SEC. 57. Such claims and applications shall conform as nearly as may be in their material allegations to the requirements of an application for registration under the provisions of section twenty-one and subsequent sections of the Land Registration Act, and shall be accompanied by a plan of the land and all documents evidencing a right on the part of the applicant to the lands claimed. The application shall also set forth fully the nature of the claim to the land, and when based upon proceedings initiated under Spanish laws shall particularly state the date and form of the grant, concession, warrant, or order of survey under which the claim is made; by whom such grant, concession, warrant, or order of survey was made; the extent of the compliance with the conditions required by the Spanish laws and royal decrees for the acquisition of legal title, and if not fully complied with the reason for such noncompliance, together with a statement of the length of time such land or any portion thereof has been actually occupied by the claimant and his predecessors in interest; the use made of the land, and the nature of the inclosure, if any. The fees provided to be paid for the registration of lands under the Land Registration Act shall be collected from applicants under this chapter, except that upon the original registration of land claimed hereunder no fee shall be required for the assurance fund.

SEC. 58. Any applicant for registration of lands under the provisions of this chapter may, upon petition directed to the Chief of the Bureau of Public Lands, and upon payment of the fees as regulated by law, secure a survey and plan of the lands claimed to be owned by him, which said plan shall be filed with his application in the Court of Land Registration.

SEC. 59. Upon the filing of claims and applications for registration in the Court of Land Registration, under this chapter, the same procedure shall be adopted in the hearing of such cases and in the matter of appeal as is by the Land Registration Act provided for other claims, except that a notice of all such applications, together with a plan of the lands claimed, shall be immediately forwarded to the Chief of the Bureau of Public Lands of the Philippine Islands, who shall be represented in all questions arising upon the consideration of such applications by the Attorney-General of the Philippine Islands or by any subordinate or assistant to the Attorney-General appointed for that purpose.

SEC. 60. It shall be the duty of the examiner of titles, upon reference to him of any such claim or application, to investigate all the facts alleged therein or otherwise brought to his attention, and to make careful inquiry as to the period of occupation of the land by the claimant or his predecessors in interest; the nature of such lands; the character of the inclosure, if any, and the extent to which the land has been subjected to cultivation. He shall file a full report of his investigation in the case, concluding with a certificate of his opinion upon the merits of the claim.

SEC. 61. It shall be lawful for the Chief of the Bureau of Public Lands, whenever in the opinion of the Chief Executive the public interests shall require it, to cause to be filed in the Court of Land Registration, through the Attorney-General, a petition against the holder, claimant, possessor, or occupant of any land in the Philippine Islands who shall not have voluntarily come in under the provisions of this chapter or the Land Registration Act, stating in substance that the title of such holder, claimant, possessor, or occupant is open to question, or stating in substance that the boundaries of any such land

which has not been brought into court as aforesaid are open to question, and praying that the title to any such land or the boundaries thereof or the right to occupancy thereof be settled and adjudicated. Such petition shall contain all the data essential to furnish a full notice thereof to the occupants of such land and to all persons who may claim an adverse interest therein, and shall be accompanied by a plan of the land in question. The court shall cause service of notice to be made as in other cases, and shall proceed to hear, try, and determine the questions stated in such petition or arising in the matter, and settle and determine the ownership of the land and cause certificate of title to be issued therefor, as in other cases filed under this chapter.

SEC. 62. Whenever any lands in the Philippine Islands are set apart as town sites, under the provisions of Chapter Five of this Act, it shall be lawful for the Chief of the Bureau of Public Lands, with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, to notify the judge of the Court of Land Registration that such lands have been reserved as a town site and that all private lands or interests therein within the limits described ought forthwith to be brought within the operation of the Land Registration Act, and to become registered land within the meaning of said Registration Act. It shall be the duty of the judge of said court to issue a notice thereof, stating that claims for all private lands or interests therein within the limits described must be presented for registration under the Land Registration Act in the manner provided in Act Numbered Six hundred and twenty-seven, entitled "An Act to bring immediately under the operation of the Land Registration Act all lands lying within the boundaries lawfully set apart for military reservations, and all lands desired to be purchased by the Government of the United States for military purposes. The procedure for the purpose of this section and the legal effects thereof shall thereupon be in all respects as provided in sections three, four, five, and six of said Act Numbered Six hundred and twenty-seven.

SEC. 63. All proceedings under this chapter involving title to or interest in land shall be conducted and considered as an application for registration of such land, and the final decree of the court shall in every case be the basis for the original certificate of title in favor of the person entitled to the property under the procedure prescribed in section forty-one of the Land Registration Act.

SEC. 64. If in the hearing of any application arising under this chapter the court shall find that more than one person or claimant has an interest in the land, such conflicting interests shall be adjudicated by the court and decree awarded in favor of the person or persons entitled to the land, according to the laws of the Philippine Islands, except that where the action is voluntarily dismissed by the parties interested the order of the court shall be merely one of dismissal without affecting title.

