The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-09-18
IRRIGATION CONGRESS.

The dismal view taken by the chairman
of the National Executive Committee of
the Irrigation Congress with reference to
Judge Ross decision overturning the
Wright irrigation law has an encouraging
aspect, for it will lead inevitably to such
laws and decisions as are demanded by
Western conditions. The precedents out
of which Judge Ross decision grew were
based on conditions utterly unlike those to
which they are now made to apply. While
the Irrigation Congress might accomplish
much good by lending all possible assist
ance to efforts to secure a reversal of Judge
Ross decision, and while such a reversal
would be final settlement of the difficulty,
1t may be long time before the Supreme
Court can reach the case. Meanwhile the
possibilities of relief at the hands of Con-
gress should not be overlooked.
1t might be profitable to investigate the
laws controlling irrigation in China.
There farming is carried to its furthest
scientific capabilities and irrigation has
been practiced without molestation from
time immemorial. In other words, China
regulates the matter to suit her own neces-
sites and probably is happily unconscious
u.
The philosophy of the case is so appar-
ent that it needs 40 discussion. The
problem is one of the simplest of all that
affect the interests of human beings. and
its embodiment in laws by the highest
law-making authority in the country
would be attended with no difficulties and
would lead to no complicated litigation.
Unless Judge Ross decision is reversed or
laws are made to solve the problem the
vast empire of the West must remain
sbouldered out of civilization by legal
precedent of foreign origin and inappli-
cable to the needs of any part of our coun-
try.
The principle involved is merely that of
using in the most equitable manner the
resources which nature has placed at our
command; it is needed merely to establish
the doctrine that while the rights of the
riparian owner should be respected, they
should not be exercised at the expense of
other owners who might receive benefit
from that which may be spared by the RI
parian owner without detr1ment to his own
interests. The Wright law of California
covered the ground admirably but it was
nullified for the reason that it had not pro-
ceeded from a source sufficiently high to
overturn the effect of the common law of
England. 1t is true that Judge Ross went
further than that, but his effort in SO
doing-in placing the equities of the ripa-
rian owner above all other considerations
was wholly gratuitous.
That, however, will serve only to make
the States interested in irrigation more
earnest in their endeavors to remedy the
existing evil, and will spur the Irrigation
Congress, now in session at Albuquerque, to
stronger efforts. Irrigation accompanied
most of the splendid civilizations which
existed in ancient times in the region Of
the Mediterranean, and to-day it is the re-
lance of some of the most densely popu-
lated countries in the world. The principle
is just, or it would not have endured
through these countless centuries of the
worlds growth. 1t would be strange if the
intelligence of the American people should
prove inadequate to its adoption in this