become a subject of Great Britain, but, on the contrary, elected to adhere in his allegiance to his native sovereign, and to continue in his service, deprived himself of any protection or security of his property, except so far as it was secured by the treaty. That protection was limited to the privilege of sale or sales to British subjects, and to carry with him his effects, at any time within eighteen months from its ratification. Whatever property was left unsold was abandoned to the conqueror." U. S. . Repentigny (1866), 5 Wall. 211. Cited in Hall, Int. Law, 4th ed., 593, 594. Grants of contested territory made flagrante bello by the party who fails can derive validity only from treaty stipulations. (Harcourt. Gaillard, 12 Wheat. 523.) "It is no doubt the received doctrine that, in cases of ceded or conquered territory, the rights of private property in lands are respected. Grants made by the former government, being rightful when made, are not usually disturbed. It is true that the property rights of the people, in those cases, were protected by stipulations in the treaties of cession, as is usual in such treaties; but the court took broader ground, and held, as a general principle of international law, that a mere cession of territory only operates upon the sovereignty and jurisdiction, including the right to the public domain, and not upon the private property of individuals which had been segregated from the public domain before the cession. This principle is asserted in the cases of United States v. Arredondo, 6 Pet. 691; United States v. Percheman, 7 Pet. 51, 86-89; Delassus v. United States, 9 Pet. 117; Strother v. Lucas, 12 Pet. 410, 428; Doe v. Eslava, 9 How. 421; Jones v. McMasters, 20 How. 8, 17; and Leitensdorfer v. Webb, 20 How. 176.” Coffee . Groover (1887), 123 U. S. 1, 9-10. S. P., United States v. Chaves (1895), 159 U. S. 452, 457, citing United States v. Percheman, 7 Pet. 51, 86. By an act of March 3, 1891, 26 Stat. 854, Congress created a court of Private Land Claims for the settlement of land titles in New Mexico and Arizona. This act prohibited the allowance of any claim "that shall not appear to be upon a title lawfully and regularly derived from the Government of Spain or Mexico, or from any of the States of the Republic of Mexico having lawful authority to make grants of land." Under this provision the court must be satisfied, not merely of the regularity in the form of the proceedings, but also of the authority of the official making the grant, or, if the grant was unwarranted, of its having been afterwards lawfully ratified. Hayes . United States (1898), 170 U. S. 637, comparing the act of March 3, 1891, with the legislation in Arredondo's case, 6 Pet. 691, and Peralta's case, 19 How. 343; Berreyesa v. United States, 154 U. S. 623; United States v. Coe, 170 U. S. 681; Ainsa . United States, 161 U. S. 208; Ely's Adm. v. United States, 171 U. S. 220, 224; Faxon e. United States, 171 U. S. 244, 249; Bergere v. United States, 168 U. S. 66; Chaves v. United States, 168 U. S. 177; United States v. Ortiz (1900), 176 U. S. 422; United States v. Elder, 177 U. S. 104; Whitney v. United States (1901), 181 U. S. 104; Cessna r. United States, 169 U. S. 165. An inchoate claim is not within the act of March 3, 1891, but the duty of protecting such imperfect rights of property rests upon the political department of the Government. (United States v. Santa Fé, 165 U. S. 675; United States v. Sandoval, 167 U. S. 278; Zia, Pueblo of v. United States, 168 U. S. 198.) Possession of land, after the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, though exclusive As to the powers of the ayuntamiento of El Paso to make a grant, see Cessna v. The significance of an empresario grant is discussed in Interstate Land Co. v. In a grant of certain lands in 1844 to the pueblo and nativés of Tumacácori, it was declared that the lands were in no case to be alienated, "since they are all to be considered as belonging to the Republic and community of natives alone, for their proper use, as well for sowing purposes as for stock raising and the increased prosperity of the same." "This was in accordance with the general rule that the missionaries and Indians only acquired a usufruct or occupancy at the will of the sovereign. United States v. Cervantes, 18 How. 553." (Faxon v. United States, 171 U. S. 244, 258-259.) "It was undoubtedly the duty of Congress, as it was its purpose in the various statutory enactments it has made in respect to Mexican titles, to recognize and establish every title and right which before the cession Mexico recognized as good and valid. In other words, in harmony with the rules of international law, as well as with the terms. of the treaties of cession, the change of sovereignty should work no change in respect to rights and titles; that which was good before. should be good after; that which the law would enforce before should be enforcible after the cession." The duty of determining what titles were good and valid before the cession has as a rule been committed by Congress to some judicial tribunal. Ely's Adm. v. United States (1898), 171 U. S. 220, 223. At pp. 233-234 of this case the court said: "While of course time does not run against the government, and no prescription, perhaps, may be affirmed in favor of the validity of this grant, yet the inaction of the government during these many years is very persuasive, not merely that it considered that the intendant had the power to make the sale, but that in fact he did have such power." While the United States was bound to respect the rights of private property in the territory ceded by the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, yet it had the right to prescribe reasonable means for determining the validity of titles to land within the ceded territory, and to require all persons having such claims to present them for recognition, and to treat as abandoned all claims not thus presented. Barker v. Harvey (1901), 181 U. S. 481. Injunction will lie to restrain intrusion on lands granted by Russia in fee simple prior to the treaty of cession of 1867, by which the United States agreed to protect the inhabitants in their rights of property. Callsen v. Hope, 75 Fed. Rep. 758. "But the decision now made rests on an alleged rule of international law which, assumed, as it now is, by the Government Official opinions. of Chili, becomes a proper matter of discussion between ourselves and that Government. It is asserted by the Government of Chili (for, in international relations, and the maintenance of international duties, the action of the judiciary in Chili is to be treated, when assumed by the Government, as the act of the Government) that a sovereign, when occupying a conquered territory, has, by international law, the right to test titles acquired under his predecessor by applying to them his own municipal