Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-02-23

waters safely. Science, therefore, has
shown us how we may be saved, while the
alternative course is the proverbially IN.
certain. tedious and costly resort to the
law. 1t appears to us that there can be
no room for hesitation as to which OF these
policies we should adopt. The one prom
ises us relief. The other can promise us
nothing but enormous expenditures. We
have seen that nothing can be expected
from this Legislature, and what is more
we do not believe that anything was either
expected or desired from the Legislature
by those who engineered the recent tardy
and abortive appeal to that body.
We are free to express the opinion that
the Legislature has shamefully failed in its
duty in this regard, and that it has mani
tested an indifference to the preservation
of the Sacramento valley which is moth
ing less than outrageous. But we are
called upon to deal with facts as they exist,
and not as they might, could or should be,
and therefore we must recognize the fu-
tility of seeking any action against hY-
draulic mining from that quarter, and
must bend all our energies to maintaining
the one remedial agency left to us, which
is the Drainage Act. To prevent the re-
peal Of that bill should henceforth be the
supreme endeavor of all who believe in the
imminence of the danger with which this
valley is threatened, and every PROPOSE
| ton to abandon that line of defense and
take up some chimerical and impractical
course should be Stunned as a weak in
vention of the enemy. If the Sacramento
valley should be abandoned to litigation as
the sole means of arresting the impending
evils of hydraulic mining, the decree Of
ruin viii be virtually pronounced against
the whole region, for long before the ques
ton was settled in the Courts the jeopar
died interests would be swept out of ex.
istence by the advancing food OF debris.
| ~
TIE JAPANESE INDEMNITY BILL.
It has been proposed to return the
Japanese Indemnity Fund to the japanese
Government. That is the only honorable
mode of disposing of it. 1t was paid by
Japan as an indemnity for losses which
were never sustained by American citizens
1t was intended to be applied to that one
purpose, and to apply it to any other would
be neither more nor less than an act Of
spoliation. We should then be in the ig
nominious position of having obtained thi:
money under false pretenses. No Gov
eminent which pretends to civilization Car
afford to commit acts of that character
but though there is no apology for retain
ing this fund, Congress cannot be induced
to let it go. Effort after effort has beer
made for several years past to procure i'll
restoration to Japan, but every time some
sophist has been prepared with a branG
new scheme for converting it to some mora
and benehcent purpose, and in discussing
these propositions the central fact, that thu
money cannot be regarded as belonging tx
the United States, has been lost sight of
The truth is that the lobby at Washington
has had its mouth set watering by the
japanese Indemnity Fund, and has there
fore opposed every attempt to restore it tx
its rightful owners. Congress, however
ought to rise superior to this rapacity aut
dishonesty, and turn the fund over tc
Japan. It this is not done soon it will fall
into the hands OF the thieves, and then the
national disgrace will be all the deeper.