less than two months later, and then by the President sent to Congress August 21, 1911-I think that is the day we adjourned-the Secretary of War sent it to the President on that day. Now, General, I observe on August 21 Gen. BIXBY. On January 21, 1909; sent to the President August 19, 1911. Mr. COOPER. That is over two years. I observe here on page 16 that there is quite a criticism of the plant there. I have been told by an electrician-I was told by him when I went through the plant— he said at that time that the machinery that was all right three or four years ago had practically become obsolete. Now, there is some very suggestive language on page 16 of this report. There is a statement in regard to the Niagara Falls Co. that would seem to indicate that that plant is not up to date. Is that so? Gen. BIXBY. I judge so. Mr. COOPER. They do not get more than two-thirds of what they ought to get? Gen. BIXBY. Well, if they could have gotton more funds at the start, they could have gotten a bigger development, but they probably went as far as their finances allowed. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Edward A. Wickes, president of the Niagara Falls Power Co., desires to make a statement on this point. There being no objection he will proceed. Mr. EDWARD A. WICKES. When these works were projected our first three dynamos produced more alternating current than was produced in the United States. We solved every problem that was presented to us. The men whose advice we followed were Lord Kelvin, Turretini, of Geneva; Mr. Unwin, the dean of the Central Institute at London; Mascart, of France; and Coleman Sellers, of America. They were in session for months. The plans that were followed were laid down by them and superintended here by the most eminent body of engineers that we could get. We have made no error, and when I asked some engineers the other way-they came from California-how many managed to avoid trouble they said, "Why, we copied your methods." Now I make this statement, because "bad work" and "bad management" have been suggested. There was never a time when our work halted for one moment for lack of money. We started with $2,000,000 and we now have $25,000,000 in it; and every step has been under the best advice. I say this that you might relieve yourselves from asking questions relative to absence of knowledge. We installed and have maintained our works so as to get the best efficiency, the most head, consistent with full regard for scenic beauty. If we had put our buildings lower down or at the Falls, we could have used a higher head, but, under the advice of the best artists, to avoid marring the scenery at the Falls, we placed our power house and works up river, and carry the water from our wheels by a long underground tunnel-all at extra expense and with loss of head; but both these losses were deliberately incurred so as to protect scenic beauty. To discriminate against us now in the distribution of this proposed increase, because our head is lower than that of another company, is to penalize us for regarding and to reward others for disregarding the very object of this proposed legislation and of the treaty-the preservation of scenic beauty. Gen. BIXBY. We have in our office no other thought than that mentioned by the last speaker. Even in our last reports all we are talking about is how it might be done with modern appliances and knowledge to get everything that could be gotten out of it. Mr. COOPER. This officer says "All this is not intended as a criticism." That is all. Mr. GARNER. General, you have been somewhat diverted. Mr. SHARP. Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee adjourn. It is evident that we can not conclude this hearing this session. The CHAIRMAN. Very well; we will now recess until 1 o'clock. Gen. BIXBY. Mr. Chairman, I think that I can say all that is expected of me in a very few words. One of the other questions asked was whether the 15,600 feet per second should be increased to 20,000 cubic-foot seconds. So far as navigation and scenic beauty are concerned, I do not know of anything in my office that shows that the increase would seriously affect the two; the effect of the diversion of this 4,400 feet around the Falls would be practically inappreciable. The second question was Mr. GARNER. Is any legislation necessary under the treaty? For instance, you have just answered that it would not affect navigation or scenic beauty if the full amount under the treaty was taken from the other side. Gen. BIXBY. Yes, sir. Our understanding in the Engineer Office has been that there is nothing in the Burton Act that would allow the Secretary of War to divide up that 4,400 cubic feet per second. The treaty gives 20,000 cubic feet as a limit, and nobody has been found in our office who is willing to say which company the additional water is coming to; the joint commission says it is not its business, and none of the secretaries will say that the law authorizes him to step in; so nobody has a right to say who shall get it; and any action we would take in the engineer department would be simply to report against anybody taking it. Mr. GARNER. Then, as I understand you, we must either perpetuate this treaty or give the War Department authority to revoke