veyed so imperfectly that their boundaries were not accurately marked on the earth's surface, and the existence of many of which were unknown to the officer charged with the extension of the surveys. The Territory of New Mexico presents a typical example of these conditions.

Until a private land claim had been surveyed by the surveyorgeneral's office and accurately platted there was no means of knowing the location of its boundaries, and consequently no way to avoid extending over it the lines of public surveys. For many years after the establishment of the surveyor-general's office private land claims were not surveyed until after their confirmation by Congress, and then it was frequently discovered that lands belonging to them had already been surveyed as public lands. In such cases where no rights had been initiated under the public land laws the only injury sustained was by the Government, in that it had borne the expense of surveying lands that were finally decided to be of private ownership and from which it could never derive any benefit. In those instances where rights had been acquired under those laws conflicts arose between the settlers claiming their lands to be Government lands and the claimants under the confirmed Spanish and Mexican titles. This led to expensive and vexatious litigation, and in some instances to personal violence.

At a later period the surveyor-general was authorized to make surveys of private land claims that had not yet been confirmed by Congress. These were called preliminary surveys and were intended to furnish Congress with accurate information as to the extent of the land embraced in claims of which confirmation was sought. Surveys of this kind being greater in number than the surveys of the confirmed grants, gave rise to a proportionately greater number of disputes between grant claimants and persons who had either begun or perfected their titles under the public land laws to lands afterwards included in the so-called preliminary surveys.

In addition to those persons who had documentary evidence of the origin of their titles under the Spanish and Mexican governments, there was a much greater number who were occupying comparatively small tracts of land, and who were absolutely unable to trace their chains of title to either of the former governments, although in many instances, by means of deeds, wills, etc., they were able to show that they and their grantors or ancestors had been in the possession of the premises in question for long periods and had commonly been considered to be the owners thereof. The number of claims of this character was very much greater than that of the claims in which original muniments of title were known to exist, but few, if any, of them were ever filed with the surveyor-general as claims against the United States, until Congress in 1891 (forty-three years after the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo) provided a method for their settlement.

By act of March 3, 1891, the Court of Private Land Claims was created by Congress. This court consisted of five judges who were authorized to pass not only on all matters of law arising in the trial of private land claims based on Spanish and Mexican grants, but also to decide all matters of fact.

Claimants under such grants were authorized to bring suit in this court against the United States for the lands to which they claimed they were entitled; and a decree of confirmation by the court operated as a quitclaim on the part of the United States to any interest in the land in question, but did not affect the rights of third parties.

From the decisions of the court an appeal lay to the Supreme Court of the United States.

After the confirmation of a grant it was surveyed by the surveyorgeneral of the district in which it was situate, in strict accordance with the terms of the confirmatory decree. The field notes and plat of the survey were then returned to the court for its approval or such amendment as it saw fit to order.

The expense of the surveying operations was borne in the first instance by the United States, but claimants were required to reimburse the Government for one-half the amount of such expense before patent could issue.

An attorney was provided, whose duty it was to represent the interests of the United States in all suits brought in the court. One of the defects of the act was in not providing this officer with the necessary assistants that he needed, but this was overcome by the Department of Justice authorizing him to employ expert translators, examiners of titles, experts in Spanish paleography familiar with the old archives of the country and with the signatures of the officials appearing thereon. These assistants were paid out of the contingent fund of that department. That class of claims, heretofore referred to, in which title could not be traced back to a grant made by the former governments of the country, but which, with some color of title and equities of possession and use constituted the majority of holdings, was not submitted for decision to this court. By a provision in the act creating it such cases were submitted to the registers of the local land officers, where evidence was taken in regard to the occupancy, cultivation, etc.; and these claims were surveyed under the direction of the surveyor-general.

The act establishing this court and providing for the settlement of the small holdings was not perhaps perfect in all respects, but its results taken as a whole were good. It resulted in practically settling in nine years the question of what land belonged to the Government and what was private property, while practically nothing had been accomplished toward that end for a period of forty-three years except to confirm immense tracts to a few individuals.

