THE NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS 329 
reserves, and the revocable system of leasing is, of course, not a satisfac- 
tory one for the purpose of inviting the capital needed to put in proper 
plants for the transmutation of power. 
The statute of 1891 with its amendments permits the secretary of 
the interior to grant perpetual easements or rights of way from water 
sources over public lands for the primary purpose of irrigation and such 
electrical current as may be incidentally developed, but no grant can be 
made under this statute to concerns whose primary purpose is gener- 
ating and handling electricity. The statute of 1901 authorizes the 
secretary of the interior to issue revocable permits over the public lands 
to electrical-power companies, but this statute is wofully inadequate 
because it does not authorize the collection of a charge or fix a term of 
years. Capital is slow to invest in an enterprise founded on a permit 
revocable at will. 
The subject is one that calls for new legislation. It has been 
thought that there was danger of combination to obtain possession of 
all the power sites and to unite them under one control. Whatever the 
evidence of this, or lack of it, at present we have had enough experience 
to know that combination would be profitable, and the control of a great 
number of power sites would enable the holders or owners to raise the 
price of power at will within certain sections; and the temptation would 
promptly attract investors, and the danger of monopoly would not be a 
remote one. 
However this may be, it is the plain duty of the government to see 
to it that in the utilization and development of all this immense amount 
of water power, conditions shall be imposed that will prevent monopoly, 
and will prevent extortionate charges, which are the accompaniment of 
monopoly. The difficulty of adjusting the matter is accentuated by 
the relation of the power sites to the water, the fall and flow of which 
create the power. In the states where these sites are the riparian owner 
does not control or own the power in the water which flows past his 
land. That power is under the control and within the grant of the 
state, and generally the rule is that the first user is entitled to the 
enjoyment. Now, the possession of the bank or water-power site over 
which the water is to be conveyed in order to make the power useful, 
gives to its owner an advantage and a certain kind of control over the 
use of the water power, and it is proposed that the government in deal- 
ing with its own lands should use this advantage and lease lands 
for power sites to those who would develop the power, and impose con- 
ditions on the leasehold with reference to the reasonableness of the rates 
at which the power, when transmuted, is to be furnished to the public, 
and forbidding the union of the particular power with a combination 
of others made for the purpose of monopoly by forbidding assignment 
of the lease save by consent of the government. Serious difficulties are 
VOL, LXXVII.—23. 