permits? Gen. BIXBY. Our office thinks that Congress must say how that 4,400 feet is to be divided and who is going to divide it. Now, as regards the increase from the old amount-up to 20,000 on the American side and 36,000 on the Canadian side it has at least one good point, and that is that it does fix a limit on the Canadian side, where no limit was before. Whether that 56,000 feet total diversion is going to injure navigation or seriously injure the Falls, is something that our office thinks can be judged from the data which we put into this last report, which is being printed and which is dated in June, 1911, we think that report will give you gentlemen in Congress all the facts so far as they can be put down on paper. One of the photographs shows the contrast between the looks of the Horseshoe Falls on three occasions. At one of them the flow is about 60.000 feet a second greater than it is at the other, and you can see the effect in the difference between the photographs. The CHAIRMAN. How soon will this last report be printed? Mr. GARNER. Has it been sent to Congress? Gen. BIXBY. Oh, yes; it has passed the proofreader. Mr. SMITH of New York. How do you account for a lowering of 9 inches on the Canadian side and 4 inches on the American side? Gen. BIXBY. It is due to the slope of the bed of the stream and to the way the water is taken out and to the shape of the Falls. Mr. DIFENDERFER. The Falls are about 4 feet lower on one side? Gen. BIXBY. Yes, sir; and it is due to the force of the water and the way it is pumped out. Mr. SMITH of New York. The photographs show an exposure of the crest line of the Horseshoe Falls. You made a suggestion by which the water could be spread out, thereby continuing the scenic beauty of the Falls. I wish you would explain that plan to the committee. Gen. BIXBY. It is always possible from an engineering point of view, though sometimes expensive, to regulate the flow of water in a rock-bed river like the Niagara River at that point. We could construct sills for that part of the river in such a way as to stop the present rapid retrogression. We could make the water quite uniform. Those things can be done, but they are, of course, very expensive. The best we can do is simply to get a little better appearance out of the Falls with a lesser quantity of water than we are getting to-day by correcting the irregularity of the flow at the borders; but in such matters I always go back to my boyhood days when I went to the Kauterskill Falls. I suppose as a very small boy the Kauterskill looked large. But I went up there some years afterwards, and if I would pay the owners so much they would turn the water on and let me see half as much water as I saw formerly. If I did not pay, they would not turn the water on. So it is simply a question of where you will draw the line between no water-power development and the unaltered Falls, and a full water-power development and no Falls: and only Congress can draw that line with the cooperation of Canada. The CHAIRMAN. I believe that answers the questions. Mr. SHARP. Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee rise. The CHAIRMAN. Just a moment. Gen. BIXBY. I do not think of anything else that I care to say, except to repeat once more that the Engineer Department, of course, finds a great deal of trouble and worry in supervising the water diversions and the water powers; but we probably have, at the lake survey, as good an organized force as is needed to do the work, and so we can do the work; and while we do not especially want it, we are not especially objecting to it. If Congress says that the War Department should do it, why, we shall expect to go right along doing it, and if the Congress says that the War Department shall not do it, and any joint national commission should be selected to do it, why, the commission will be sad and we will be happy. [Laughter. The CHAIRMAN. Gen. Bixby, if you desire to submit, as a part of your remarks, any additional statement, the committee will be glad to have you do it. We hope at the next meeting Maj. Ladue will be here. Gen. BIXBY. And we would be glad if you would put up these 'little remarks into some shape so I can look them over. The CHAIRMAN. That will be done. We are obliged to you. Gen. Bixby. I will say to those present that to-morrow the committee will be obliged to take up the annual diplomatic and consular appropriation bill, and hence we will adjourn this hearing until Thursday morning at 10 o'clock. Whereupon the committee adjourned at 1.15 o'clock p. m. until Thursday morning at 10 o'clock a. m. STATEMENT OF ROME G. BROWN, FOR NIAGARA FALLS POWER CO. AND CANADIAN NIAGARA POWER CO. The CHAIRMAN. We will hear Mr. Brown this morning. Mr. Brown, will you state your name, your residence, and whom you represent? Mr. ROME G. BROWN. I am from Minneapolis, Minn. I represent here the Niagara Falls Power Co. and the Canadian Niagara Power Co. Mr. DIFENDERFER. Of which Mr. Wickes is president? Mr. BROWN. Of which Mr. Edward A. Wickes is president. Gentlemen, I appreciate the necessity of brevity in statements. I have tried to arrange in as brief a way as possible certain matters for consideration which, I believe, are important for you to have in mind in regard to legislation