39 1 
an  Act,  without  the  Mongolian  labor  clause,  and  so  modified  as  to 
fit  your  local  land  laws,  can  be  passed. 
The  other  alternative,  in  the  extension  of  the  provisions  of  the 
Reclamation  Act  to  this  Territory,  is  that  adopted  in  the  Bill  in- 
troduced in  the  6oth  Congress  and  reintroduced  in  the  extra  ses- 
sion of  the  6ist.  This  Bill  is  similar  to  the  Texas  Extension  Act 
and  provides  simply  for  the  extension  of  the  Reclamation  law, 
without  modification  to  the  Territory.  Should  it  pass,  it  will  re- 
quire the  suspension  of  your  own  land  laws  in  the  areas  of  the 
projects  to  be  developed. 
With  the  law  thus  extended,  you  would  have  in  operation  in  this 
Territory,  two  sets  of  land  laws,  the  homestead  act  within  the  areas 
of  the  projects  and  your  local  laws  elsewhere.  Furthermore,  pro- 
vision could  not  be  made,  under  projects  that  might  include  low 
warm  lands,  much  more  valuable  for  cane  than  for  other  crops,  to 
retain  these  lands  in  large  bodies,  either  in  fee  or  in  leaseholds ; 
they  would  have  to  be  sub-divided  into  tracts  of  not  more  than 
160  acres  each.  Doubtless  these  tracts  with  the  appurtenant  water 
rights  would  be  combined  into  large  plantations  as  soon  as  the 
homesteaders  could  secure  title.  But  thus  assembled,  the  planta- 
tions would  become  owners  in  fee  and  would  passS^eyond  the  pos 
sibility  of  government  regulation  such  as  you  are  trying  to  secure 
elsewhere,  by  your  system  of  leaseholds.  In  addition  to  this,  any 
large  plantations  to  which  it  would  be  feasible  and  advisable  from 
the  engineering  point  of  view,  to  extend  the  benefits  of  the  project 
would  be  compelled  to  subdivide  and  to  sell.  And  finally,  this 
general  extension  Act  carries  with  it  the  8-hour  clause  and  the 
Mongolian  labor  clause,  which  surely  must  be  modified  by  subse- 
quent legislation  to  make  construction  feasible  here. 
These  difficulties  seem  real  enough  to  make  it  worth  while  to 
consider  any  other  alternative  that  may  exist,  in  case  it  proves 
impossible  or  you  should  decide  that  it  is  impracticable  to  secure 
the  extension  of  the  Federal  law  to  the  Territory. 
It  has  been  suggested  that  Hawaii  might  create  its  own  Recla- 
mation Service.  Similar  steps  have  been  taken  elsewhere.  Porto 
Rico,  for  instance,  after  finding  that  there  was  no  probability  that 
Federal  Reclamation  would  be  extended  to  that  island,  eventually 
adopted  the  alternative  of  creating  a reclamation  fund  of  its  own, 
issuing  bonds  against  the  lands  to  be  benefitted,  and  organizing 
by  means  of  the  funds  thus  raised,  a local  Reclamation  Bureau. 
This  bureau  has  been  placed  in  charge  of  one  of  the  trained  engi- 
neers of  the  Federal  Service,  Mr.  B.  M.  Hall,  who  was  transferred 
to  that  island  for  the  purpose.  The  project  thus  inaugurated  is  of 
some  magnitude  since  it  involves  an  expenditure  of  $3,000,000.00. 
One  of  the  principal  difficulties  that  occurs  to  you  at  once,  of 
course,  when  the  question  of  organizing  your  own  service  is 
broached  is  the  matter  of  funds.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  this 
difficulty  is  not  insuperable  nor  even  very  serious.  The  central 
idea  of  the  Federal  Reclamation  service  is  a non-disappearing 
