In scholarly writing on water rights (suiri) during the modern era in Japan, the most studies have chiefly dealt with water rights for irrigation in farming area, and those dealing with city have been rare. The Biwako Canal project dealt with in this article was a public water-rights project managed as a municipal enterprise by Kyoto city from its beginning in 1892: it was precisely a water-rights project managed by a city administration. This enterprise was a multipurpose water-rights project in which water was to be used for various ends-waterpower, the generation of electricity, water transport-and not only for irrigation. It was social infrastructure that propelled the modernization of the city of Kyoto. Although previous studies of the history of the modern city in Japan have seen the formation of the "relationship between the burger and Offentliclkeit" (bourgeois or the citizens of the city and public space) in cities as advocated by German sociologist Jurgen Habermas as an indispensable object for verification, they have proceeded without inquiring fully into his concept of "the relationship between the bourgeois and public space." In this article, I reconsidered this concept and redefine "the relationship between the bourgeois and public space" as a relationship that fundamentally forbids special privileges or special exemptions, and binds everyone equally under the law stipulated as a result of the rational agreement among the bourgeois (citizens of the city) in the form of "public opinion." Moreover, by focusing on the use of hydraulic power by the Itoh Waterwheel, a the rice-polishing waterwheel business that used water from the Kamogawa Canal section of the Biwako Canal project, I will clarify the process of the development of "the relationship of the bourgeois and public space" in the Kyoto municipal water-rights project. Since the early modern era, the Itoh Waterwheel enterprise had been controlled by three persons: Itoh Kisaburou, Hayami Ritsu, and Itoh Shoubei. They were the most powerful rice-polishing waterwheel traders in Kyoto, and used and a large volume of water drawn from the Kamogawa River using a watercourse built along the east side of this river. During the water shortage of 1883, they were accorded relatively favorable terms in using and irrigation water from the Kamogawa River. But as municipal government of Kyoto City started the construction of Kamogawa Canal on the east side of Kamogawa River in 1894, this watercourse was demolished, and the Itoh Waterwheel could not draw water from the Kamogawa River at all Therefore, they demanded compensation from the municipal government of Kyoto City due to this fact. This resulted in the municipal government accepting their demand. This allowed the Itoh Waterwheel to use large quantities of water from the newly built Kamogawa Canal at a discounted price as compensation for their loss. Thereafter, the municlpal government recognized the traditional water rights of the Itoh Waterwheel that had been held since the early modern period, and continued to recognize their special right to use the Biwako Canal. But with the economic development of the city of Kyoto after World War I, the first priority for the Biwako Canal project moved from water transport and waterpower to the generation of electricity, and with this change, waterpower began to be employed for various uses-not only rice polishing but also for industrial power, extinguishing fires, and supplying garden ponds, thus the granting of special usage rights to the Itoh Waterwheel became conspicuous. Upon the revision of the waterpower ordinance in 1920, the municipal government changed water rates in accordance with waterpower use. At this moment, the continued authorization of the special usage right granted the Itoh Waterwheel by the municipal government became a great political issue in the Kyoto municipal council where it was seen as an unfair use of waterpower. However, municipal government was unab