The military authorities of the United States in the Philippines were under no obligation to sustain or support arbitrary proceedings for the confiscation of the property of Spanish subjects on the ground of disloyalty, and when proceedings taken for that purpose had resulted, by abandonment or otherwise, in the original owners coming again into possession of their property, their right of possession was not open to question or inquiry on the part of the United States. It was therefore advised that the military governor should be directed to return to certain Spanish subjects in the Philippines all their property and possessions taken by the United States in pursuance of General Otis's order of November 25, 1898. Griggs, At.-Gen., Feb. 21, 1899, 22 Op. 351. By Article XIII. of the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain of December 10, 1898, it was provided that rights of property secured by copyrights and patents acquired by Spaniards in Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines should be respected. It was advised that a patent or license granted July 11, 1898, to a Spaniard for the manufacture of hemp by steam in the Philippines for the term of five years was protected by this provision of the treaty if it was good under Spanish law, although the American law may give no identical rights. The stipulation, it was held, concerned "only Spanish rights acquired under Spanish laws," and that it embraced "property recognized by the Spanish laws which correspond with our patent laws, even if that property was not identical with that recognized by our laws." Griggs, At.-Gen., Nov. 11, 1899, 22 Op. 617. Rights of property in trade-marks in Cuba and the Philippines are entitled to the protection stipulated for "property of all kinds” in Arts. I. and VIII. of the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain of December 10, 1898; and trade-marks registered prior to that time in the international registry at Berne are entitled to the same recognition and protection from the military governments of Cuba and the Philippines as trade-marks registered in the national registry at Madrid or in one of the provincial registries of the islands. Mr. Magoon, law officer, division of insular affairs, War Dept., March 27, 1901, See, further, as to the protection of property rights under Arts. I. and VIII. of The rights of municipalities were not destroyed in the territory transferred by Spain to the United States, and their rights of property were protected by Art. VIII. of the treaty of cession. Reports of Mr. Magoon, law officer, Magoon's Reports, 374, 650. As to mining claims and appurtenant privileges in Cuba, Porto Rico, and the The situation in the New Hebrides is regulated by the Anglo-French convention of November 16, 1887, supplemented by the agreement of January 26, 1888. This arrangement was in the nature of a compromise. The Australians desisted from their agitation in favor of annexation and the French withdrew the two naval stations which they had established in the archipelago. The protection of persons and property was entrusted to a joint commission composed of two English and two French officers and a president, who, in alternate months, was to be the French or English commanding officer on the station. The conventions have, it is stated, been found to possess two radical defects in failing to regulate (1) the acquisition of land, and (2) the importation of arms, ammunition, and alcohol. In consequence, grave disputes have arisen between the English and the French as to the purchase and ownership of real property, and also as to the labor question. The London Times Weekly Edition, Jan. 3, 1902, supplement, iv. Public offices. In 1728 Don Sebastian Calvo de la Puerta bought at public auction from the Spanish Crown the office of "Alguacil mayor,' or high sheriff, of the city of Habana, Cuba. The office was declared to be perpetual and inheritable, and it finally descended to the Countess of O'Reilly y Buena Vista. Its duties included the inspection of the meat supply, and for this service the holder was authorized to exact a certain sum for each head of cattle killed at the slaughterhouse. This privilege was alleged to be worth a large amount of money, a half interest in which was purchased at judicial sale in 1895 by Dr. Don Gustavo Gallet Duplessis, for the satisfaction of a private debt. On the American occupation of Habana, the military authorities of the United States refused to allow the Countess of Buena Vista and Dr. Duplessis to exercise the authority or enjoy the emoluments of the office. They subsequently appealed to the Government of the United States, contending (1) that the office was property, and (2) that as such it was protected by Art. VIII. of the treaty of peace of Dec. 10, 1898, and by international law. It was advised (1) that, although the perpetual incumbency of the office was sold by Spain, it was a right subject to be resumed by the sovereign whenever the publie welfare required it; (2) that it rested on a contract with Spain, personal in its nature, which, as it was not assumed by the United States. in the treaty of peace, did not pass with the transfer of sovereignty; (3) that whether the obligations of Spain in Cuba were to be assumed by the Government established by the people of the island was a question to be determined by that Government when it should come into existence; (4) that the question whether the municipality of Habana was, as was contended, liable for the payment of an indemnity by reason of any proceedings prior to the military occupation of the United States was one which might properly be referred to the Cuban courts. Report of Mr. Magoon, law officer, Division of Insular Affairs, Aug. 8, 1900, "I can not assent to the proposition that the right to perform any part of the duties or receive any part of the compensation attached to the office of sheriff of Habana under Spanish sovereignty constituted a perpetual franchise which could survive that sovereignty. The fact that the Spanish Crown permitted an office to be inherited or purchased does not make it any the less an office the continuance of which is dependent upon the sovereignty which created it. "The services which the petitioner claims the right to render and exact compensation for are in substance an exercise of the police power of the State. The right to exercise that power under Spanish appointment or authority necessarily terminated when Spanish sovereignty in Cuba ended. It thereupon became the duty of the mili tary governor to make a new provision under which this part of the power of the new sovereignty, which took the place of the sovereignty of Spain, should be exercised and the necessary service rendered to the public. The petitioner has been deprived of no property whatever. The office, right, or privilege which she had acquired by inheritance was in its nature terminable with the termination of the sovereignty on which it depended. "The question whether by reason of anything done before that time the right to compensation from the municipality of Habana has arisen is a question to be determined by the courts of Cuba. "The application for the revocation of the order heretofore made herein by the military governor of Cuba is denied." Decision of Mr. Root, Secretary of War, in the matter of the application of the Countess of Buena Vista, Dec. 24, 1900, Magoon's Reports, 209. V. TERRITORIAL EXPANSION OF THE UNITED STATES. 