390 
include  bodies  of  land  of  greater  area  than  160  acres  not  in  Gov- 
ernment ownership,  the  owners  would  be  forced  to  sell  out  in 
smaller  tracts  or  the  Reclamation  Law  would  have  to  be  changed. 
In  other  words,  there  would  be  difficulty  in  applying  this  type  of 
reclamation  to  cane  lands  which  to  be  managed  to  advantage,  ap- 
parently must  be  held  in  large  bodies.  In  the  matter  of  payments 
for  reclamation,  the  section  provides  that  they  shall  be  made  “to  * 
the  local  land  office  of  the  district  in  which  the  land  is  situated.” 
There  are  no  local  Federal  Land  Offices  nor  officers  here  so  tha'; 
adjustment  as  to  this  phase  of  the  law  would  be  necessary. 
Section  6 provides  for  the  payments  of  the  cost  of  operation  and 
maintenance  of  all  reservoirs,  etc.,  from  the  Reclamation  Fund, 
declares  that  when  payments  have  beeen  made  for  the  major  por- 
tion of  the  lands  irrigated,  the  management  shall  pass  to  the  own- 
ers of  the  land,  etc.  This  section  appears  to  offer  no  difficulty. 
Section  7 provides  for  the  acquisition  of  property  necessary  to 
the  operation  of  the  law  by  judicial  process. 
Section  8 provides  that  the  law  shall  not  affect  State  or  Terri- 
torial water  laws  or  rights  acquired  thereunder. 
Section  9 provides  for  the  expenditure  of  the  major  portion  of 
the  funds  contributed  by  each  State  or  Territory  within  that  State 
or  Territory. 
Section  10  is  a general  enabling  clause  which  gives  the  Secre- 
tary authority  to  make  the  necessary  rules  and  regulations,  etc. 
to  carry  out  the  law. 
In  this  hasty  inspection  of  the  Act,  it  is  obvious  that  it  will 
not  apply  to  your  own  land  laws,  which  have  been  carefully  devel- 
oped to  suit  your  local  conditions,  because  everywhere  it  is  ad- 
justed to  the  homestead  law  of  the  mainland.  There  is  no  pro- 
vision in  it  for  the  acquisition  of  title  in  any  other  way  than  under 
the  terms  of  the  homestead  act,  modified  only  as  to  size  of  the  tract 
entered.  There  is  no  provision  for  your  various  types  of  purchase 
and  none  at  all  for  your  leaseholds.  Furthermore,  its  provision 
as  to  Mongolian  labor,  considered  in  connection  with  the  Federal 
contract  labor  law,  is  alone  almost  fatal  to  its  application  here. 
It  is  obvious  then  that  if  the  Territory  is  to  secure  the  benefit 
of  the  Act,  either  the  Act  itself  must  be  extensively  modified  to  suit 
territorial  conditions  or  you  must  be  prepared  to  suspend  vom* 
own  carefully  enacted  land  laws  in  the  districts  to  be  reclaimed, 
and  to  build,  as  you  have  never  done  before,  with  high-priced  and 
scarce  Caucasian  labor,  thereby  greatly  increasing  the  cost  of  each 
project. 
Congress  guards  the  Reclamation  Act  with  great  jealousy.  To 
secure  its  extension  to  Texas  no  changes  at  all  were  required ; 
the  final  law  approved  June  12,  1906,  providing  simply  that  “the 
provisions  of  the  Act  be  and  the  same  are  hereby  extended  so  as 
to  include  and  apply  to,  the  State  of  Texas.”  Yet  this  extension 
was  not  secured  without  difficulty,  and  Texas  has  a large  voting 
delegation  in  Congress.  He  is  indeed  sanguine  who  believes  that 
