Show THE GOVERNMENT ArID IRRIGATION I I TIs Is from the Des Moines In I Register j i During the past ten years Arizona has I put In 645 miles of Irrigation ditches at a cost of SlWSIGO and has received ten I limes that sum In return for the expense They did not Insist on the Government paying for their Irrlrjatlon scheme and I tho people of Colorado and other Western I States In tho semiarid redan have no I right to do so Lot the man who Is going to make the fortune out of the hind pay I tim bill According to the above the canals I I tho most cost S27CS per mile Of course I available water was appropriated The t next M5 miles will doubtless cost thrca I times as much Utah has ton times I 545 miles of canals but has much more I land and water that ought to be I brought together That will be most I expensive however and docs the Register Reg-ister know of any poor farmers that are prepared to build canals at from 27CS per mile up If a capitalist or combine undertakes the work that vlll at once become monopoly Such an enterprise will not be undertaken except ex-cept upon a prospect of a great reward re-ward and the land to settlers Will cost I lands In Iowa as much as the best If the Government were to do the work t It could get all Its money back and a fair Interest upon It before It gave up r its title to tho land But something more Is needed There will be as much new land brought under cultivation by impounding water as by new ditches This Is too expensive work to be carried car-ried through by Individual effort But the Government could do it and get all Its money back from the land When the Government appropriates 51000000 > for Improving the navigation of Squaw creek where a canoe would C ground In a minute the Justification urged is that the title to the stream is In the Government and that anything any-thing which helps the commerce of tho Dismal swamp helps the whole Union Well the title to the desert mountains and desert plains of the West Is in the Government and when one poor man secures a home where no home was before then the Integrity of the Republic Re-public Is reinforced that much Then too in the case of Squaw creek the expenditure ex-penditure Is a total loss There need be no loss In converting desert Into I smiling fields The savants say that in thirtyfive years more we shall have no grain to export that In forty years the United States will have to Import cereals and this even if the desert is I reclaimed The West pays more than Its proportion of the countrys expenses ex-penses for It has to purchase more than twice the amount that the same number of people purchase I pur-chase In any other part of the Republic I Repub-lic Why is the opposition to anything It needs so very strenuous There is still another point That the Government Govern-ment is able to make great appropriations appropria-tions is due to the West The country I cultivated Its fields and nursed its manufactures for sixty years and was exceedingly poor Its treasury was wellnigh empty and its credit was on a par with that of Egypt and Turkey Tur-key The change came when the treasures treas-ures of the West became the lubricating lubricat-ing fluid of American commerce cooled all the hot boxes and enabled the long stationary wheels to move Not much credit has been given for that but learned editors and statesmen states-men should appreciate It and bend their ears to all reasonable demands from the far West |