be measured by this minimum flow during the irrigating season, and unless some method be found whereby the floods of spring may be utilized during the summer months, only a limited area of the fertile lands along the river can be reclaimed.
The solution of the problem obviously lies in the construction of a storage reservoir having a capacity sufficient to retain the flood waters of spring, releasing them during the summer months as needed. The construction of such a storage reservoir and dam, with the auxiliary diversion dams, headworks and canals, and the adjustment of rights of way, water rights and other perplexing legal matters, is a task requiring large sums of money and efficient organization—sums so vast and organization so perfect that no combination of settlers in a new, sparsely settled country could hope to achieve it. Private capital may be advanced by outside parties if a private monopoly of the water supply be granted, but in such a case the water users must be always resisting the encroachments that follow the private ownership of natural monopolies. The capital may be advanced by outside parties and the works constructed under their supervision, not for the purpose of obtaining a private monopoly, but to turn the whole over to an organization of the water users when they shall have refunded the cost of installation plus a reasonable return at current rates of interest. There is but one party powerful enough and philanthropic enough to do this, and, if the arid regions are to be equitably reclaimed without the creation of powerful private monopolies, it is to the national government
