Arizona republican. [volume] (Phoenix, Ariz.) 1890-1930, 1893-10-06

dominion over his fiefdom, than the
owner of such an irrigating canal.
There is practically no restriction to the
exactions which the latter may enforce.
Under the laws of most of the states
and territories affected, the owners of
lrrigating canals, are the owners of the
water they appropriated for such canals
from the public streams. No legal
limit is placed on the price of the water
furnished from such canal. They can
IN most of the states and territories
either sell, or decline to sell the water
they have taken from the public
streams. In more than one instance,
settlers who-after avaihng themselves
OF the right to settle on public lands
have given offence to the owners of the
irrigating canal from which the water
to reclaim and cultive the lands thus
settled could only be obtained, have
been forced, by the refusal of the canal
owner to supply the necessary water, to
abandon their lands. More than once
this power has been exercised by canal
owners to freeze out" bona fide set
tiers, in order that those interested in
the canal or their friends might secure
desirable tracts of land. Throughout
the arid west riparian rights are un-
known. Unlike the east, the waters Of
the non-navigable streams do not be-
long to those through whose lands they
flow, hut to those who may first ap-
i propriate them.
Without the water, the land is value
less-life itself cannot in many in
stances be maintained-yet the process
of securing control of this all essential
fluid, under the present system, is
simplicity itself. The first step in the
so-called appropriation" of the waters
of any public stream, is merely the
placing of notice on the bank of the
stream at the point from which the
canal is to start. to the effe It that John
Doe or Richard Roe have appropriated
and claim for irrigating purposes so
many thousand inches of water, copy
of which notice, must be recorded in the
Office of the county recorder. Unlike,
in the acquisition of public lands
agricultural mineral or timber-there is
no restriction on the amount of water
that can be taken. An individual or a
cooperation can and often has appropri-
ated the waters of an entire stream
the only further requirement being that
he or it shall construct a canal of suffi-
cient dimensions to carry the water on
lands where it will be used for agricul-
tural or other purposes. Having done
this, the canal owner is in position to
dictate his own terms. Under this sys-
tenn, before the settler can secure water,
he must first purchase water right
water right which means nothing as
he must then purchase and pay for his
water annually thereafter. Should the
canal owner sell more water than the
canal can deliver, or should it fail from
any other cause to deliver the water
necessary to mature his crops, the set
tier has practically no recourse, while
the ever existing possibility that the
company may not be able to replace
the property if destroyed by floods or
otherwise, makes the farmers career
one of constant uncertainty. On the
other hand, the canal owner regards the
canal as piece of property out of
which he is entitled to collect as much
money as possible. Between him and
the farmer, there is no community OF
interest. Although the farmers under
the canal in paying for their "water
rights" may have paid the cost of
building the canal, two or three times
over, they have no voice in its manage
ment or interests in its profits. They
and their successors must, on the con-
trary pay an eternal tribute for the use
of water to the owner of the canal,
whose only right to the water is that he
had the money to take possession of it
Tha I1c Of
the system are too we'll known though
to justify lengthy review.
National Reclamation.
There is but one way in which these
evils can be corrected. That is by
making the reclamation of the arid
lands work of the general government.
For this there are ample presidents.
The same spirit of neglect with which
the government treats the reclamation
of the arid regions of the west, it at one
time maintained toward the improve
ment of naviga BILE streams and harbors
by letting each state look after its own
interests in such matters. For the first
quarter of century in our national
history, the improvement of rivers and
inland harbors was regarded strictly as
state affair. The only recognition
congress vouchsafed the subject, being
to give it's assent to the passage of laws
by different states for the appointment
of wardens of ports, the leyying and
appropriation by states for their own
use of duties on tonnage for the pur-
pose of clearing certain rivers, and the
incorporation of companies to whom
the care and maintenance of the
navigable condition of rivers and ports,
were farmed out with the right to COL
lect certain duties from navigators
availing themselves of the same. The
defects of this policy soon became SO
apparent that as early as 1902, congress
was induced to make an appropriation
of $50, 900 to be spent in repairing and
erecting public piers in the river
Delaware" The wisdom displayed in
this appropriation, in the face Of
strenuous opposition, became so evident
that seven years later, an appropriation
of $25, 900 was made for the construction
of the Carondolet canal, under the dis
guise of military appropriation.
With the recognition given the Caron-
delet canal, the attitude of the govern
ment became broader and more liberal.
At first this was displayed by the gov
eminent becoming part owners in
canals constructed, to facilitate internal
commerce by subscribing for stock in
such enterprises, and becoming sharer