Workmen's advocate., 1889-12-14

blish local elf-government by hydro graphic basins, and each basin may well constitute great county. Let there be established in each district a court to adjudicate questions of water rights, timber rights, pasturage rights, and power rights, in compliance with the special laws of the community and the more general laws of the State and the Nation. Let the people of the district provide their own officers for the manage ment and control of the waters, for the protection and utilization of the forests. for the protection and manage ment of the pasturage, and for the use of the power.
 With district courts, water masters, herders, and foresters they would be equipped with the local officers neces- sary for the protection of their own property and of the maintenance of in- dividual rights. The interests are theirs, the rights are theirs, the duties are theirs. Let them control their own actions"
 Having thus provided institutions of justice in the shape of courts and plenty of work for lawyers, Major Powell provides for Wall Street by suggesting that all the money which the new settle ments may need can be obtained by pledging as corporate bodies, all their property and labor. This suggestion was warmly endorsed by the money lenders. With a mortgage of one thou sand million dollars upon the settle ments, Wall Street will be the practical owner of that vast domain.
 But the General Government must bear it's part in the establishment of the institutions for the arid regions Let the Government make a survey of the lands, aggregate and designate the irrigable lands, the timber lands, the pasturage lands, and the mining lands j; then let the General Government retain possession of all but the irrigable lands. :"
 In other words the Governments part is to give away everything of value and keep the rest.
 But the mining industries of the country must be considered. Unde- veloped mining land should pass into the hands of individuals under the provisions of statutes already existing"
 Manifestly, the Major is not refor- mer. In conclusion he said:
 "The effort has been to present plan by which the agriculture of the arid lands may be held as vast field of ex- ploitation for individual farmers who cultivate the soil with their own hands, and at the same time and by the same institutions to open to capital a field for safe investments and remunerative return, and yet to secure to the toiling farmers the natural increment of profit which comes from the land with the progress of industrial civilization. The great enterprises of mining, manufac- turing, transporting, exchanging, and tinanciering in which the business kings of America are engaged challenge ad- miration, and rejoice at their prosper ity, and am glad that blessings thus shower upon the people; but the bril- liancy of great industrial operations does not daze my vision. 1 love the cradle more than the bank counter. The cottage home is more beautiful to me than the palace. I believe that the schoolhouse is primal, the university secondary, and believe that the Justi- ces court in the hamlet is the only permanent foundation for the Supreme Court at the capital"
 Mayor Powell, as we see, can be very poeticaL But under his flowers of rhetoric turks the hungry snake of monopoly, as will further appear in our editorial comments upon his address.