Coronado Eagle and Journal, Volume 5, Number 40, 17 February 1917 — WEST VITAJLL/Y TnTERESTEI) IN CONSERVATION [ARTICLE]

WEST VITAJLL/Y TnTERESTEI) IN CONSERVATION

For three years The Manufacturer has been-pounding aWtay on the socalled “conservation policies” the government uses in up Western oil fields, waterpowers, mines, etc. We have shown how the Eastern theorist, with nothing at stake, has been trying his experiments on the West and how western industries were killed and handicapped by such a policy. In commenting along the same lines the San Francisco Chronicle in a recent issue says: “Shall the West, with its intimate knowledge of the needs of its great industries in their progress toward a more speedy development for the vast resources of the Pacific coast states, be heard in the determination of the nation’s policy of conservation and control of the public domain? Or shall a small coterie of theorists living for the mcist part on the Atlantic . seaboard, between Boston and New York, continue to retard development by dictating the conservation policy of the whole United States? These are the questions—the issue that is demanding a sane and progressive solution. The phenomenal recent development of the mining industry in the West that has come with the increased price of metals and the wider market for petroleum, is bringing this issue to the attention of the nation. Timbermen, oil men, mining men, and hydro-electric enterprises are demanding a solution of the conservation problems in which the West shall have a proper hearing. The relation of the public domain the Government lands held in reserve, as well as the unreserved and unpatented lands, to the immediate industrial and commercial development of the nation, i« a relation so important that its solution Is destined to determine the character and progress of that development. The hydro-electric itsTdepam must contend with rostrtctteaa binder the use of power whtrh » running to waste, and which s«. <tm can destroy as load as th» *sm shines. Congress should pass remedial leg islation for these industries subset more delay.