ARTICLE XIV.
WATER AND WATER RIGHTS.
Section 1. The use of any water now appropriated, or that may hereafter be appropriated, for sale, rental, or distribution, is hereby declared to be a public use, and subject to the regulation and control of the State, in the manner to be prescribed by law; provided, that the rates or compensation to be collected by any person, company, or corporation in this State for the use of water supplied to any city and county, or city or town, or the inhabitants thereof, shall be fixed, annually, by the Board of Supervisors, or city and county, or City or Town Council, or other governing body of such city and county, or city or town, by ordinance or otherwise, in the manner that other ordinances or legislative acts or resolutions are passed by such body, and shall continue in force for one year and no longer. Such ordinances or resolutions shall be passed in the month of February of each year, and take effect on the first day of July thereafter. Any Board or body failing to pass the necessary ordinances or resolutions fixing water rates, where necessary, within such time, shall be subject to peremptory process to compel action at the suit of any party interested, and shall be liable to such further processes and penalties as the Legislature may prescribe. Any person, company, or corporation collecting water-rates in any city and county, or city or town in this State, otherwise than as so established, shall forfeit the franchises and water-works of such person, company, or corporation to the city and county, or city or town, where the same are collected, for the public use.
Sec. 2. The right to collect rates or compensation for the use of water supplied to any county, city and county, or town, or the inhabitants thereof, is a franchise, and cannot be exercised except by authority of and in the manner prescribed by law.
ARTICLE XV.
HARBOR FRONTAGES, ETC.
Section 1. The right, of eminent domain is hereby declared to exist in the State to all frontages on the navigable waters of this State.
Sec. 2. No individual, partnership, or corporation, claiming or possessing the frontage or tidal lands of a harbor, bay, inlet, estuary, or other navigable water in this State, shall be permitted to exclude the right of way to such water whenever it is required for any public purpose, nor to destroy or obstruct the free navigation of such water; and the Legislature shall enact such laws as will give the most liberal construction to this provision, so that access to the navigable waters of this State shall be always attainable for the people thereof.
Sec. 3. All tide lands within two miles of any incorporated city or town in this State, and fronting on the waters of any harbor, estuary, bay, or inlet used for the purpose of navigation, shall be withheld from grant or sale to private persons, partnerships, or corporations.
ARTICLE XVI.
STATE INDEBTEDNESS.
Section 1. The Legislature shall not, in any manner, create any debt or debts, liability or liabilities, which shall, singly or in the aggregate with any previous debts or liabilities, exceed the sum of three hundred thousand dollars, except in case of war to repel an invasion or suppress insurrection, unless the same shall be authorized by law for some single object or work to be distinctly specified therein, which law shall provide ways and means, exclusive of loans, for the payment of the interest of such debt or liability as it falls due, and also to pay and discharge the principal of such debt or liability within twenty years of the time of the contracting thereof, and shall be irrepearable until the principal and interest thereon shall be paid and discharged; but no such law shall take effect until, at a general election, it shall have been submitted to the people and shall have received a majority of all the votes cast for and against it at such election; and all moneys raised by authority of such law shall be applied only to the specific object therein stated, or to the payment of the debt thereby created, and such law shall be published in at least one newspaper in each county, or city and county, if one be published therein, throughout the State, for three months next preceding the election at which it is submitted to the people. The Legislature may at any time after the approval of such law by the people, if no debt shall have been contracted in pursuance thereof, repeal the same.
ARTICLE XVII.
LAND, AND HOMESTEAD EXEMPTION.
Section 1. The Legislature shall protect, by law, from forced sale, a certain portion of the homestead and other property of all heads of families.
Sec. 2. The holding of large tracts of land, uncultivated and unimproved, by individuals or corporations, is against the public interest, and should be discouraged by all means not inconsistent with the rights of private property.
