igation works. The charges shall be determined with a
view to returning to the reclamation fund the cost of construction and
shall be apportioned equitably.

It is provided that in all construction work eight hours shall
constitute a day's work and no Mongolian labor shall be employed (32
Stat., 389). No right to the use of water for land in private ownership
shall be sold for a tract exceeding 160 acres to any one landowner. It
is provided that the reclamation fund shall be used for the operation
and maintenance of irrigation works and that when the payments required
by the act are made for the major portion of the lands irrigated the
management of these works shall pass to the landowners.

The Secretary of the Interior is authorized to acquire any rights or
property for reclamation purposes by purchase or by condemnation under
judicial process, and to pay from the reclamation fund sums needed for
that purpose. Within thirty days, upon application of the Secretary of
the Interior, the Attorney General of the United States shall institute
condemnation proceedings. The Secretary of the Interior is authorized to
make rules and regulations for carrying the provisions of the act into
full force and effect.

In the seventeen years since the passage of the Reclamation Act the
surveys, examinations, and construction authorized by it have proceeded,
and to-day, according to the report of the Secretary of the Interior
for 1919,[13]

the service is in a position to deliver water to about 1,600,000
acres of irrigable land, covered by crop census, of which about
1,120,000 acres are now being irrigated. Besides this storage water
is delivered from permanent reservoirs under special contracts to
about 950,000 acres more. The projects that have been undertaken
have been planned to provide for an area of about 3,200,000 acres.

A number of bills have been proposed for enlarging and extending this work.

PROPOSED FEDERAL LEGISLATION

The Department of the Interior has prepared a draft of a bill providing
rural homes for returning soldiers. Copies of the bill were sent to the
Governors for consideration by various state legislatures.

The bill is based on the principle of co-operation, according to which
(1) the state provides land, acquiring it by purchase or by agreement
with the present landowners whereby the latter turn their holdings over
to the state for a reasonable price gradually paid to t