Mr. Choate's Argument for Appellees. The principle has been thus stated by the Supreme Court of California: "It is a principle which underlies all forms of government by law that a citizen shall not be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. The legis lature has no power to take away a man's property, nor can it authorize its agents to do so, without first providing for personal notice to be given to him and for a full opportunity of time, place and tribunal to be heard in defence of his rights. This constitutional guarantee is not confined to judicial proceedings, but extends to every case in which a citizen may be deprived of life, liberty or property, whether the proceeding be judicial, administrative or executive in its nature." Mulligan v. Smith, 59 California, 230. (a) In regard to the fundamental question as to whether there shall be an irrigation district, there is no hearing because the supervisors to whom the petition is to be presented have no power to consider or determine that question. It is idle, we submit, to say as the Supreme Court of California does, that in this respect the grievance of the landholder is the same as is suffered by everybody within the limits of a municipal or school district whose organization and boundaries are to be determined by a popular vote of the residents of the proposed district. There is no resemblance whatever between the cases. (b) There is no hearing, as matter of right, accorded to the landholder upon the question of boundaries. He may get notice, it is true, if he happens to take the local paper, that the petition is to be presented, but there is no right given him to present objections, and no duty imposed upon the supervisors to hear his objections. The right to be heard in tax cases is a constitutional one and indefeasible, and applies to these special assessments for local improvements. County of Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railway, 18 Fed. Rep. 385; Scott v. Toledo, 36 Fed. Rep. 385; Meyers v. Shields, 61 Fed. Rep. 713; Ulman v. Baltimore, 72 Maryland, 587; Railroad Tax cases, 13 Fed. Rep. 722; Stuart v. Palmer, 74 N. Y. 183. Mr. Choate's Argument for Appellees. (c) As to the scheme of irrigation and its practicability and cost there is no pretence that these landholders who are to pay are to be consulted or to have a hearing in any respect whatever. The audacious claim is made on the part of the upholders of the system that the mere right of being heard each on the value of his own land, without more, and without any right to be heard on the total cost or the proportional burden which he is to bear, or the benefit which he is to receive, is sufficient to uphold the act. In answer to this objection, or rather in answer to the more limited objection that the act makes no provision for a hearing to be granted to the owners of the land prior to the organization of the district, it is claimed by Mr. Justice Harrison, in his opinion in the Madera case, 92 California, 323, that the proceeding up to that point is merely for the creation of a public corporation, which is to be invested with certain political duties which it is to exercise in behalf of the State. claims that it has never been held that the inhabitants of a district are entitled to notice and hearing upon a proposition to submit such a question to a popular vote; that it would be competent for the legislature to enact it without such a submission; and that it has as much power to create the district in accordance with the will of a majority of the electors. He We care not by what name the legal entity created by the act may be called, whether a public or a quasi or a semi-quasi, or, as it has been called by one learned judge, a bastard public-private corporation, but we do deny most emphatically that the function with which it is invested, the duties which it is to discharge are in any manner political duties to be exercised in behalf of the State. It is nothing more or less than a service to be rendered to the landowners of the district for their own account without any intervention or interest of the public. It is for these landowners that the directors are to procure and furnish the water for use or for sale. It is for them and at their expense that they are to issue the bonds. It is for them that the directors are to mortgage the property acquired and to con Mr. Choate's Argument for Appellees. stitute the plant of irrigation works. There is nothing public about it; and if there is any force in the points we have already presented, there is no force in this contention of that learned judge. We do not think that, within any of the cases that have been adjudicated by this court, the landholders can be denied a hearing on all these important matters, and must put up with the idle and almost formal hearing of the question of the valuation of each landowner's individual piece of property. The spirit of the constitutional rule is that they shall have real bread in the matter of a hearing, and this would put them off with nothing but a stone. We invoke the decisions of this court already made in support of the proposition that there must be an actual hearing on the real merits, and not a mere formal one on a strictly side issue, in order to give to the proceedings the character of due process of law. Kennard v. Morgan, 92 U. S. 480; McMillen v. Anderson, 95 U. S. 37; Hagar v. Reclamation District, 111 U. S. 701; Wurts v. Hoagland, 