of scarcity. Lax and uncertain laws have made it possible to establish
rights to water in excess of actual uses or necessities, and many
streams have already passed into private ownership, or a control
equivalent to ownership.

Whoever controls a stream practically controls the land it renders
productive, and the doctrine of private ownership of water apart from
land cannot prevail without causing enduring wrong. The recognition of
such ownership, which has been permitted to grow up in the arid regions,
should give way to a more enlightened and larger recognition of the
rights of the public in the control and disposal of the public water
supplies. Laws founded upon conditions obtaining in humid regions, where
water is too abundant to justify hoarding it, have no proper application
in a dry country.

In the arid States the only right to water which should be recognized
is that of use. In irrigation this right should attach to the land
reclaimed and be inseparable therefrom. Granting perpetual water rights
to others than users, without compensation to the public, is open to all
the objections which apply to giving away perpetual franchises to the
public utilities of cities. A few of the Western States have already
recognized this, and have incorporated in their constitutions the
doctrine of perpetual State ownership of water.

The benefits which have followed the unaided development of the past
justify the nation's aid and co-operation in the more difficult and
important work yet to be accomplished. Laws so vitally affecting homes
as those which control the water supply will only be effective when they
have the sanction of the irrigators; reforms can only be final and
satisfactory when they come through the enlightenment of the people most