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Show Smith, a professor at the University of London, stated; "The economic interests involved in this Swiss dispute were comparatively small, but the case has some interest as being the earliest one, so far as I have been able to discover, in which a judicial tribunal has approached the problem from the stand- point of international law. The case began in I87I as ordinary litigation between private parties, and at a later stage the intervention of the cantons gave it a quasi-international character. "The small stream of the Jonabach divides the cantons of Aargau and Zurich. At the village of Zwilliken a Zurich firm called Biedermann Brothers built a~~dam in order to develop power for the use of their factory, and objection to this was taken by certain Aargau mill-owners whose properties lay further down the stream, the substance of their grievance being that the dam deprived them of a sufficient flow of water during normal working hours. Owing to the rate of flow from the dam, it was claimed that the Aargau owners lost four hours of working time each day. There was no question in this case of diversion. In 1872 Zurich passed a law permitting the erection of dams in all cases where they did not involve a loss of water during normal working hours, and providing further that dams might be erected even in such oases, provided that loss to third parties was prevented by com- pensating works or that the parties reached an agreement. Under this law Biedermann Brothers ob- tained a license for their dam, which was granted on condition that they should deposit a sum of 6,700 francs to the account of the mill-owners and provide for a sufficient flow of water between 1+ a.m. and 8 p.m. The Canton of Aargau now took up the case before the Swiss Federal Tribunal, claiming that the Zurich statute was an infringement•of her rights. "The decision which was rendered in 1878, laid down that Aargau had no proprietary interest in the water, but only a right to a reasonable share of the flow, and that this right was not infringed by the Zurich statute, which made equi- table provision for the protection of .riparian owners. Aargau herself had the power to remedy any injury that might be caused, since the sum of money deposited would enable the lower mill-owners to erect a dam which would provide them with the necessary water at all hours. In other words, the sum deposited was treated as the potential equivalent -39- |