enactment of laws and regulations, act as a board to lease the lands under rules and regulations proposed by the Secretary of the Interior, but there is no indication that they exercised their prerogative in this matter. The Territorial legislature, however, passed an act on March 18, 1897, which provided for the leasing of the school lands. The squatters who had previously occupied them were given a preferred right. In case they failed or refused to lease, and others wished to do so, their improvements were to be appraised in a manner provided by law and paid for by the new lessee. Improvements were described as being—
anything permanent in character, the result of labor or capital expended on such land in its reclamation or development, and the appropriation of water thereon, which has enhanced the value of the same beyond what said land would be worth had it been permitted to remain in its original state.
An addendum to this law enacted since provides that—
anyone making permanent improvements after leasing shall be allowed compensation therefor at the expiration of their lease, or anyone having to surrender their land before the expiration of their lease shall be entitled to all the benefits of this section.[1]
These statutes remained the law until statehood, when the first legislature, recognizing the necessity of an “equitable adjustment of the reciprocal rights of the lessee residing on any of said land, and of the State” authorized and directed the issuing of permits for the further occupancy of the school lands held under Territorial lease pending final adjustment. After objection and opposition on the part of some lessees, and up to December 1, 1914, the date of the first report of the State land commission, 133 lessees had complied with the law, while 75 had not.
In the meantime the question of water rights had long since become an exceedingly important one. In early days water was largely a question of individual initiative. Then came the incorporation of the Salt River Valley Canal Co., which took over individual rights and duties and administered matters pertaining to the water supply; in course of time more land was brought under cultivation while the amount of water remained stationary, and as a result the shares of the company which had a par value of $500 attained a market price of $5,000 or $6,000 or even more. But this abnormal condition could not last; dissensions multiplied; suits “for the purpose of establishing the priority of right to the flow of the river, as appurtenant to the land upon which originally appropriated and untransferable,” were instituted and culminated in 1910 in what is known as the “Kent decree.” By this decree—
- ↑ The last section of this supplementary act was apparently never invoked.
