There is another advantage of Government cooperation that will inure greatly to the benefit of the settler. The Government may readily apply the policy it now uses in connection with privately owned lands within reclamation projects. It requires the owners to enter into a contract by which they agree to accept a certain maximum price for their land if sold within a given period of years. This price is based upon the value of the land before reclamation. There are many instances, particularly of swamp and cut-over areas, where land that may be bought for $10 an acre and reclaimed at a cost of $25 to $50 per acre, has an actual market value of $100 to $200 per acre the moment it is put into shape for cultivation. If the Government, by means of a contract with the local district, undertakes the work of reclamation and settlement and does this work at actual cost, the settler will generally save enough to pay for all his improvements and equipment. The crowning consideration is the fact that, because of all these advantages, the work of reclamation would actually be accomplished, while to-day it is not being done except in the far West, and accomplished without the aid of Government appropriations. SOLDIER-SETTLEMENT LEGISLATION. In the foregoing, attention has been called to those things which may be accomplished by the exercise of the Government's powers of supervision and direction with the smallest outlay of money. In all this I have been speaking of reclamation for the sake of reclamation. The proposed soldier-settlement legislation stands on an entirely different footing. The primary object is not to reclaim land but to reward our returned soldiers with the opportunity to obtain employment and larger interest in the proprietorship of the country. The policy is based on a sense of gratitude for heroic service, not on economic considerations. This is the answer to those who have criticized it as class legislation or the proposal to grant special privileges to one element of our citizenship or as a plunge into socialism. Frankly, we avow our purpose to do for the soldier what we would not think of doing for anybody else and what would not be justified solely as a matter of reclamation. Many measures of soldier legislation have been introduced into Congress. Only one of these has been favorably reported. This was introduced by Representative Mondell, of Wyoming, on the first day of the present special session, embodying the plan of reclamation and community settlement brought forward by this department in the spring of 1918.