The settlement of these grants by means of a court instead of by other plans had the advantage of bringing to bear on the questions involved the services of men of high character, learned in the law.

The Government's interests were by this method most thoroughly protected through the office of the United States attorney for the court, and the wisdom of providing that officer with the expert assistants was fully justified by the results. These assistants examined the archives of the former Spanish Government as they exist in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas, and the archives of the Mexican Government in many of the towns and cities of that Republic, and in their investigations accumulated a great amount of information bearing on the methods formerly in use in New Spain in the alienation of public lands. Laws were discovered that were in existence at the time of the settlement of private land claims in California, but which were unknown at that time to American lawyers. Some of these had important bearings on the Arizona grants, which were of a distinctly different character from the grants in New Mexico and Colorado.

Another direct and beneficial result of these investigations was that by means of them every attempt to secure lands by means of forged documents was frustrated. The most notable of such cases was the

In this case forgeries were com

Peralta grant of 12,500,000 acres. mitted and introduced into the archives at Madrid and Sevilla in Spain, at Guadalajara, Mexico, in the church records of San Bernardino, Cal., and in notarial records at San Francisco in the same State.

In one case only did claimants secure the confirmation of a forged grant in the Court of Private Land Claims. However, an appeal was taken by the Government, and the Supreme Court of the United States, without a dissenting vote, reversed the case on the matters of fact and ordered the trial court to enter a judgment of rejection.

For lack of legal merit grants were rejected that were precisely of the same character as others that had years before been confirmed by Congress while that body was largely dependent for guidance on the recommendations of the surveyor-general.

So far as the cases in which possession for a term of years, accompanied by cultivation and other use, are concerned, I have little personal knowledge, and am not familiar with the details of their settlement through the medium of the offices of the surveyor-general and registers. Because of the small area of each they attracted little public attention, but were nevertheless important in that they were the holdings of the small farmers of the country-the most numerous class in New Mexico directly attached to the soil. The number of these claims. is so great that they are not yet all settled, but I have never heard that the system adopted was unsatisfactory.

1So far as the adoption of a system of public surveys for the Philippene Islands is concerned, I know of no system so satisfactory in its gne ral features as that of the United States.

It has the advantages of simplicity and of being understood by a large number of that class of persons who, when the opportunity offers, will furnish immigrants to these Islands.

Modifications in it may perhaps be made necessary by local conditions that will be discovered upon attempting to carry it into effect. The proper method for the adjudication of existing property rights is a matter which, to my mind, presents much greater difficulties.

The extension of the lines of public surveys over regions assumed to be Government land may result here, as it did in the southwestern part of the United States, in invading private property, and causing deplorable friction between the Government and those who believe themselves to be the owners of such property, as well as conflicts between the latter and persons initiating titles under the public-land laws. There is no way to avoid this and kindred difficulties, to my knowledge, except to first decide what lands are of private ownership. To do this is to postpone indefinitely the surveying and opening to settlement of the public domain. The choice to be made appears to be between two evils.

If it be believed that the rights to private property will ultimately adjust themselves by litigation between parties in courts of ordinary jurisdiction, and should it be decided in view thereof not to establish any tribunal or other method of deciding the character of property rights as they existed at the date of the acquisition of these islands by the United States, it should be borne in mind that such action will not be free from certain practical difficulties, among which are these:

First. Courts will decide simply that one litigant has a better right than the other, while neither may have any right that the United States is bound to recognize.

Second. The land department has no connection with the courts, and no means of knowing what property they may have decided to be private property, consequently no means of connecting the public. surveys with the boundaries thereof.

Third. Lands may be held by individuals to whose occupancy there may be no opposition from private parties, and the Government is in the possession of no knowledge of the extent of such lands, even granting that the holder is legally or equitably entitled to them.

Knowledge of the extent of private property is necessary in order to accurately delineate on maps the lands belonging to the Government and subject to entry.

