Arizona republican., 1916-02-08
BILL FOR
(Continued from Page Five)

boards that the cost of the hy- draulic gates the meters and at least some of the expenses (oVer- hea0 of the Washington office are not proper charges against the water users
 The principles upon which the elimination of those items can be justified are, we contend, equally ap- plicable to the elimination of those items of cost aggregating $$,537,- S0900 recommended by majority of the local cost Board and justify those gentlemen in the conclusions to which they have come.
 The report of the Central Cost Re view Board is rather lengthy and contains many statements, arguments and conclusions with which we can not at all agree, but which need not now be noted.
 We have just received q letter from MT Morris Bien. Mr. Biens letter is dated January 18th, 1916, and was received on February 4th. Oast tfriday). IL is not accompanied by 1 a copy of the report of the local 1 Cost Review Board which Mir. Davis advised us he had directed to be | sent.
 MT .Bien is Acting Director of the Reclamation Service. His letter is rather long. and gives his reasons i why the book cost of the project should not and cannot be reduced, for any reason.
 He quotes from the case of Swigart v Baker (229 l.. s. 1SO decided by the Supreme Court of the United States.
 The qeustion in that case was not !that presented here at all The question in tfat case was whether the cost of operation and mainten- ance of a project should be paid out of the reclamation fund and not charged against and collected as the service was rendered. from the water users
 In the course of it's opinion the Supreme Court of the United States said that the reclamation fund was not intended to be diminished for the benefit of any one project but without increase by interest and un- diminished by local expenses shall again be used for constructing other works. That the proceeds of the public lands as a trust fund should be kept intact and again invested land reinvested for construction oi irrigation works.
 We have no question but that this declaration of the Supreme Court in-
 terpreted in the light of the facts in that case, is absolutely right.
 We cannot yield to the suggestion
 that this declaration justifies in any event or in any degree, the imposi- tion of unjust, unreasonable and i'm
 proper costs of construction of z project upon the water users. Ina
 question was not even remotely in
 volved in the decision of the cour
 in SWigart " Baker.
 In fact MT Bien's letter ignore,
 all the procedure before and thu
 reports and findings of the Cost Re
 view Boards and decides that tn
 book cost is the proper cost to b
 charged against the water users.
 In the course of our conference
 with MT. Davis last Wednesda! (which you will note was before W. received MT. Biens letter) the ques
 tion of cost was discussed. The attention of Mir. Davis wa
 called to the difference in cost pc
 acre between that of $60.0O recon
 mended by the Central Cost RevieN : Board and the cost of $64.0O pc acre. fixed in the proposed form o public notice.
 It was there disclosed that tn Reclamation Service had decided nc ? to follow the recommendation of an s of the Boards. but to adhere to tn
 Look cost which he said upon com
 putation. resulted in over $63.00 pc q acre, and that the difference he
 tween that sum and $64.00 was ad ded to provide for the cost of othe Q lwork which would be probably re { Iquired on the project.
 |. He was then asked whether W
 might be heard on the subject of tl