The CHAIRMAN. Would you prefer to go ahead with your statement and not be interrupted?

Mr. BARRE. I think it helps a little to answer questions as they

come up.

Mr. LITTLE. Mr. Barre, I want to ask you this question

Mr. RAKER. Let him finish his answer to mine; he has not yet finished answering my question.

Mr. LITTLE. Excuse me.

Mr. BARRE. There is the point. There are about three sources of power left in California-Big Creek; the Kings River country, a matter of about 50 or 60 miles northeast of Fresno; the Pit River country, in which the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. operates, near Mount Shasta: the Great Western development, on the Feather River, in the vicinity of Mount Lassen. Take it all in all, there are about 1.000.000 horsepower of commercial power in that territory. There have been figures published running up to about 9,000,000 horsepower; but that will only be when the value of power to the consumer becomes very much greater than it is now that anything like that quantity would be developed.

Mr. RAKER. Does that take into your consideration-your estimate of 4.000,000 potential possibilities-the Pit River

Mr. BARRE (interposing). The Pit River?

Mr. RAKER. The Sacramento River.

Mr. BARRE. The Sacramento River drainage and the San Joaquin drainage, where it is all concentrated at the present time.

Mr. LITTLE. We have got a suggestion here that within 10 or 20 years Los Angeles may be the second largest city in the United States. Is that within the range of your vision?

not.

Mr. BARRE. We tell everybody that.

Mr. LITTLE. But you are on oath now; those other fellows were

Mr. BARRE. I would not attempt to make a statement of that kind under oath, because there is too much element of speculation in it. Mr. LITTLE. Do you think it is possible?

Mr. BARRE. I think Los Angeles is going to grow reasonably. We have had a crazy growth in the last two years. Those things can not possibly continue. The whole history of all developments of cities of this kind has been that there are periods of acceleration and periods of slack growth. For example, the last couple of years there has been a tremendous influx of the kind of population that is not self-supporting. People would come in driving overland in what was left of an automobile. They would have a few hundred dollars, and they would put it down on one of these small houses that have been scattered around the country so freely. Then they would get a job to pay for the house by building another house for the next fellow that was going to come along. Now, you can not keep that up indefinitely. Los Angeles will grow in direct proportion to the development of its industrial production. Now, just how fast that can be made to come is hard to tell. But it will come reasonably and healthily. The growth for the past two or three years has not been healthy.

Mr. LITTLE. And the building of this big dam by anybody would accelerate the growth of the country and its resources?

Mr. BARRE. I do not think it would make any difference. I think the building of the dam has got to be dependent on the growth of the country, and not the growth of the country on the building of the dam. Because the cost of power from this dam is not going to be much less than the cost of the power that they have now.

Mr. LITTLE. They would have a larger supply?

Mr. BARRE. They have all they need now.

Mr. LITTLE. They would not have all they need if they could double the population?

Mr. BARRE. Our company could supply double the population or

more.

Mr. LITTLE. Is that possible?

Mr. BARRE. Yes.

Mr. RAKER. Mr. Ballard told us last spring that there were about 4,000 separate commercial and manufacturing establishments in Los Angeles, and that the power was short; and that this increase in commercial establishments and manufacturing concerns would continue in the future as it had in the past; and that there was practically no limit to what the manufacturing development might be in Los Angeles, because of the climatic conditions and the number of days in the year when they could work, if they had cheap power. What is your view on that?

Mr. BARRE. I do not know about the number of establishments. There have been a very considerable number brought in under pressure by the chamber of commerce, in order to meet this influx of population and prevent the effects of a possible slump in having the people go there and not find work and having to go away. The chamber of commerce is working very hard to meet that condition. Now, as to there being a deficiency of power, that is not true, and will not be true; because the obligation is on the Edison Co. to supply the power; and the Edison Co. must do that or it will fail-and it is not going to fail.

There is this year a very dry year in southern California, which has had to be met by emergency measures. It is the kind of year that occurs once in a long time-now, let us see-the last year that was anything like this was in 1879 and 1880. Mr. RAKER. 1888 and 1889?

