Complaints

Murmurs of wrath came out of the West. Like a swarm of bees, droning a chorus of anger, they floated across the continent and then they settled, settled around the head of the Secretary of the Interior, on the brow of Hubert Work.

Last week Borah, the beekeeper, came to, and he told the President at what the bees were angry. The matter involved was the irrigation policy of the Department of the Interior. In the first place the farmers on the Government irrigation projects were hard up. Then, also, they had been told by agents of the Department of the Interior that they would not have to pay for this year's water until their crops were in, but in July, long before the crops were ready, the Government came demanding money-- threatening to cut off the precious water. In some cases the water was cut off. And the ranks of the ruined were augmented.

Rumor had it that Senator Borah came to say to the President on behalf of several western Senators-- Mr. McNary, Mr. Stanfield, Mr. Oddie, Mr. Cameron--that Mr. Work would have to retire if the Republicans were to carry the West in 1926. But this Mr. Borah denied, saying "that he urged only a modification of Government policy.

What the President said in reply is not known, but only the day before he had told newspaper men that the fault was not with Secretary Work but with Congress, which had refused to pass the Administration's measures for allowing deferred payment to the settlers on reclamation projects.

Reclamation projects are, by and large, high cost, "marginal" enterprises. Just as it is unprofitable to drill wells and pump water if there is plenty of good water to be obtained from streams or lakes, so it is unprofitable to undertake expensive reclamation projects until there is no longer an adequate supply of naturally good farm land. There has to be a shortage and consequently an increase in price in order to make any marginal enterprise profitable.

Agriculture has not yet completely recovered from its post-War overproduction and consequently the irrigation projects, handicapped by large investments in dams and other water supply works, have proved peculiarly unprofitable. Settlers on Government irrigation projects have not been able to pay back to the Government the cost of its investment, and in some ' cases have not even been able to pay the actual upkeep charges for water supply.

But the growing demand for food throughout the world will doubtless boost food prices in a few years so as to make many of the projects successful. The problem is to be prepared for future needs without undertaking projects that are too much of a burden at present.

The present discomfiture is increased by the fact that many settlers on irrigation projects have not been properly equipped with either capital or experience; so with the present unfavorable conditions they have been doubly hard hit.*

-The Department of the Interior has recently placed the following restrictions on all prospective settlers on irrigation projects : They must have vigorous health, at least $2,000 in capital (or its equivalent in livestock, farm implements, etc.) and two years' experience in farming, preferably irrigation farming.