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Show -23- the adjustment of interstate controversies, unless the States are unable to agree upon the terms of a compact, or Congress refuses its consent. The difficulties incident to litigation have led States to resort, with frequency, to adjustment of their controversies by compact, even where the matter in dispute was the relatively simple one of a boundary. In two such cases this Court suggested "that the parties endeavor with the consent of Congress to adjust their boundaries." Washington v. Oregon, 2l4 U. S, 205, 217 218; Minnesota v. Wisconsin, 252 U. S. 273, 2839 In New York v. New Jersey, 256 U. S, 296, 313» which involved a more intricate problem of rights in inter- state waters, the recommendation that treaty-making be resorted to was more specific;10 and compacts for the apportionment of the water of interstate streams have been common.^ Third Whether the apportionment of the water of an interstate stream be made by compact between the upper and lower States with the consent of Congress or by a decree of this Court, the apportionment is binding upon the citizens of each State and all water claimants, even where the State had granted the water rights before it entered into the compact. That the pri- vate rights of grantees of a State are determined by the adjustment by compact of a disputed boundary was settled a century ago in Poole v. Fleeger, 11 Pet. 185, 209, where the Court said* "It cannot be doubted, that it is a part of the general right of sover- eignty, belonging to independent nations, to establish and fix the disputed boundaries between their respective territories; and the boundaries so "The long drawn out irritating boundary litigation, Rhode Island v.. Massachusetts, 7 Pet. 65I; 11 Pet. 226; 12 Pet. 657, 755; 13 Pet. 2$5 1U Pet. 210; 15 Pet. 233; k How. 591; was finally settled by a Compact. See Frankfurter and Landis, supra note 5* a^ 696, 737-38* 10"We cannot withhold the suggestion, inspired by the consideration of this case, that the grave problem of sewage disposal presented by the large and growing populations living on the shores of New York Bay is one more likely to be wisely solved by cooperative study and by conference and mutual concession on the part of representatives of the States so vitally interested in it than by proceedings in any court however constituted." (P. 3130 Congress has consented to 15 such compacts, of which 5 have been ratified by two or more of the contracting States. See State Government, supra note 7, at 120-21. See also Ely, supra note 7, at 381-88; Dodd, supra note 7, at 57U-78. |