to come. The possibilities which wait on success 

 and the evils which will surely attend failure ought to enlist the eflForts and 

 intellects of the ablest and best men in the State. It is an opportunity for 

 the exercise of constructive statesmanship which rarely appears in the life 

 of any commonwealth. The task is not to piece together the discordant 

 fragments of laws and decisions which now control, but to create an 

 irrigation code worthy of an enlightened and self-goveniing people; to do 

 for California what Napoleon and Cavour did for Italy, what Deakiu has 

 done in part for Australia, and Dennis more effectively for Canada. 

 Success in this will mark the beginning of an economic revolution whose 

 influence will be felt throughout the West. If the creation of institutions 

 worthy of the time and place can come as a part of the world-wide 

 movement of trade and population toward the Pacific coast, and of material 

 development of arid America by public and private aid, which is now being 

 so strenuously urged, the opening years of the twentieth century will 

 witness a new era of home makmg in the W^est. 