114 U. S. 606; Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Railroad v. Kentucky, 115 U. S. 321; Walston v. Nevin, 128 U. S. 578; Lent v. Tillson, 140 U. S. 316; Spencer v. Merchant, 125 U. S. 345. In the latter case this rule is laid down: "If the Legislature provides for notice to and hearing of each proprietor at some stage of the proceedings upon the question of what proportion of the tax shall be assessed upon his land, there is no taking of his property without due process of law." Even an act imposing a tax and declaring what lands should be deemed to be benefited, recognized the right of the landholders to be heard upon the validity of the assessment, and its apportionment among the different parcels of the class which the legislature had conclusively determined to be benefited. We think that no case can be found supporting a statute which deprives citizens of their property with no other right to be heard than upon the question of value of their own property, which is arbitrarily made the basis of assessment without any regard to actual benefit received, against the objection that such a statute is not due process of law. Opinion of the Court. (d) The claim that the Confirmation Act, approved March 16, 1889, is a cure for the objection of want of notice and hearing is properly disposed of by the suggestion of Ross, C. J., in the Fallbrook case, that it gives no right of hearing to the landholder, but is merely a proceeding to be taken, not by the landholder, but by the directors at their option. Mr. John F. Dillon, (Mr. Harry Hubbard and Mr. John M. Dillon were on his brief,) for appellants. He cited, Turlock Irrigation District v. Williams, 76 California, 360; Central Irrigation District v. De Lappe, 79 California, 351; Crall v. Poso Irrigation District, 87 California, 140; Modesto Irrigation District v. Tregea, 88 California, 334; In re Madera Irrigation District, 92 California, 296; Tregea v. Owens, 94 California, 317; People v. Selma Irrigation District, 98 California, 206; Rialto Irrigation District v. Brandon, 103 California, 384; Quint v. Hoffman, 103 California, 506; Woodruff v. Perry, 103 California, 611; Fallbrook Irrigation District v. Abila, 106 California, 355; Cullen v. Glendora Water Co., 39 Pac. Rep. 769; Page v. Board of Supervisors of Los Angeles County, 85 California, 50; People v. Hagar, 52 California, 171; Shelby v. Guy, 11 Wheat. 361; Jackson v. Chew, 12 Wheat. 153; Green v. Neal, 6 Pet. 291; Roberts v. Lewis, 153 U. S. 367; Nesmith v. Sheldon, 7 How. 812; Van Rensselaer v. Kearney, 11 How. 297; Webster v. Cooper, 14 How. 488; Leffingwell v. Warren, 2 Black, 599; Detroit v. Osborne, 135 U. S. 492; Hagar v. Reclamation District, 111 U. S. 701; Missouri v. Lewis, 101 U. S. 22; Chicago Union Bank v. Kansas City Bank, 136 U. S. 223; Grand Trunk Railway v. Ives, 144 U. S. 408; Bauserman v. Blunt, 147 U. S. 647; May v. Tenney, 148 U. S. 60. MR. JUSTICE PECKHAM, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court. The decision of this case involves the validity of the irrigation act enacted by the legislature of the State of California and set forth in the above statement of facts. The principal Opinion of the Court. act, passed in 1887, has been amended once or twice by subsequent legislation, but in its main features it remains as first enacted. The title of the act indicates its purpose. It is admitted by all that very large tracts of land in California are in fact "arid lands," which require artificial irrigation in order to produce anything of value. There are different degrees, however, in which irrigation is necessary, from a point where, without its use, the land is absolutely uncultivable, to where, if not irrigated artificially, it may yet produce some return for the labor of the husbandman in the shape of a puny and unreliable crop, but nothing like what it could and would do if water were used upon it. There are again other lands which, if not irrigated, will still produce the ordinary cereal crops to a more or less uncertain extent, but which, if water be used artificially upon them at appropriate times, are thereby fitted to and will produce much more certain and larger crops than without it, and will be also rendered capable of producing fruit and grapes of all kinds, of first-rate quality and in very large quantities. What is termed the "arid" belt is said in the Census Bulletin, No. 23, for the census of 1890, to extend from Colorado to the Pacific Ocean, and to include over 600,000,000 acres of land. Of this enormous total, artificial irrigation has thus far been used only upon about three and a half million acres, of which slightly over a million acres lie in the State of California. It was stated by counsel that something over thirty irrigation districts had been organized in California under the act in question, and that a total bonded indebtedness of more than $16,000,000 had been authorized by the various districts under the provisions of the act, and that more than $8,000,000 of the bonds had been sold and the money used for the acquisition of property and water rights and for the construction of works necessary for the irrigation of the lands contained in the various districts. Whether these statements are perfectly accurate or not is a matter of no great importance, as it has been assumed by all that numbers of districts have been formed under the act and a very large indebtedness already incurred, and that more |