Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1909-10-14
roR rHE GREArEsr coon.

cision Of Judge Walters in the irri-
cation company suits on Tuesday, as
outlined In the news column Of this
issue. will assist in clarifying the at
mosphere and bringing order out Of
chaos.
This paper has for several months
held aloof from the water contro-
versy; its efforts in the early part of
the year to induce water right hold
ers to cooperate with the persons
who made bona fide proposition
30 take over, complete and enlarge
the system having apparently been
fruitless.
The position in which the Courts
decision now places the Great West
ernern Beet Sugar Company is the
one in which it sought to be placed
last March. Had there been no op-
position to the company's petition at
that time. it is safe to assume that be-
fore this the distressing complexities
Of the situation would have been so
far solved that it would have been
possible to have interested capital in
the undertaking. Water users should
realize that in order to get water in
this section they must pay an equita-
bic price for it. The project is a diff
ficult and necessarily expensive one,
ard settlers may as well make up
their minds that twenty or twenty
five dollars per acre will not procure
a water right which It wi. & say
fifty dollars to produce. With this
view generally accepted, they should
be willing to pay the additional sum
required to insure them water, par
ticularly when the intrinsic worth of
water on the fertile lands in this vi
entity is so we'll established. So,
having resolved itself to this point,
and it being conceded on almost all
Sides that the water users viii have
TO pay an additional amount in order
to get water, it appears that the real
bone of contention on the part Of
those who have prolonged this litiga-
ton has been as to who should have
charge Of rehabilitating the system.
We feel that this litigation has
been ill-advised to say the least, and
that the water users themselves, how
ever conscientious their efforts may
have been, have been standing in
their own light and have retarded
development for year-or one ir-
rigation season at least And if the
system had been turned over to the
water right holders on the petition Of
the Idaho Fruit Land Company il
would have meant further and end
less litigation as the creditors of the
Great Western Beet Sugar compan,
would not consent that the property
should pass into the hands of other.
without making an effort to protec
themselves for the labor and supplies
and money they had put into the sys
tenn. The water users themselves
would undoubtedly have had t.
shoulder this burden. Under an as
signee. the system and assets of The
company will probably be sold in du'
course of time, the creditors will re
ceiye a pro rata share of the pro
ceeds and the debts against the sys
tenn will thus be discharged, and tina
is the only solution Of the problem
The sooner this is done, the soone
can capital be interested to complet
the system, and then, and not unit
then. can Mountain Rome hope t.
come into its own.
We hope that the water users will
see that their best interests deman
an acQuiescence in the decision O
the Court, and that there win be N
further misguided and misdirecte
litigation. as it can only prove inim
cal to the material prosperity Of a
concerned.
-. Az. ...I- 49,