Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1911-02-06

Act operations III lHe west. "A oLdle III
its wisdom says, Here is section
of $1,000 acres of land adjacent to
Twin Falls, in Idaho" for example.
The State OF Idaho says, I'VE, by leg
islative act, place that into Cary
Act project, giving the company that
puts the. money into the necessary
development power to make the first
charge against that land for its wa
ter Improvement" Now, then, it is.
true, Mr. Good, that the hOmesteader
that afterwards comess.a as a citizen
to hdnleste4d that land takes it with
a very heavy charge, against It, but
the experience Of the twholea West
shows that. that ,land is Immensely
meresNafuable to the settier.With the
additional charge than it would be
without IT, ....
Mr.. Good: | think you fail to get
my point. My point is this, that the
lands that are already under irriga-
ton certainly ought not to come I'M
der the provisions of this case, But
the power here is broad enough to
bring every foot of land in the Ter
ritory of Hawaii, whether irrigated or
not, under irrigating companies that
could supply water to irrigate them.
My point here is that the power pro-
posed to be given here is too broad.
Mr. Mcclellan: | think there are
two answers to that, Mr.. Good. In
the first place, if you will, read that
18th line again you will no,ice it says,
"all such public lands as are capable
of being economically irrigated from
the waterways of such company" If
lands are already under irrigation, it
would not be economical to have them
subject to a charge to the irrigation
company
Mr.. Good: They might place them
under the same status under this law
as if they had never been irrigated at
all, it seems to me. f ns .'..
that by appropriate language some
where.
Mr.. Good: Yes. If you were to
say, mot under irrigation or on lands
not improved by irrigation, that
might do. But in reading that it oc-
CURED to mo that because of your
peculiar condition it would be better
to have special bills introduced per-
haps for each projec..
Mr. Mcclellan: do not think that
is feasible, Mr.. Good. In the first
place, you must come back to the as
sumption, and you can not escape
that assumption, thai the governor
and the Commissioner of Public Lands
in the first place, must have discre-
ton, and, in the second place, they
are going to act with discretion, and
that they would not lease to an irri-
cation company lands already under
irrigation | think it would be rash
presumption to suppose such thing.
There has never been such an in
stance of crookedness on the part of
the governor of Hawaii or public Of
fetal of that sort, and public senti-
mem is so strongly operative in Ha-
wall that no governor would dare to
do such thing, even if he had the
inclination We have never had such
a governor, and | think we shall not
have.
Mr.. Good: | have very high and
excellent opinion OF your governor.
did not mean any possible reflection
on him.
Mr.. Mcclellan: know; but you
must impose a large amount of dis
erection on the governor. You can not
escape it, and it seems to me a gen.
eral bill should give the discretion to
say, Here are certain Government
lands; for example, here are these
lands, all belonging to the Govern
ment, leased" and whens that lease
expires the governor and the Land
Commissioner will go over there and
look it over, if they have not alrcay
been over it, and they can say Oh the
ground, 1--WE will draw a line at the
1SS-foQt contour point, and We will
do a certain thing with the land be-
low that, and we will make other dis
positions with the land above it, in
accordance with the nature of the
land itself, in accordance with its pos
sibilities of irrigation and with the
character of the soil, and all that sort
of thing. | do not see how you could
consistently draw up a special law
here for that purpose. Suppose we
were to define by metes and bounds
certain land that would go into an
irrigation project You would have
to go back and take the governors
and the commissioners word about it..
If this committee went out there and
looked over the ground, still in a
specific transaction you would have
to take their word even then as to
where the limo should be drawn. There
is no possible way of avoiding that,
so far as | can figure it out
The Chairman: In the last anal
ysis here the purpose is to get under
irrigation and under way, so that it
may produce crops, areas of land that
are now practically barren?
Mr.. McClellan. Yes, sir, Mr..
Chairman; that is the whole thing in
a nutshell. And | would simply add
that in order to do that it is neces-
sary to make this longtime lease, so
that the company can get the finan-
Ecial capital necessary to back it up