Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/375

 HUDSON WATER CO. t. McCARTEE. 209 U.S. Srlua HUDSON COUNTY WATER COMPANY v. McCARTER, AIY)RNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY. ERROR TO THE COURT OF EiROHS AND APPEALS OF THE STATE OF NEW JEHSEY. No. 184. Arguod March 18. 19, 1908.Deoided April 5,19. The boundary line betwce private righte of property which can only be !imPtad on compeation by the exercise of ennent domain, and the police power of the State wlch can limit such rights for the public interest, cannot be determined by any formula in advance, but points in that line heping to cetablish it have been fixed by decisions of the court that con- crete cez fal on the nearer or farther ide thereof. The State, as /-covereign and reprceentative of the intereete of the public, has a etanding in court to protect the atmcephere, the water and the forcets .within its territory, irrespective of the asent or disasnt of the private ownera immediately concerned. Kans v. Colorado, 18/ U.S. 125; GeoFia v. Tenszee Copp Co., 206 U. S. 230. The public interest is omnipresent wherever there is a State, and grows more pressing as population grows, and is paramount: to private prop- erty of riparian proprietore whoe righte of appropriation a subject not only to rights of lower owners but dso to the limitations that great foun- dations of public health and welfare shall not be diminished. A State has 'a constitutional power to insist that its natural advantegce re- main unimpaired by ts citizens and is not dependent upon any rensn for its will su to do. In the exerciec of this power it may prohibit the divereion of the.waters of its important streams to points outside ot boundarise. One whcee rights are sub ect to .state restriction cannot remove them from the power of the State by making a contract about them, and a contract illegal when madeeueh as one for diverting' water from the State=is not within the protection of the contract clause of the Constitution One cannot acquire a right to property by ha desire to u it in comreeree among the State. Citizens of other State are not denied equal privileges within the of the immunity clause of the Constitution by a statute forbidding the diversion of waters of the State if they are as free as the citizens of the State to purchase water within the boundarise of the State, nor can such a question be raised y a citizen of the State itself. Chap. 238, Law of New Jersey of 1905, prohibiting the transportation of

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