The Florence tribune., 1899-03-11

was not receiving it's due share of the River and Harbor appropriations.
 The Senator from Wisconsin, he said. "wants this Government to escape the burden and the duty of improving and opening these western lands to actual settlers. If those States which are receiving millions of dollars in the form of appropriations to improve their creeks and bays and rivers andlagoons are willing to take upon themselves the responsibility of improving them at their own expense, then those of us who live in the semi-arid region will take upon ourselves the responsibility of improving the arid and semi-arid lands at the expense of our States. I have not seen thus far an appropria- tion that has gone into the Mississippi or Missouri basins. Let us open all this country. There are nore than 600 ,000, 900 acres of arid and semi-arid lands, and if they were touched with sufficient water supply they would blossom like rose; richer by odds than the Valley of the Nile. Why not open these millions of acres? Why not give the poor who are congesting to the centers of poplation and who producing conditions that are inimical to the welfare of the United States, an opportunity to occupy and settle these lands?"
 Every objection to the general proposition was instantly met by the Western Senators, who swept down everything before them by force and vigor of argument and demands for justice to the arid regions in the dis tribution of appropriations under the River and Harbor bill.
 Senator Gray, of Delaware, took exception to the measure on the ground that it would impose an unequal burden of taxation on the East.
 THE WEST NOW PAYING FOR EASTERN M
 PRovEMENr.
 Senator Warren, of Wyoming, re- piled:
 Docs the Senator think the Western people do not bear their share of taxa tion? Is that the proposition? l take up the River and Harbor bill and I look over it to see what it contains. I find that it appropriates more than $30,000, 900. I find that by drawing a line from north to south, through the United States, leaving about one-half on the west and one-half on the east, the western half gets paltry $2 ,000,- 900 and the other half gets BPS, ,000. 900 :; the one half including the Pacific and the other half the Atlantic coast and who will say that the Pacific coast Is not promising field for commerce, or that it will not be the most important of the two oceans in the hereafter? Then do you say that this is taking the money from the toilers of the East and | spending it in the West?-a country that is producing nearly all the min eral wealth of the United States, and that stands here always paying it's share of the taxes for this and every other appropriation bill" Senator Warren then pointed ont the immense sums that the mineral production of the arid West is annually adding to the national wealth; "but if we are to develop our mines" he said, i've must have rood, cheap and in plenty, for those wlo toll in the digging and we must have forage for the mules that haul the ore, and these things can be accomplished when the land is ir- rigated."
 One feature of the Western irrigation on large scale, which is not gen. erally understood by Eastern men, was brought out in the discussion, namely, the fact that when irrigated soil has once become saturated, there is constant and steady percolation back into the channels of nearly all of the water used for irrigating purposes, thus contributing to the volume of the streams during their naturally low water period, and so subserving the interests of navigation, while at the same time the surrounding land has been benefcially irrigated.
 Delinquent Safe Notice.