Once we wished a population to embrace the opportunities that abounded in the West. Now we wish to increase the opportunities for a population clamoring for a better chance than is offered anywhere in America. It is demanded that the government shall bring about reclamation of the arid lands, and their actual settlement in small tracts. “The political party that shall boldly advocate a great national irrigation appropriation will receive the support of millions of people, now homeless and discontented, who desire homes and an opportunity to make a living by honest labor.” This is the statement of a master in transportation, who has assisted in the importation of hundreds of thousands of these homeless and discontented people into an America too suddenly gone small. He would scarcely care to see our railroads under government control, but he can suggest a method by which the government could be immensely helpful to the Western people, and perhaps to the Western railroads! In yet another prominent railroad office, the conversation lately turned upon the future of the carrying trade in the West, when another of these captains of transportation swept his hand in a large circle on a map that hung on the wall. Within his circle was included a good portion of Montana and Wyoming, with other parts of the great Western interior. “All this region must go under irrigation,” said he. “It is worthless to-day for farming purposes, but there exists no richer soil when once you get water on it. There is no county or state government, there is not even the richest railroad corporation, that can afford to put this vast acreage under the ditch. It is a problem for the national government of the United States; and, mark my words, that government will one day be obliged to solve that problem. Of course, the interest of our railroad in the matter is purely a business one. We want this country settled up, not by a few scattered grazers, but by many producing farmers. We want this country filled full of small land holders, not that we may carry their products to the East on our railway, but so that we may carry them west to the Pacific, and thence across the ocean to the Asiatic market. There must be a new West, and for that West the market must be found in Asia.”