OCR Text |
Show IRRIGATION AND BONDS. The solution of the problem of irrigation and of the marketing of irrigation bonds in the United States, which was the theme of the Chicago Irrigation association at a banquet, seems likely to fall far short of the mark reached in Australia and Canada. The failure at the outset to include in the constitution of the United States water as a property right so far has caused the only solutions offered to be trivial and superficial, and yet irrigating never was more urgently needed. The fact that there is nothing back of most issues of irrigation irri-gation bonds but a tract of land which is not valuable beyond a nominal amount until water is put upon it has been carefully concealed con-cealed by the vendors of those bonds. In the unfortunate cases where foreclosures have taken place the security holders have found they had nothing of much value until they spent enough more money to insure the supply of water and the actual utilization of the land for growing crops. ' , - In Australia and Canada the governments have provided an ab-solute ab-solute title both to land and water, and also have required that the water shall be brought to every 80-acre tract of land by the company which undertakes the task of irrigating any new area. So far the question of water titles is one which irrigation promotors have referred re-ferred to as "a technical point only which will be disposed of by their attorneys." The litigation in the United States for water titles is voluminous beyond any other involving property rights, and the settler whose supply of water is reduced by the "hogging" of a! neighbor has no redress except by the doubtful process of the courts, whereas in the other countries the water hog finds his punishment in the penitentiary. |