well as grass, and whoever controls access to the stream controls the grazing land which borders it. Millions of acres of water fronts have passed into private hands in the last five years for this purpose alone. Immense areas of public domain are illegally fenced.

In one way and another there have been great waste and loss in the attempt to evade the misfit requirements of the public land laws. They do not suit the industries or climatic conditions of the arid region. Men have been forced in self-protection to resort to measures they dislike. The question which Congress should consider is whether some better system cannot be inaugurated. One thing greatly needed is a closer union of the irrigable and grazing lands. The area of an irrigated homestead should be reduced to provide homes for the largest number of people; but this reduction should be offset by giving each settler the right to lease or purchase a larger, but limited, area of grazing land. The chief industry pursued on the land of the arid region is the growing of live-stock. Uniting the irrigable and grazing lands would enable farmers to grow their winter's food supply on the irrigated land, and to support their stock in summer on the grazing land. It would divide the latter into a multitude of small holdings; would increase the number of people benefited; and would make the growing of live-stock attractive to many who are now repelled by the risks and controversies of the open range. It would also encourage the introduction of improved breeds of live-stock, which cannot now be placed on the open range because of the lack of control. Stock would be better fed and better cared for in winter; and a humane industry would replace the gamble with death by cold and starvation which is now a conspicuous figure of the openrange industry in many sections. It would enlist self-interest in the improvement of the native grasses where every influence now tends to their destruction.

The grazing lands, for the present, should be leased and not sold. The limits of irrigation have not been fixed, nor are the possibilities of these lands sufficiently known for the limits of the homestead to be marked out. Care should be taken that these leases do not interfere with homestead settlement. This can be done by having the lands classified by the general Government, and the grazing and irrigable areas. segregated, or by having every lease subject to entry under the present land laws.

The object of leasing would be to bring about more settled conditions, to give the irrigator a more secure tenure in the use of the grazing lands he needs, and to protect the native grasses; but if leasing is adopted it

will inevitably result in returning to the Government a large sum of money. At a rent of one cent an acre the annual income would be $4,000,000. The experience of the arid States in leasing lands shows that an even larger sum could be readily secured. Colorado leases over 3,500,000 acres at an average rental of eight cents an acre. Montana leases nearly 1,000,000 acres of State land at a rental of over eleven cents an acre. Wyoming leases nearly 2,000,000 acres at an average of over four cents an acre. The rentals in Utah average nearly six cents an acre. The Union and Northern Pacific railways lease nearly 2,000,000 acres at rentals varying from one to seven cents an acre.

Appropriations for irrigation by Congress will bring this country face to face with a new political issue. This is the adjustment of State and Federal authority over the water resources of the West. Thus far State control has been absolute and unquestioned; but if Congress provides an additional water supply some arrangement must be made for the distribution of the supply. It would hardly be possible to have a State administration over the natural flow of the stream, and a national administration over the stored supply along the same stream. Any uncertainty regarding jurisdiction would be likely to create friction and to work badly in another direction. It would lessen the efficiency of State administration in States having satisfactory laws, and would prevent improvements in the States which have bad laws.

At the same time there must be some assurance that the additional water supply made available by the public funds shall benefit actual users and not enrich the holders of speculative rights. The irrigation codes of some of the arid States afford such assurance. These States are ready to receive aid, and it is certain that they will make wise use of it. But there are States where no one knows what would happen if the Government built reservoirs or canals without any provision for the establishment or protection of rights to the water supply made available; and there are other States where the common-law doctrine of riparian rights would menace the success of Government reservoirs as it now menaces private ones.

The advocates of national aid are not agreed regarding the policy to be adopted. Some urge national control as well as national aid. They believe that the differences in State laws and the division of streams crossing State lines require that the Government should take entire charge of the distribution of water. Those who oppose this favor the continuation of State control, and call attention to the magnitude of the interests already created under State laws, and dependent on these laws for stabil

ity and value. Titles to water along thousands of water-courses have been established by State tribunals. The rights vested have an incredible value. They control the productiveness of many million acres of land. The water rights on the little creek first used by the Mormons are worth $1,600,000. The best estimate of the value of water rights in Colorado places them at $90,000,000; and the titles to similar property in California are worth at least an equal sum. For the general Government at this late date to assume control would inevitably cause a radical disturbance of existing conditions. The differences in State laws are fundamental; and a national law which would operate everywhere alike would be revolutionary in some States. It would disturb local usages and customs to which communities are wedded and which irrigators understand. Laws for the control of an element so vital and necessary to human life as water will work well only when they have the sanction of the people most concerned; and, notwithstanding the mistakes which have been made, it is the preponderating belief of those best informed that the effort of the Government should be confined to aiding the States, and should leave it to those States to create their own administrative systems, and work out their own problems. In doing this it would be leaving the solution of these issues to the people most familiar with the subject, and most interested in the success of the industry, and hence would be entrusting it to the highest intelligence which can be enlisted. ELWOOD MEAD.

