460

OCTOBER TERM, 1908.
Opinion of the Court. 212 U. S.
vations, as this land since has been. But there still remains

the question what property and rights the United States as-
serted itself to have acquired.

Whatever the law upon these points may be, and we mean
to go no further than the necessities of decision demand, every
presumption is and ought to be against the Government in a

case like the present. It might, perhaps, be proper and suffi-
cient to say that when, as far back as testimony or memory

goes, the land has been held by individuals under a claim of
private ownership, it will be presumed to have been held in the
same way from before the Spanish conquest, and never to have
been public land. Certainly in a case like this if there is doubt
or ambiguity in the Spanish law we ough- to give the applicant
the benefit of the doubt. Whether justice to the natives and the
import of the organic act ought not to carry us beyond a subtle

examination of ancient texts, or perhaps even beyond the atti-
tude of Spanish law, humane though it was, it is unnecessary

.to decide. If, in a tacit way, it was assumed that the wild tribes

of the Philippines were to be dealt with as the power and incli-
nation of the conqueror .might dictate, Congress has not yet

sanctioned the samie course as the proper one "foe the benefit
of the inhabitants thereof."
If the applicant's case is to be tried by the law of Spain we do
not discover such clear proof that it was bad by that law as to
satisfy us that he does not own the land. To begin with, the
older decrees and laws cited by the counsel for the plaintiff in

error seem to indicate pretty clearly that the natives were rec-
ognized as owning some lands, irrespective of any royal grant.

In other words, Spain did not assume to convert all the native
inhabitants of the Philippines into trespassers or even into
tenants at will. For instance, Book 4t Title 12, Law 14 of
the Recopilacion de Leyes de las Indias, cited for a contrary
conclusion in Valenton v. Murciano, 3 Philippine, 537, while it
commands viceroys and others, when it seems proper, to call
for the exhibition of grants, directs them to confirm those who
hold by good grants or justa prescripcion. It is true that it