1. DECLARATIONS OF POLICY. 'It will be objected to our receiving Cuba that no limit can then be drawn to our future acquisitions. Cuba can be defended by us without a navy, and this develops the principle which ought to limit our views. Nothing should ever be accepted which would require a navy to defend it." 66 Mr. Jefferson to President Madison, Apr. 27, 1809, 5 Jeff. Works, 443. Time is acting for us; and if we shall have the wisdom to trust its operation, it will assert and maintain our right with resistless force, without costing a cent of money or a drop of blood. There is often, in the affairs of Government, more efficiency and wisdom in non-action than in action. All we want to effect our object in this case is a wise and masterly inactivity.' Our population is rolling towards the shores of the Pacific with an impetus greater than what we realize. It is one of those forward movements which leaves anticipation behind. In the period of thirty-two years which have elapsed since I took my seat in the other house, the Indian frontier has receded a thousand miles to the west. At that time our population was much less than half what it is now. It was then increasing at the rate of about a quarter of a million annually; it is now not less than six hundred thousand, and still increasing at the rate of something more than 3 per cent. compound annually. At that rate it will soon reach the yearly increase of a million. If to this be added that the region west of Arkansas and the State of Missouri, and south of the Missouri River, is occupied by half-civilized tribes, who have their lands secured to them by treaty (and which will prevent the spread of population in that direction), and that this great and increasing tide will be forced to take the comparatively narrow channel to the north of that river and south of our northern boundary, some conception may be formed of the strength with which the current will run in that direction and how soon it will reach the eastern gorges of the Rocky Mountains. I say some conception, for I feel assured that the reality will outrun the anticipation. In illustration, I will repeat what I stated when I first addressed the Senate on this subject. As wise and experienced as was President Monroe, as much as he had witnessed of the growth of our country in his time, so inadequate was his conception of its rapidity, that near the close of his administration-in the year 1824-he proposed to colonize the Indians of New York and those north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi, in what is now called the Wisconsin Territory, under the impression that it was a portion of our territory so remote that they would not be disturbed by our increasing population for a long time to come. It is now but eighteen years since, and already, in that short period, it is a great and flourishing territory ready to knock at our door for admission as one of the sovereign members of the Union. But what is still more striking, what is really wonderful and almost miraculous is that another territory (Iowa), still farther west (beyond the Mississippi) has sprung up as if by magic, and has already outstripped Wisconsin, and may knock for entrance before she is prepared to do so. Such is the wonderful growth of a population which has attained the number ours has-yearly increasing at a compound rate and such the impetus with which it is forcing its way, resistlessly, westward. It will soon, far sooner than anticipated, reach the Rocky Mountains, and be ready to pour into the Oregon Territory, when it will come into our possession without resistance or struggle; or, if there should be resistance, it would be feeble and ineffectual. We should then be as much stronger there, comparatively, than Great Britain, as she is now stronger than we are; and it would then be as idle for her to attempt to assert and maintain her exclusive claim to the territory against us, as it would now be in us to attempt it against her. Let us be wise and abide our time; and it will accomplish all that we desire with more certainty and with infinitely less sacrifice than we can without it.” Speech of Mr. Calhoun, on the Oregon bill, in the Senate, Jan. 24, 1843; 4 It is our policy to increase by growing and spreading out into unoccupied regions, assimilating all we incorporate. In a word, to increase by accretion, and not through conquest by the addition of masses held together by the cohesion of force. No system can be more unsuited to the latter process, or better adapted to the former, than our admirable Federal system. If it should not be resisted in its course, it will probably fulfill, its destiny, without disturbing our neighbors or putting in jeopardy the general peace; but if it be opposed by foreign interference, a new direction would be given to our energy, much less favorable to harmony with our neighbors and to the general peace of the world. The change would be undesirable to us, and much less in accord with what I have assumed to be primary objects of policy on the part of France, England, and Mexico." Mr. Calhoun, Sec. of State, to Mr. King, Aug. 12, 1844, MS. Inst., France, XV. 8, 12. This passage seems to have suggested the title of § 72 of Wharton's Int. Law Digest-Accretion, not colonization, the policy of the United States." It appears, however, that the idea of Mr. Calhoun was accretion by means of colonization, as opposed to the increase of territory by conquest. Indeed, "accretion" and "colonization," instead of involving opposite conceptions, rather represent different aspects of the same principle, accretion being the result of the colonizing process described by Mr. Calhoun in his speech on the Oregon bill, supra. "Until recently, the acquisition of outlying territory has not been regarded as desirable by us. The purchase of Russian America and the proposed purchase of the Danish West India islands of St. Thomas and St. John may seem to indicate a reversal of the policy adverted to. Those measures, however, may be presumed to have been adopted for special reasons." But, in any event, it appeared to be unadvisable to decide upon an offer of other distant territory while the question of St. Thomas and St. John was pending, and, even if that question were disposed of, the President, before making up his mind in regard to such an offer, probably would prefer to consult Congress in regard to it, either directly or indirectly. Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Mr. Bartlett, min. to Sweden, June 17, 1869, MS. |