RECIPROCITY WITH CANADA.

GEOGRAPHICAL and ethnic conditions have always suggested to the Canadian that broad and liberal trade relations with the United States would be natural and mutually advantageous. He has invariably acted upon this view, and the repeated rejection of his overtures has not seriously shaken his faith in the doctrine that the present trade situation could be easily changed for the better. In 1854 the efforts he made for more liberal terms were crowned with success through the negotiation and ratification of a reciprocity treaty which was to continue in force for twelve years, and then to be terminable at one year's notice. This treaty provided reciprocal entry for the natural products of each country into the markets of the other. Under its provisions there followed a great expansion of trade between the two countries, an increase of social intercourse, and an advance in the direction of community of interest.

Notice of the abrogation of the reciprocity treaty of 1854 was given by the United States Government in 1865. The primary cause of this action was supposed to be a feeling of resentment provoked by the fact that news of the Federal defeat at Chancellorsville had been received with cheers by the majority of the Tory members of the Canadian Parliament, then in session at Quebec. At this time public feeling in Canada regarding the War of the Rebellion ran high. The Liberals of the country almost to a man sympathized with the North, while the Tories, as a rule, sympathized with the South. The action of the United States in giving notice of the abrogation of the treaty was ill-judged, if it was prompted by this incident. There were copperheads in the North, in no insignificant numbers, as ready to cheer over Federal reverses as was the Tory contingent in the Canadian Parliament. No less than 40,000 Canadians had aided in fighting the battles of the Union. The majority of the people of Canada were intensely sympathetic with that cause, and the abrogation of the treaty was a wet blanket upon their zeal; tending to strengthen and spread the feeling for which it was supposed to be designed as a punishment.

It was contended that the operation of the treaty gave the greater

advantages to Canada. To a limited extent, and in the narrow sphere of present results, this may possibly have been true; but a statesmanlike view of the operation of causes that would tell upon the future was not taken by those who held this opinion. A sordid reckoning as to which of the parties to the agreement sold the most was allowed to hide from view the march of destiny and the fraternal blending of the unmeasured forces of the future. If the treaty in its practical workings was unsatisfactory to the United States, Canada was ready to modify its provisions; it was, in fact, anxious to do so. Before the fated day of abrogation arrived, Canadian envoys had visited Washington to plead for the continuance of fraternal trade relations, under a treaty to be modified in any way that was reasonable and just. Their reception was a rebuff — cold, positive, and absolute. They returned from their fruitless errand; and Canada at once set about the confederation of the British North American Provinces, a task which was accomplished in 1867.

In twelve years the treaty had more than quadrupled the amount of trade between Canada and the United States, and had led to a very large increase in the importation of American manufactures into Canada. The War of the Rebellion had created a demand for Canadian farm products greater than would have existed under normal conditions; and the exportation of natural products to the United States in 1866, the last year in which the treaty remained in force, was greatly stimulated by the approaching abrogation, the date of which was known in advance. In that year the total export of the British North American Provinces to the United States, including estimated short returns from inland ports of $4,185,692, was $44,143,908. This amount was composed in large part of farm products, namely, animals and their products $11,319,243, and agricultural products $13,722,721, these two items together amounting to $25,041,964. In the same year the British American imports from the United States amounted to $28,572,000, a considerable proportion of which consisted of manufactures. It will be borne in mind that the imports into Canada for the year 1866 were made in the natural course of trade, while the exports, for the reason above stated, were abnormal in amount. It is reasonable to conclude that the tendency under natural conditions would have been to secure the equalization of exports and imports.

In 1866 the British-American exports to Great Britain amounted to $16,826,000, and the imports from Great Britain to $40,062,000. The most considerable items on the list of exports consisted of forest products and ships built at Quebec. The exports of farm products from the Prov