7 
of the numerous other pressing needs which can be met, if at all, 
only by the issuance of bonds. If the work is done by private 
enterprise, the bonds must be issued for long terms and there 
must be sufficient security for the bondholders. In order to af- 
ford such security, it will probably be necessary to make long 
leases of arid or semi-arid lands, so that the irrigation companies, 
and, through them, their bondholders, may be assured that the 
water will be put to profitable use, either by the irrigation com- 
panies or by their sublessees for a sufficient length of time to pay 
the cost. Even if the irrigation works should be constructed by 
the Territory, it would likewise probably be necessary or wise to 
make long leases — not indeed for the security of the bondholders 
but in order to make the investment pay — for otherwise capital 
would not venture to start new sugar plantations or other large 
industries and the homesteading of irrigated lands will probably 
be a slow process for a long time to come. It is upon such se- 
curity of long leases or fee simple titles that large irrigation or 
agricultural investments have, as a rule, hitherto been made. 
Conditions now, however, have changed, so that it would be 
out of the question to make long leases without reserving therein 
the right to withdraw the lands for homestead purposes ; and, 
therefore, in order to safeguard the investor, it must be further 
provided that when the land is homestead ed the homesteader 
shall not only be given the right to sufficient water for his home- 
stead, but also be required to pay for such quantity of water, 
whether he uses it or not. This is the practice on the mainland, 
and it is both just and necessary. It is just because the home- 
steader gets the additional value which the water gives to his 
land and because he has no right to take the land unless he ex- 
pects to put it to good use, and he cannot do that without water. 
It is necessary because otherwise the irrigation works would not 
and should not be constructed, whether by the Territory or private 
enterprise, and the land would not be conserved and developed 
to tlie point of its highest utility. The homestead idea does not 
require that land should be sold in its natural condition in large 
tracts for inferior uses when it can through reclamation by irriga- 
tion be put to superior uses; on. the other hand, the conservation 
idea requires that, if possible, it should be thus reclaimed and 
put to superior uses. There can be no reasonable doubt that it 
is better to divide a tract of land into a large number of small 
honiesteads of high productivity than into a small number of 
large homesteads of low productivity. But there will probably 
be some, who, for one reason or another, will contend otherwise 
and it will be necessary to meet such opposition with firmness in 
the public interests. 
I now pass to the second method, which has to do with con- 
servation in the homesteading of land already under cultivation. 
During the fifteen years under the Land Act of 1895 until the 
recent enactment of amendments by Congress, about ninety 