Mr. BARRE. Well, the other one was a dryer year on the San Joaquin River.

Mr. RAKER. I thought 1889 was the dryest year we had had since 1860?

Mr. BARRE. I think that is true of your territory farther north: but in the San Joaquin territory 1879-80 was the dryest year; and this year approximates that.

Now, there is a very serious question in there as to whether the community as a whole is justified carrying equipment for 50 years or thereabouts to meet a condition of that kind, or whether the proper thing to do is not to meet your normal conditions as you can and put into effect some emergency measures to get through a year of this kind.

The emergency, if it should continue-and it looks now as if it may, though there has been practically no curtailment on our systemwill be over by December; because these emergency measures that we

have put to work, bringing in 125,000 horsepower of steam, will be effective by the first of the year. And we do not look for any drastic measures as being necessary to meet the emergency.

Mr. SWING. Well, you say there has been no curtailment. You know that they have cut out window lighting and electric signs, do you not?

Mr. BARRE. You mean in your territory?

Mr. SWING. Well, take Santa Ana.

Mr. BARRE. Well, that was an accident that did not amount to anything, and it was corrected immediately. That was due to the fact that there were two periods of difficulty for the company to get over: one was prior to April 1; in order to supply a deficiency in the city of Los Angeles we were overdrawing the reservoir. The other will occur later in the season, when it is determined what the flow will be. We started to curtail, and about the time the men were making the cuts there were a couple of rains that came along, which cut off the irrigation load, which made further curtailment unnecessary. That situation is being studied now.

Mr. RAKER. Now, as to the 4,000 manufacturing and commercial enterprises at Los Angeles and your description of the manner of people going out there, will you tell us whether there is any excess of men available for employment in and about Los Angeles now! Is not everybody employed out there, and are they not looking for a thousand more people?

Mr. BARRE. No.

Mr. RAKER. Well, what is the condition there now?

Mr. BARRE. There is a surplus of labor there now.

Mr. RAKER. There is?

Mr. BARRE. Yes, sir.

Mr. LEATHERWOOD. I would like to say to the gentleman from California that we have a little relief society that is aiding them to get

out of there.

Mr. LITTLE. How are wages there?

Mr. BARRE. I have not been following that very closely. I know on our own work we are getting all the men we want at about the prevailing rate of wages which we paid last summer. We have not cut wages on account of the excess supply, but during the summer and during the war period as a whole and the reconstruction we had not followed the violent fluctuations of the rates of wages as much as some of the companies had done. In other words, we were a little below the market last summer and we are a little above the market now. We have tried to stick to a scale, on account of having a large number of men working steadily in our organization.

Mr. SINNOTT. Did the Hatfield rain maker work in your territory?
Mr. BARRE. He succeeded in getting some money down there.
Mr. SINNOTT. Is he operating down there?

Mr. BARRE. And he has a contract with some credulous people up in the San Joaquin Valley.

Mr. SINNOTT. Did rain follow his incantations?

Mr. BARRE. It was very funny. First, he started to make a contract with the people of San Bernardino; I think it was the county supervisors of San Bernardino County; he was to meet them on Monday and sign up the contract; and it came up to rain on Sunday, and

beat him out. Then he got a contract-I think it was with the Tulare Association; and it clouded up on him, and he was making terrific haste to get this smoke box up sc as to get his contract signed before it rained.

Mr. HAYDEN. If you have finished discussing the general power situation, I would like to have you tell us about the development of the Colorado River.

Mr. BARRE. This whole thing leads up to the Colorado River. The development of the Colorado River depends on whether anybody will buy the power.

Mr. SWING. This 4,000,000 horsepower to which you referred, is that 4,000,000 horsepower at present developed or is it the present plus the future?

Mr. BARRE. It is about 4,000,000 horsepower altogether. I would not attempt to split it up between the developed and the undeveloped. Mr. SWING. But it includes both?

