The national improvements connected with rivers and har bors were first political—that is, they were for the use of the government's navy ; they became, secondly, commercial—for the free use of all citizens engaged in trade; and they con tinue to unite these two characters. Forestry is most largely undertaken in this country by the national government, partly because some forest areas in the West extend over state boundaries, and largely because large tracts of public forest lands were still unsold at the time public attention was at tracted to the subject. Since 1890 the policy of reserving great areas for forests, and picturesque districts for national parks, has developed greatly in the United States. The na tional forest area contained in the various forests in twenty states (not including Alaska and Porto Rico) now covers about 282,000, square miles, equal in area to six states of the size of Pennsylvania, with all of New Jersey, Delaware, and Rhode Island thrown in for good measure; or to all New Eng land and the middle Atlantic states, plus Ohio, Indiana, and West Virginia. There are, besides, fourteen large national parks, ranging in size from a few hundred acres up to over 2,140,000 acres (the area of the Yellowstone National Park), and aggregating 4,600,000 acres, nearly the size of Massachusetts or of New Jersey, besides numerous other na tional reservations for monuments and antiquities.
In some countries mines are thought to be peculiarly fitted for national ownership and control. In Germany the several states own coal, salt, and other mines. Coinage and banking are everywhere looked upon as functions of sovereignty, and yet it is no more necessary for a nation to own its own mint in order to control the monetary system than for it to print the bank-notes in order to regulate their issue. The American government has its own printing-office. The fish commission, and the various branches of the depart ment, cooperate with private industry in many ways. This brief survey suggests that the industries undertaken by gov ernment are both varied in nature and large in extent, al though small in proportion to the mass of private industry.
§ 12. Sources of heat, light, and power. Next to the question as to the public ownership of the railroads, that as to coal mines and hydraulic power sites is most likely to be come insistent for answer in America in the not distant future. The law of the conservation of energy expresses the fundamental likeness of heat, light, and power. The prin cipal sources from which man derives these agencies are coal and falling waters, though wood is of importance as fuel in some localities. About 500,000 square miles of land (about 13 per cent of the area of the country) are underlaid with coal. These deposits are widely distributed, so that nearly every part of the country is within five hundred miles of a mine. The enormous deposits, if used at the present amounts per year, would last probably from two to four thousand years, but if used at the present increasing rate (doubling the prod uct every ten years), they would, it has been estimated, last but one hundred and fifty years. What shall be the actual rate
as between these extremes is a question the answer of which depends on our economic legislation as to ownership, exploi tation, prices, use, and substitution. The experiences in the war, as well as the constantly recurring labor difficulties in coal-mining, verging upon civil war, have forced the public thought to recognize its dependence on the regular supply of coal, and the exceptional public nature of the coal industry.
The one great available substitute for coal as a source of heat and light and power is water-power. It is estimated that in 1908 but 5,400,000 horse-power was being developed from waterfalls, whereas about 37,000,000 primary horse power 5 was available ; but, by the storage of flood-waters so 5 That is, "the amount which can be developed upon the basis of the flowage of the streams for a period of two weeks in which the flow as to equalize the flow, at least 100,000,000 horse-power, and possibly double that amount, could be developed. As it re quires ten tons of coal to develop one horse-power a year in a steam-engine by present methods, there is here a potential substitute for coal equal to from two to four times our annual use of coal (above 600,000,000 tons).
But this does not mean that it would be economical, at present costs of mining coal and of building reservoirs, to make this substitution now. To determine when, how far, and by what methods to develop this water-power from lakes and rivers for the use of the people, and to make this sub stitution, is one of our great economic problems. The ques tion is being daily decided, in numerous acts of legislation and administration, whether the water-power of the United States shall be more rapidly developed by becoming private prop erty, or shall be developed more slowly as a part of the na tional domain.
§ 13. Economic basis of public ownership. The question as to the proper limits of public ownership is one most ac tively debated. The movement is progressing in accordance with the principle that public ownership is economically jus tified wherever it secures a product or service of widespread use that would otherwise be impossible, or insures the public a better quality or a lower price. The question of public ownership is not exclusively an economic question. There are incidental problems, such as its effects on enterprise and on political integrity, with which it is not possible here to deal. In the main, however, public ownership is simply a business policy which must be justified by its economic re sults. In the case of a general social benefit not to be secured without public ownership (as popular education or the cli• matic effect of forests), the only question to answer is whether the utility is worth the cost. In the case of industries already in private hands, as waterworks, gas and electric lighting, is the least," all the rest being allowed to escape unused. Van Hise, "Conservation of Natural Resources," p. 119.