law, and not the municipal law of his predecessor under which they vested. The true principle, however, is expressed in the following passage cited in the memorialist's brief: 666 "But the right of conquest cannot affect the property of private persons; war being only a relation of state to state, it follows that one of the belligerents who makes conquests in the territory of the other cannot acquire more rights than the one for whom he is substituted; and that thus, as the invaded or conquered state did not possess any right over private property, so also the invader or conqueror cannot legitimately exercise any right over that property. Such is to-day the public law of Europe, whose nations have corrected the barbarism of ancient practices which place private as well as public property under military law.' [C. Massé, Rapports du droit des gens avec le droit civil. Vol. I., p. 123, § 148-149.] "This doctrine has frequently been acted on in the United States. Thus it has been held by the Supreme Court that when New Mexico was conquered by the United States, it was only the allegiance of the people that was changed; their relation to each other, and their rights of property remained undisturbed. [Leitensdorfer v. Webb, 20 How. 176.] "The same has been held as to California. The rights acquired under the prior Mexican and Spanish law, so it was decided, were consecrated by the law of nations.' [U. S. v. Moreno, 1 Wall. 400. See U. S. v. Auguisola, 1 Wall. 352; Townsend . Greeley, 5 Wall. 326; Dent v. Emmeger, 14 Wall. 308; Airhart . Massieu, 98 U. S. 491; Mutual Assurance Society v. Watts, 1 Wheat. 279; Delassus v. U. S., 9 Peters, 117; Mitchel v. U. S., 9 Peters, 711; Strother. Lucas, 12 Peters, 410; U. S. v. Repentigny, 5 Wall. 211.] "The Government of the United States, therefore, holds that titles derived from a duly constituted prior foreign government to which it has succeeded are consecrated by the law of nations' even as against titles claimed under its own subsequent laws. The rights of a resident neutral-having become fixed and vested by the law of the countrycannot be denied or injuriously affected by a change in the sovereignty or public control of that country by transfer to another government. His remedies may be affected by the change of sovereignty, but his rights at the time of the change must be measured and determined by the law under which he acquired them. The Government of the United States is therefore prepared to insist on the continued validity of such titles, as held by citizens of the United States, when attacked by foreign governments succeeding that by which they [were] granted. Title to land and landed improvements, is, by the law of nations, a continuous right, not subject to be divested by any retroactive legislation of new governments taking the place of that by which such title was lawfully granted. Of course it is not intended here to deny the prerogative of a conqueror to confiscate for political offenses, or to withdraw franchises which by the law of nations can be withdrawn by governments for the time being. Such prerogatives have been conceded by the United States as well as by other members of the family of nations by which international law is constituted. What, however, is here denied is the right of any government to declare titles lawfully granted by its predecessor to be vacated because they could not have been lawfully granted if its own law had, at the time in question, prevailed. This pretension strikes at that principle of historical municipal continuity of governments which is at the basis of international law." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Roberts, Mar. 20, 1886, MS. Inst. Chili. XVII. 196, 200. "My recent instructions to you show the deep concern which this Government feels in the reported operations of Germany in the Samoan Islands, with which we have treaty relations. We have no treaty relations with the Marshall or Gilbert groups. They are understood to belong to the large category of hitherto unclaimed islands which have been under no asserted administration, and where the traders of various nationalities have obtained lodgment through good relations with the natives. Of the Gilbert Islands we have no precise information. Mr. von Alvensleben recently stated in conversation that the German claim to the Caroline Islands having been decided adversely, Germany would, instead, take possession of the Marshall group. It is understood, but informally so, that an arrangement exists between Great Britain and Germany whereby the two powers will confine their respective insular annexations in the Pacific Ocean within defined areas or zones, and that under this arrangement the Marshall Islands fall within the zone where Germany can operate without coming into collision with Great Britain. "It is not easy to see how either Great Britain or Germany can assert the right to control and to divide between them insular possessions which have hitherto been free to the trade of all flags, and which owe the civilizing rudiments of social organization they possess to the settlement of pioneers of other nationalities than British or German. If colonial acquisition were an announced policy of the United States, it is clear that this country would have an equal right with Great Britain or Germany to assert a claim of possession in respect of islands settled by American citizens, either alone or on a footing of equality with British and German settlers. "There are islands in the Pacific Ocean known to be wholly in the undisturbed possession of American citizens as peaceable settlers, and there are many others where American citizens have established themselves in common with other foreigners. We, of course, claim no exclusive jurisdictional right by reason of such occupancy, and are not called upon to admit it in the case of like occupancy by others. "What we think we have a right to expect, and what we are confident will be cheerfully extended as a recognized right, is that interests found to have been created in favor of peaceful American settlers in those distant regions shall not be disturbed by the assertion of exclusive claims of territorial jurisdiction on the part of any power which has never put forth any show of administration therein; that their trade and intercourse shall not in any way be hampered or taxed otherwise than as are the trade and intercourse of the citizens or subjects of the power asserting such exclusive jurisdiction, and in short, that the equality of their tenancy jointly with others, or the validity of their tenancy where they may be the sole occupants, shall be admitted according to the established principles of equity and justice." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Pendleton, Feb. 27, 1886, MS. Inst. Germ. "As to the outlying unattached groups of islands [in the Pacific], dependent |