Mr. BARRE. Yes; that is, the practical commercial low-priced power. Now, the facts of the power situation are as I have roughly outlined them; and the thing that you can do in the Colorado River is

Mr. SWING (interposing). You gave the potential-power market at certain places in the interior. Have you given all the potentialpower market in southern California?

Mr. BARRE. I would not make any attempt to estimate what that potential power market would be. It depends on so many factors entirely outside of California that it would be of no value whatever.

Mr. RAKER. Before you go to the Colorado River-possibly I misunderstood you. I understood that there has developed a possibility of development in California up to 4,000,000 horsepower. Is that what you mean?

Mr. BARRE. Yes.

Mr. RAKER. And the necessity is about 4,000,000?

Mr. BARRE. The necessity will probably be more than that.

Mr. LITTLE. When you say you can supply twice as much power, you do not mean you can supply twice as much to-day, but that you can get ready for it?

Mr. BARRE. We can supply it when the business is there to take it on.

Mr. LITTLE. But to-day you could not supply it?

Mr. BARRE. NO; we do not try to get too far ahead of the load. That is the easiest way to go broke that there is.

Mr. LITTLE. I did not quite understand

you.

Mr. RAKER. How much is there used now in California? How much horsepower-take it south of the Fresno line that you have designated awhile ago?

Mr. BARRE. Well, I was estimating that in the territory south of Tehachapi.

Mr. RAKER. Well, take the territory south of Tehachapi; how much is used now?

Mr. BARRE. There is, possibly, around 600,000 horsepower. I think I have the figure as 500,000 awhile ago, and should correct it.

Mr. RAKER. And how much is developed, or can be developed, with the appliances and apparatus all ready for use at this time south of Tehachapi?

Mr. BARRE. Well, the equipment to meet the load-
Mr. RAKER (interposing). That is what I mean.

Mr. BARRE (continuing). Is practically what the load is, with some small reserves; that is the way that you do this work.

Mr. RAKER. Then, about this 600,000 horsepower developed, there would be about 3,400,000 horsepower that could be developed in this same territory?

Mr. BARRE. No; not for the southern territory, the principal undeveloped resource, outside of the Colorado River, is the Edison project on the San Joaquin River, which is to be built for an ultimate of about 1,400,000 horsepower, out of which about one-sixth has been developed.

Mr. RAKER. Then, before going to the Colorado River, with the 600.000 horsepower now developed and usable, there is about fivesixths of a million and a half horsepower yet that can be developed from the waters in California. Is that right?

Mr. BARRE. NO; from only that part of it tributary to Los Angeles-from the south. There are other undeveloped powers farther north.

Mr. RAKER. I mean for the southern California section.

Mr. BARRE. For the southern California section? Well, you may put it, in round figures, at, say, one and one-quarter million horsepower which can be brought south.

Mr. RAKER. Undeveloped?

Mr. BARRE. Undeveloped.

Mr. RAKER. And at a cost which would justify the development? Mr. BARRE. Yes, sir.

Mr. RAKER. There would be about one and one-quarter million horsepower?

Mr. BARRE. There would be another one and one-quarter million that could be brought south from the San Joaquin River country; that is, allowing the King's River power to go entirely to the San Joaquin Valley.

Mr. RAKER. And the power that they are figuring on developing in King's River would not be included in your estimate of power for use in southern California?

Mr. BARRE. There would not be included in that estimate the power of the Edison Co. on the San Joaquin River, which is the river immediately north of the King's River.

Mr RAKER. What is your judgment as to the development of that power, as to price, as compared with development on the Colorado River.

Mr. BARRE, We were trying to see if development on the Colorado River could be made at a price comparable with that on the San Joaquin River. Well, I am getting ahead of my story a little bit.

Apparently there is not a great amount of difference. In other words, Colorado River power could possibly be brought into southern California, under conditions which the layout of the Edison system makes possible, at a price very comparable with the present cost of power from the various power plants, which compose the Edison Co.

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