Arizona republican., 1907-09-05

first two of the enumerated sources oi supply The right to appropriate all of the first-the, nominal flow, If l may for the sake of brevity use that ex- pression-was already vested in land owners and had never been measured and the difficulties of the measure ment of it seemed insurmountable The second means of supply. the stored water. could be deemed an added SUD- ply: but as the extent of that must depend upon how much of the normal flow-of low, mean and flood stages oi the river-had been appropriated, and as that had not been. and could not without great difficulty be. measured the amount of stored water available for new use could not be measured.
 To avoid these difficulties it was de- termined to treat the aggregate of the two sources, the amount of which was made up of two variable and unde- termined amounts, but always deter minable in the aggregate. as pracu- cally a common stock. The whole amount of water available and to be made available by the projected works was therefore taken as a basis upon which to compute the number of acres that might be irrigated. That deter imitation has not yet been definitely made. and can only be made upon ac- tual demonstration. But whatever that number of acres may be found ultimately to be, it will fix absolutely and definitely the number of shares of the capital stock of the association that can be issued These shares, each for an acre of land, constitute the evil dence of the right of the holder to use water sufficient to irrigate an acre of land.
 STOCK AND WATER.
 These shares. for reasons heretofore given. and for reasons presently to be noted. are made appurtenant to spe- cific lands, and are not transferable except upon. and contemporaneous with, a sale and transfer of the land; and then only to the grantee or trans fierce of the land itself. In terms. a transfer of the land even without men, tion of the shares is made to operate as 8 transfer of the appurtenant stock A transfer of the title of land by oper- etion of law also is made to operate as transfer of the appurtenant stock and rights. It is further provided that an attempt to transfer the stock sepa- rate from the land to which it is ap- purtenant, shall operate as a forfeiture of the stock and all incidental water rights. Thus the right to the use of water was made. as the irrigation act Rnnrar1p1a fac ha ch ha lo hx, the agreement of the associates. appur- tenant to the land upon which the right of appropriation was based.
 In addition to the purpose of making the right to the use of water appur- tenant to specific land. to accord in that respect with the irrigation; act q further purpose. and one of great in- ffuenee with the farmers. waszto ren- der impossible manipulation of the stock by which 1t might become &C., cumulated into the hands of those who were not land owners. or not owners of stock directly commons urate with their ownership of land. In other words it was the determined purpose of the land owners and water users that only land owners and water users should have any part in the management of the af- fairs of the association, and they only to the extent that they were actually water users.
 I find that have unconsciously dropped into a description of an asso- ciation actually in operation: this prob- ably is just as we'll for the purposes of this paper as to discuss the subject abstractly.
 As a further precaution against a common means of corporate manipula- tion, it is provided that stock can be voted only in person, by ballot at poll ing places provided for that purpose. thus eliminating wholly the proxy.
 It is contemplated in the Salt River valley project that eventually the as- sociation shall not only have the man. agement and operation of the works constructed by the government. but of all works for the storage, regulation. diversion and distribution of all avail able water. including that of the nor nal and already appropriated flow of the river.
 As l have said, the shares of stock evidence the right to use water; that which the shareholder has already ap- propriated as well az that the right to which he acquires from the govern ment under the irrigation act. In terms, the former, being a vested right, Is left unaffected, except that under specified conditions it may be forfeit ed. The other. the right to the stored water-so to briefly designate that ad- ditional supply made available by the government works-is defined in terms to be that proportion of the stored wa ter that the number of each sharehold- CTS shares bears to the whole number of shares.
 AS before mentioned, the vested right is tn most cases of undeterminable ex- tent, so that in many cases the already vested right plus the proportionate right of the stored water would not exceed the limit of beneficial use. while in others 1t would not equal the meas ure of it In other words, the sum of supply under both rights in some in- stances would be more, and in others less, than sufficient to properly irri- gate .the shareholders land. There fore the provision Is made that benefi- cial use shall be the measure and the limit of all the rights. notwithstanding the apparently inconsistent provisions.
 l must confess that this is not hap oily expressed in the articles of incor- poration of the Salt River Valley Water IrSars' aScocfatiap u1ho