No. 12.

1845.

Report of the Committee on State Affairs, of the Senate of Michigan.

SAMUEL DENTON, from the committee on State Affairs, to whom were referred sundry petitions from citizens of the counties of Lenawee, Washtenaw and Ingham, asking the passage of a law for the ap praisal of damages for lands flowed by mill dams, having had the subject under consideration, begs leave to report as follows:

In determining as to the propriety of a law giving to mill owners the right to flow orotherwise appropriate the lands of other persons, for the use of mills, two questions are to be considered: First, Is it desírable that they should have such right? Second. Have the Legislature the power to give them such right? in other words, is there any constitutional inhibition to the passage of such a law?

The general utility and value, nay the necessity of mills to supply the wants of our population, are too obvious to require comment. Every neighborhood, cvery family must have their lumber sawed and their grain ground, and if mills are not found in their vicinity they must resort to those at a distance. It is, of course, for the interest of every community, and every individual, to have such mills in its neighborhood. No one at all acquainted with the manner of the early settlement of this and other new States, can have failed to observe that the erection of a mill in an unsettled district has almost uniformly constituted a nucleus, around which, a settlement has formed,-that the erection of mills in any district, has always greatly facilitated and promoted the rapid settlement of such districts; nor can he have failed to remark the general interest and gratification with which the erection, or proposed erection of any work of this kind, is always hailed by the neighborhood and country around.

Your committee need not enter into any argument to show that not only in the newer portions of the State, where the man who erects a mill is generally regarded as a public benefactor, but also in the older

and more settled portions, and wherever they exist they contribute largely to the advancement in wealth, comfort and general prosperity, of the regions in which they are situated.

The importance attached to, and the value set upon them in the other States of the union, as well as in other countries is evidenced by the fact, that in nearly every State, and your committee believe under most other governments, special laws exist for encouraging the erection of mills; in many of the States a law similar to that asked for by your memorialists in the petitions before your committee, as will be more fully shown in a subsequent part of this report.

Again, your committee cannot be unmindful, that ours being an agricultural State and an exuberant soil, is destined to have a large and yearly increasing surplus of grain beyond what is necessary for home consumption. It becomes, therefore, an object of no small importance in political economy, since we have sufficient hydraulic power if properly developed and improved, for grinding such surplus grain intended for foreign markets, that we should save to our own State and not be obliged to give to others the profits of suc'ı manufac

ture.

That the hydraulic power which our streams afford, is one of the great resources of the state on which its future wealth and prosperity very much depends, and that one of the highest and most obvious duties of the Legislature is to adopt such measures as shall tend most fully to develope its resources, your committee think will readily be admitted.

Again, a law of the character of that asked for by your memorialists, seems to be peculiarly required in Michigan, beyond most other states perhaps in which such laws exist, from the limited extent of our hydraulic power, and from the fact that the country bounding most of our streams, is generally level and flat, and mill dams, therefore, require to flow over more land than is usual in many other states.

Your committee are reminded too, that the fact of the hydraulic power of the state being limited in extent, (the state being less favored in that respect than many of her sister states,) renders it then more necessary that it should be fully improved; but yet, that the same is sufficient, if properly developed and husbanded, not only for the or

dinary purposes to which it has as yet been applied, but for a large extent of machinery and manufacturing, which would not fail to prove a service of large profit and wealth to the inhabitants of the state, and that the government of the state would be therefore culpably blind to its interests, and betray a lamentable want of prudence and foresight, did it fail by all proper means to encourage the development and improvement of these its natural resources.

Your committee think that Michigan may profit by the example which some of the other states have set her. They would particularly invite attention to the policy which Massachusetts has uniformly pursued in relation to this subject, a state of comparitive sterility of soil and greatly inferior in size to our own, but which in the extent of wealth and capital it possesses in proportion to the number of its inhabitants, is scarcely rivalled by any state in the union. Whence comes her wealth? No one who visits her manufactories and observes the vast amount of machinery she has constantly employed, will be at a loss for an answer. She has taken care to turn the resources she has to account. She has not failed to diseover that her hydraulic power might be made to do the labor of myriads of human hands and that too, without requiring to be fed or clothed, and might thus be made a source of vast profit; and has made the inost liberal provisions for encouraging the erection of mills, and the improvement of her hydraulic power. Thus her law allows any person who has a mill power on his premises to erect a dam and flow any land of any other person that may be necessary for the use of such mill, without any previous proceeding to determine whether the public good will be promoted by it—the law assuming that the public good will always be promoted by the erection of a mill, and making individual interests yield to such public object-simply providing for the payment to the owner of such lands, of such compensation, as shall be awarded by a jury. Such a law has existed in Massachusetts for upwards of a century, having originated as early as 1714, and having been continued by various revisions and reinactments from that time to the present.

Your committee are fully satisfied that the best interests of Michigan not less than that of other states, requires her by a liberal policy to encourage the establishment of mills and manufactories. They believe, that without such encouragement, she will ever be dependant