in carrying out this treaty. In going over my summary I shall be very glad to answer any questions that I am capable of answering, but if you will be patient it may be that I shall anticipate your questions in presenting my statement. I will say that when I left Minnesota the thermometer was 40 below zero, but since I came down here I have caught a cold, which, like some Congressmen, is not only both reactionary and insurgent, but it is also progressive. [Laughter.] Gentlemen, the concrete question before you, as I understand it, is what shall be the nature of a legislative act under the treaty of 1909 to take the place of the Burton Act, so called. Now, in making up your minds upon the nature of that act you would have in mind, and wish to have in mind and consider, certain propositions. You would want to have in mind what, if any-I am not stating them now-what, if any, are or may be the legal rights of those who have made investments at the Falls. Even if you did not regard fully their legal rights, at least you would want to consider what, if any, might be the equities of those people who have made their invest ments. Mr. DIFENDERFER. Who gave them their legal rights? Mr. BROWN. I am coming to that; I said "if any." You would also want to consider what rights and equities the people generally in the locality of the Falls and the general public, as represented by the National and State Governments. might have. Now, then, in order to have in mind what are or, if you would not agree with me what might be claimed to be-the legal rights or the equities of the parties, as well as what might be the equities, rights, and interests of the public, it has seemed to be necessary-it certainly might be helpful to bring ourselves down to date by a brief summary of what has taken place prior to this time; and let me give you the summary. I will try not to be prolix, and some of the details of my argument I will hand to the reporter to be inserted as part of my statement. No one will disagree with me when I say that the important interests that we have to protect here are the interests of the American investors and of the American public, as paramount, from our viewpoint, to the interests of the Canadian side. Now, way back in the nineties there were two interests-and I may say, gentlemen, that the interests of the hydraulic company and the Niagara Co. are not in conflict and not in dispute; their interests are similar. These two interests, prior to the passage of the Burton Act in 1906 and in the nineties, acquired on the shores of the Niagara River and appurte nant to the Falls, certain real estate interests, and they became at that time riparian owners. I am going to be brief. They became riparian owners on the Niagara River at the point of the Falls. Their situation then was this: The Niagara Co. above the Falls, the hydraulic company below them but above the Falls, and the State of New York at the Fallsall had certain riparian interests under the law. The Niagara Co. acquired by grant from the hydraulic company below them, and from the State of New York at the Falls, the express grant and privilege (and the law is that such riparian rights are severable and can be granted in whole or in part), they acquired the riparian rights to do certain things, to wit, this: To go upon their land above the Falls and construct their works, including tunnels through the hydraulic company's land and through the State's land, and thereby use, that is, divert water sufficient to develop 200,000 horsepower, and to discharge the same below the Falls. Now, then, not only from these granted rights, but from the law of riparian rights, these companies were at that time advised by their counsel (not myself, but I would have told them the same thing) that they had the legal right under the law of the land, under the law of the State of New York, under the law of property right in this country, they had the legal right that could not be disputed or invaded by any man or by any Government, to make their structures and enjoy their rights, subject to this one qualification: That they must see to it that their diversions, whatever they might be, should not be such as unreasonably to interfere with the navigability of the Lakes or of Niagara River; and if they did not cause such interference, then neither the Government of the United States nor of the State of New York had any right or authority to prevent them from going ahead with their improvements and enjoying forever the beneficial use to which they were entitled under their riparian rights. Mr. SHARP. What, in your judgment, would the vested interests to which you refer would there be any complaint on their part if the Burton Act was reenacted, rather than if the whole amount were used, as under the treaty? Mr. BROWN. I would say yes. Their vested-property rights would be interfered with. But I wish to say this: I am not here to argue to you against your right to legislate at all nor to try to cram down your throats what I think the law is. I am only trying to show you the circumstances under which these companies went ahead, and I want you to understand that what I shall urge upon you is to consider the equities of these companies, as they exist, under all the circumstances, |