The Imperial press., 1905-07-22

of new questions, and several new phases of some old ones are presented and acting in the light of these matters the Secretary of the Interior has taken the matter in hand and some time ago he appointed three very eminent gentle men to represent the United States on the commission to draft this new treaty. :. This commission will, as a matter of course, take into cOgnizance the rights | of the United States established by the treaties already in existence One of these rights is to refuse to consent to the impairment of her territorial limits. been done i'll anticipation of possible changes to the channel of the Colorado river by the California Development Company in building a dam from the bank on the Mexican side of the stream to the island in the middle of the river. This dam was built for our benefit and may result in more far-reaching results than have been anticipated.
 Ile effect of this dam is to throw the entire flow of the river over to the American side, which will be likely to result in holding the water level up so nigh at this point that when the next high water comes 1t will cause the river to break over into American slough .in such volume as to change the channel of the river and cut off number of square miles of territory now belonging to the United States and make it Mex ican territory by changing the channel of the river from the west of this tract i to the east of it. The United States government. having protested against any possible loss of territory as result of this damming of the channel, would be in position to require damages er rrcompense of some kind and in such event We would suggest that the ;tefff- tory of Mexico, lying between the inter- national boundary. and the. Imperlal canal and far enough south tn include ] the canal itself, be ceded to the United States in exchange.
 should the floods that we have passed i through result in making any such outcome as herein suggested possible, it will not have been without it's blessings. Referring to the mater Of the river changing it's channel and the action of the United States gov ernment with regard thereto, the Yuma Enterprise says:
 cit Is rumored, but on pretty good authority, that the United States will object to this diversion of the entire ! Colorado liver into the Arizona channel for the reason that this will be likely to throw the river into the American slough with such force as to cut this slough at the next flood time into a main river channel This diversion would also materially interfere with the plans for the Improvement of the valley, as ''".crn: " the reclamation servlce, th' - ne current of the
 
 other change .e effect of which is hard to calcutate''
 From this it will be seen that thu Yuma valley people are fearful of such a thing and know that if it occurs it will cause a heavy loss and largely decl'tase the area in the Yuma valley for the Reclamation Service to cover with water from the Yuma dam The Colorado river has been doing some heavy work during the past six months. 1t has been drenched anl delnued with the greatest flood in it's history. More water has come down that stream this season than was ever known to come in one season before, tic discharge dun ing June being two million three hundred thousand second feet, enough water to cover four million and six hundred thousand acres. or seven. thousand one hundred and eightv-seven and a-half square miles of land. witl, water q foot aeep.a We haven t the figures for the tntal discharge of the Colorado river since Januarv last but we feel certain 1t was at least sever, and a.half millions of second feet of water. Daring all this time, up till the middle of June, about one-ninth of this