People's voice. [volume] (Wellington, Sumner County, Kansas) 1890-1917, 1894-10-04
Britons Investigate Irrigation.
A Wyoming bulletin saws:

A Wyoming bulletin says:
On Dec %, 1884, the British govern
ment appointed aroYal commission Oh
water supplies and irrigation. 1t was
the duty of this commission to investi.
gate the subject of irrigation in
Egypt, Italy, India and the United
States, with view of compiling this
information for the guidance of legis-
lation on the subject of irrigation for
the province of Victoria. This COM
mission made special study of irri-
CATION laws, water rights, and methods
OF constructing large irrigation works
In the various countries visited. They
have made various progress reports
from time to time which have been
printed by the British government in
Australia These reports contain
much valuable information, and
have led to the adoption of
the system now practiced in
Victoria, which is regarded as
combining the wisdom and best meth
DDS OF irrigation that can be culled
from the practice of the world.
STATE OWNERSHIP.
On the subject of irrigation in Italy,
the British commission makes the fol
lowing statement:
I'm the first place. it is important to
note that almost all the irrigation
canals in Piedmont and Lombardy
now belong to the state, and the fact
Is all the more striking when it is re-
membered that majority of them
we're originally constructed by pri-
vste enterprise. The reason for this
change of ownership is not difficult of
discovery. AS Baird Smith notes, the
dangers arising out of monopoly of
water, apart from the ownership of
the soil, have commended their pur-
chase to the statesman. Both pro-
cesses, starting out on different prin-
clples, have arrived at the same con-
ciusion. The Lombard practice of
never separating the water from the
land has palpably produced most ben
ehcial results, and, in his iudg-
ment was the chief cause of the
rapid multiplication of secondary
canals constructed by the pri-
vate enterprise in that province.
In Piedmont, the states proprietary
OF the water has been almost equally
etfcacious in encouraging its equitable
distribution; but its ownership OF the
headworks has come to be recognized
In each as the best means of insuring
justice to the irrigator."
IN ITALY, FRANCE AND SPAIN.
The commission further states that
Italian experience, French expert
ence and Spanish experience all 20 to
show that the interests to be studied
in relation to irrigation schemes are
so many and so various, and so init
mately bound up with the public vel
fare, that state control is imperatively
necessary, and that for the protection
of its citizens no monopoly can be
permitted which would separate prop
erty in water from property in land to
which it is to be applied But at the
same time it is established that while
ageneral central control by the state
is essential, the business management
and distribution of the water is
much better placed under the local
authority, as this is more effectige in
its supervision, more economical in its
administration, and is educational
also, in political sense, to high de-
gree The establishment of a COM
prehenslve system of irrigation by
private enterprise is possible onlv
under unusual conditions. If it EN-.
braces many sources of supply, large
areas, or conflicting interests, it is
impossible. The capital required is
large, the returns are not rapid, and
the full benefit secured by the close
occupation and complete utilization
OF considerable areas are so reduced
that the state could reach those bene-
tits in unnumbered ways, and settlers
are not justified in assuming large re-
sponsibilities in their initiation. This
becomes palpable when it is perceived
that as in Egypt and Italy, carefully
matured schemes insure an enormous
agricultural production, and the
stable prosperity of large number of
producers. 1t may be safely asserted
from foreign experience of many gen.
erations that irrigation is one of the
soundest national investments, where
engineering ability and executive
work are expended upon large canals,
which are afterward taken under
local control, guarded by a carefully
compiled code of water laws and req.
ulations, while the land whose pro.
duction is enhanced is charged with
the interest upon the capital expedited
in supplying it All of these condi.
tons we ought to possess in Victoria
IN VICTORIA.
The Investigations of this British
commission led to the adoption Of
what may be called the Communal
principle for retaining the arid lands
OF Victoria. Water trusts are formed
somewhat similar to the irrigation
district in California under the Wright
act; but these water trusts by law are
under governmental control, and can
only be carried forward by the sane.
ton Of the government, which passes
apon the feasibility of the scheme and
also the available water supply for
the uses of the proposed water trust.