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Show -93- of the parties, may allow one of the states all or substantially all the water of the stream concerned as an offset to other advantages of the op- ponent's position. We need not elaborate on the practical differences in these interpretations- Wyoming vs? Colorado (259 U, S« 1+19, 1+96; 260 U. S. 1; 1922) was // argued three times before a decision* The suit arose from the fear of ^ Wyoming that the Greeley-Poudre project, which proposed to carry headwaters of the Laramie River over the mountains to irrigation on the plains, would injure irrigators in Wyoming lower down the stream. The decision distin- guishes and reaffirms the Kansas-Colorado case on the ground that between a state having riparian doctrines like Kansas and one having priority doc- trines like Colorado «> the adjustment can take bread scope, but sets forth that as between two states which both promulgate the appropriation doc- trine, it is fair to apply the rule of first in time is first in right regardless of state lines- and so distribute the water of the stream. Hav- ing announced this doctrine, the court wholly abandons it in the decree, and proceeds to award Wyoming an annual quantity of water in acre feet. In short, the real effect of the decision in spite of its argument is to divide the annual flow of the stream between the two states, on a quanti"fcy basis which is derived from a consideration of the actual needs for water on the farms irrigated in both states with attention to the relative senior- ity of construction. The application of the priority principle could no-t result in any judgment for a quantity of water* for a water right is the right to divert whatever is available in the stream whenever needed by the claimant and not required by a senior right. This system never results an the particular claimant or any series of claimants getting the same quan- tity of water on any two days or in any two years. It is one thing to say, " You can fill your buckets in turn as long as there is enough" and another thing to say, "You shall fill your bucket once a year." The Su- preme Court announces the former and decrees the latter. Apart from the peculiarities of the opinion, the wisdom of adopting , priority of use in point of time as a basis of apportionment between v" states of an interstate stream, is at least doubtful and in my opinion shortsighted and misinformed. It is disappointing to see the tribunal which lias the vision shown in the sewage, the levee, the flood and the other river cases mentioned above adopt as a rule of decision a doctrine which is essentially technical and juristic in tone, wasteful and difficult in application, accidental in origin, long ago discarded in other .countries and rapidly being modified in America. Host of these points of criticism of the priority doctrine were ably presented to this Association last year, and have been recently printed by the same author in the Harvard Law Review. Besides the arguments there presented let me suggest only that the history of irrigation in Italy, Prance, Spain and Asia, with that beginning to develop in America* shows beyond all debate that time priorities must ultimately give way here as elsewhere to the conflicting and overwhelming demand of economy. Priorities are a makeshift of the frontier, with whi-ch the West is encumbered> not contented. We have reviewed, hurriedly, the jurisdiction and the attitude of -the Supreme Court of the United States, as one avenue for the settlement of |