So far as I have been able to learn from persons supposed to be familiar with the condition of land titles in these Islands, it appears that there are few titles, if any, that can be directly traced to an original concession by the Spanish Government, and that a very large number of landholders have absolutely no documentary evidence of title, while others can show instruments of sale from some former owner or occupant. But it appears to be almost certain that in a vast majority of cases no other evidence of title can be produced than the mere facts of occupancy and cultivation.

My own knowledge of the existing conditions is so slight that I do not feel justified in attempting to make suggestions as to the proper manner of settling the status of these claims.

I do think, however, that it might be desirable to carefully investigate the methods in use under the Spanish Government, particularly during the last twenty years of its control of the Philippines. But such investigation has not been possible up to the present time and can not be made until we have facilities for handling the large number of documents in the department of archives and forestry bureau. Of course we can examine the Spanish laws in regard to the alienation of the public domain, but until a study can be made of the titles perfected or attempted to be perfected under those laws, we can not know what were the merits and defects of the former system and what difficulties arose in actually putting it into practice. Such knowledge might be useful in determining a method for their final settlement.

My observation of some of the Spanish laws enacted in regard to lands in what is now the republic of Mexico leads me to believe that they were not entirely bad, but on the contrary contained many good features, and should it be determined that the government of these islands shall take a hand in the settlement of the titles emanating from the former sovereignty, it might be well to consider the policy of adopting a system for the settlement of these titles that would be in its modes of procedure so far as practicable familiar to the people of the country.

If it should be determined that these titles shall not be submitted to a court or other body specially authorized to settle them, but shall be left to adjust themselves by future litigation in courts of ordinary jurisdiction, then these suggestions are out of place.

Respectfully submitted to the civil governor of the Philippine Islands. WILL M. TIPTON.

OCTOBER 3, 1901.

APPENDIX G.

MEMORANDUM AS TO THE SPANISH LAND SYSTEM IN THE PHILIPPINES, WITH OBSERVATIONS AS TO CERTAIN ADVANTAGES OF THE LAND SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES.

[By the Chief of the Bureau of Public Lands.]

Immediately after the acquisition by Spain of her extensive ultramarine possessions her monarchs set about the task of peopling those distant regions with their subjects, and in order to accomplish the objects they had in view one of the first steps taken was to make gratuitous concessions of lands not only to those who had assisted in their discoveries and conquest, but also to such persons as were willing to quit their native land and become colonists in the newly discovered world. Consequently the earliest legislation on the subject shows that in order to settle the country it was the policy of the Government to distribute lands among the settlers, requiring only that they should establish their residences thereon and utilize the land by cultivation and the raising of stock. A four-years' compliance with these conditions gave to them the right of ownership in the property, and thereafter it was absolutely at their disposal to do with as they saw fit. This provision of the law dates from the year 1513.

But it appears that at a very early period lands were occupied without what is termed in the laws of the Indies "just and true titles," and the viceroys and presidents of the audencias were authorized as early as 1578 to fix a period, whenever they saw fit, within which landholders should present their titles for examination. Those who held under good titles and instruments or by virtue of what is called "just prescription" (justa prescripcion) were to be protected in their possessions, but lands not held under those conditions were to be restored to the Crown in order that they might be disposed of according to the sovereign's will.

But that the abuses which the law just referred to intended to correct had originated long prior to its date, and that in some instances land had been disposed of by sale instead of as gratuities is evidenced by a reference to sales in a law of 1531; while a century later, during the reign of Philip IV, reference is made to lands that had been acquired during the reigns of bis predecessors by means of compo

sition.

The word "composition" as here used is a literal translation of the Spanish word "composición," which had a technical meaning as applied to lands, and may be defined as a method by which the State enabled an individual who held her lands without legal title thereto to convert his mere possession to a perfect right of property by virtue of compliance with the requirements of law.

Composition was made in the nature of a compact or compromise between the State and an individual who was illegally holding lands in