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Show cheap. Thus, a successful irrigation or drainage program might lead to a great reduction in the dollar value of some particular crop; the more that is planted and protected, the less it is worth; and the stronger is the Nation. This basic conflict between private values based on scarcity and pub- lic values based on plenty lies at the very heart of the conservation problem. It is to increase na- tional wealth that government invests public capital in the improvement of the resources base. To evaluate conservation programs or projects in dollar terms, it would be necessary to devise accounting techniques which could measure the increase in the security value of natural resources resulting from conservation measures. Such social accounting would differ from commercial ac- counting in that totals would be recorded in physical units, not dollars. That is, it would be said that the Nation possesses a certain physical quantity of a given resource, not some dollar value of that resource. Likewise, annual net changes in national wealth would be recorded in physical units-for example, total wood products con- sumed as against the total produced by annual growth. Certain objectives of water resources develop- ment are directly concerned with increasing the physical productive power of the national econ- omy-for example, agricultural production, power, transportation, and municipal and indus- trial water supply. Beyond these are more general objectives concerned with improving the general well-being of the society, through making possible a more wholesome and satisfactory way of life. These objectives, among others, would include national defense, protection of the public health and safety, provision of recreational facilities, preservation of scenic values, and preservation of the national resources base. In existing evaluation practices, these objectives are treated as intangible benefits of multiple-pur- pose projects. There is a certain logic in such treatment, especially when the provisions for mili- tary defense or for health and recreation are cost- less byproducts of development for other pur- poses such as power, irrigation, or navigation. However, they deserve independent status, and when they give rise to additional costs, the costs and benefits should be evaluated on a separate basis. The distinguishing feature of these public, or intangible, benefits is that they are "end values" rather than means toward the achieve- ment of end values. Thus, while irrigated land and electric energy have value indirectly through the desired goods they make available, these national benefits represent direct contributions to general welfare. Public outlays for these general welfare items can be evaluated only in terms of a budgetary decision, made by Congress in response to pub- lic opinion, as to the proportion of national income the people of the United States wish to devote to these purposes. Such a decision is simi- lar to that made by townspeople when they decide how much they will spend for education, police, parks, playgrounds, hospitals, and disease preven- tion, and how much for their other public functions. The impossibility of evaluating intangibles by means of benefit-cost analysis is inescapable. But it is also necessary to supplement benefit-cost analysis in connection with the productive pur- poses of water resources development already mentioned: agricultural production, power, transportation, and industrial water supply. Functions Are Inseparable It cannot be too much emphasized that the various functions of multiple-purpose develop- ments are inseparable from each other. They cannot, therefore, be analyzed separately. They must all contribute to common broad goals, even though they make their contributions through different channels. To put it another way, the development of a river basin includes a series of projects, all of them together designed to make the most effective use of the water in the light of the requirements and productive capacity of the basin. We cannot, then, say that a power dam or navigation channel which is an integral part of this development can be discussed only in terms of its economic productivity. If long-range projections of agricultural re- quirements and the dependable capacity of the 61 |