Januabt 4, 1007] 



SCIENCE 



23 



ciety, or benefit a part of society but injure 

 society as a whole. Thus, the city of Chi- 

 cago, in tapping the Great Lakes for its 

 new sewerage system, has tended to influ- 

 ence the level of those lakes and thereby 

 affect economically a large territory, in- 

 cluding several states of the Union and 

 also Canada. It has been estimated that 

 the level of the lakes may be affected as 

 much as six inches. 



One reason for federal interference in 

 irrigation is that the water supply is 

 often controlled by citizens of one state, 

 while the land belongs to another state or 

 to the United States, and cooperation be- 

 tween the two is difficult to secure. AVater, 

 in the arid lands of the west, is a prime 

 requisite, and without it the lands have no 

 value. From one point, Mt. Union, in the 

 Yellowstone Park, three rivers begin — the 

 Missouri, the Columbia and the Colorado- 

 flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific 

 and the Gulf of California, and through a 

 large number of states and a vast extent of 

 territory. The mutual interests of the ripa- 

 rian owners and those affected by irrigation 

 could scarcely be adjusted merely through 

 the play of individual interests. 



Similarly, the act of one individual in 

 destroying forests influences climate and 

 water supply and thereby affects other in- 

 dividuals in distant parts. Where indi- 

 viduals in the community are allowed to 

 seek their own interests the destruction of 

 forests in some regions inevitably follows. 



A like effect was seen a few years ago 

 in the case of the seal dispute between the 

 United States and Great Britain. The play 

 of individual motive in this case tended to 

 the actual extinction of seals, and could 

 only be curbed by the mutual agreement of 

 nations to prevent pelagic sealing. 



Individual action can not be trusted to 

 provide fire-proof or slow-burning construc- 

 tion as required in a crowded city; for the 

 individual, although interested in protect- 



ing himself from his neighbors' fires, is not 

 interested in protecting his neighbors from 

 his own fires ; hence the necessity and justi- 

 fication for city fire ordinances. Similarly, 

 soft coal, in such cities as Denver, St. Loiiis 

 and Pittsburg, constitutes a veritable nui- 

 sance to the entire city; and yet the indi- 

 vidual factory owner is undoubtedly fol- 

 loAving his own best interest in not substi- 

 tuting hard coal or using expensive smoke- 

 consumers. Such protective measures 

 would redound greatly to the benefit of 

 the community, but only slightly to his 

 own benefit; hence the necessity and justi- 

 fication for smoke ordinances. Individual 

 action would never give rise to a system of 

 city parks, or even to any useful system of 

 streets. And where parks exist, as in the 

 ease of Battery Park, New York, there is a 

 constant tendency for those seeking their 

 individual interests to encroach upon them. 

 In Hartford and other cities certain parks 

 have in this way gradually disappeared, 

 much to the damage of the public. 



In the cases mentioned, of a confiict 

 between social and individual interests, 

 legal restraints become necessary. But 

 there are many examples in which, for one 

 reason or another, legal restraints are im- 

 practicable. This is particularly true in 

 cases where a number of nations are con- 

 cerned. There can be no question, for in- 

 stance, that the standing armies and great 

 navies are an almost intolerable burden in 

 Europe, and that their existence has tended 

 to increase the cost of our own army and 

 navy, three thousand miles away. Never- 

 theless, in the absence of any central inter- 

 national authority or mutual agreement to 

 bring about disarmament, it must be con- 

 fessed that it is to the interest of Germany 

 or France each individually to keep up its 

 military equipment to a level comparable 

 to that of its neighbors. Yet the aggregate 

 effect of international competition for mili- 

 tary power is to cancel itself out; the ad- 