SEC. 65. Whenever, in any proceedings under this chapter to secure registration of an incomplete or imperfect claim of title initiated prior to the transfer of sovereignty from Spain to the United States, it shall appear that had such claims been prosecuted to completion under the laws prevailing when instituted, and under the conditions of the grant then contemplated, the conveyance of such land to the applicant would not have been gratuitous but would have involved payment therefor to the Government, then and in that event the court shall, after decreeing in whom title should vest, further determine the amount to be paid as a condition for the registration of the land. Such judgment shall be certified to the Bureau of Public Lands by

the clerk of the court for collection of the amount due from the person entitled to conveyance. Upon payment to the Chief of the Bureau of Public Lands of the price specified in the judgment, the case shall be returned by him to the Court of Land Registration with a notation of such payment, whereupon the registration of the land in favor of the party entitled thereto shall be ordered by the court. If the applicant shall fail to pay the amount of money required by the decree within a reasonable time after he receives notice thereof the court may order the proceeding to stand dismissed and the title to the land shall then be in the Government free from any claim of the applicant. SEC. 66. Whenever any judgment of confirmation or other decree of the court involving public lands shall become final, the clerk of the court shall certify that fact to the Bureau of Public Lands, with a copy of the decree of confirmation or judgment of the court, which shall plainly state the location, boundaries, and area as nearly as may be, of the tract involved in the decree or judgment, and shall be accompanied by a plan of the land as confirmed or acted upon by the court. In the event the original survey was made by the Bureau of Public Lands and the decree of the court conforms thereto, no further proceedings shall be required. When the original survey was made by the applicant or where the tract confirmed by the court varies from the original survey as made by the Bureau of Public Lands, the Chief of the Bureau of Public Lands shall immediately cause the tract, so confirmed by the court, to be surveyed at the cost of the Insular Government, and shall, when such survey has been approved by him, furnish a copy of same to the Court of Land Registration and to the applicant, which survey when approved by the court, and unless objected to by the applicant within thirty days, shall be conclusively presumed to be correct. If objection is made to the survey by the applicant, the court, upon notice to the Bureau of Public Lands, shall hear such objections, and its action in the matter shall be final.

SEC. 67. No title to, or right or equity in, any public lands in the Philippine Islands may hereafter be acquired by prescription or by adverse possession or occupancy, or under or by virtue of any laws in effect prior to American occupation, except as expressly provided by laws enacted or provided since the acquisition of the Islands by the United States.

CHAPTER VII.

GENERAL PROVISIONS.

SEC. 68. The short title of this Act shall be "The Public Land Act."

SEC. 69. The Chief of the Bureau of Public Lands, under the supervision of the Secretary of the Interior, shall prepare and issue such forms and instructions, consistent with this Act, as may be necessary and proper to carry into effect all the provisions thereof that are to be administered by or under direction of the Bureau of Public Lands, and for the conduct of all proceedings arising under such provisions. SEC. 70. While title to public lands in the Philippine Islands remains in the Government, the Chief of the Bureau of Public Lands under the supervision of the Secretary of the Interior, shall be charged with the immediate executive control of the survey, classification, lease, sale, and other disposition and management thereof, and the deci

WAR 1903-VOL 8-48

sions of the Bureau as to questions of facts relating to such lands shall be conclusive when approved by the Secretary of the Interior.

SEC. 71. The Civil Governor, for reasons of public policy, may, from time to time, by proclamation, designate any tract or tracts of public lands in the Philippine Islands as nonalienable, and thereafter the same shall be withdrawn from settlement, entry, sale, or other disposition under any of the public-land laws of the Islands until again made subject thereto by law of the Islands.

SEC. 72. Provincial secretaries and all other persons that may be designated as mining recorders shall, in their capacities as such recorders, be subject to the supervision of the Chief of the Bureau of Public Lands.

SEC. 73. All patents or certificates for lands disposed of under this law shall be prepared in the Bureau of Public Lands and shall issue in the name of the United States and the Philippine Government under the signature of the Civil Governor; but such patents or certificates shall be effective only for the purposes defined in section one hundred and twenty-two of the Land Registration Act and the actual conveyance of the land shall be effected only as provided in said section.

SEC. 74. All persons receiving title to Government lands under the provisions of this Act, shall hold such lands subject to the same public servitudes as existed upon lands owned by private persons under the sovereignty of Spain, including those with reference to the littoral of the sea and the banks of navigable rivers or rivers upon which rafting may be done.

SEC. 75. The beneficial use of water shall be the basis, the measure, and the limit of all rights thereto in said Islands, and the patents herein granted shall be subject to the right of the Government of these Islands to make such rules and regulations for the use of water and the protection of the water supply, and for other public purposes, as it may deem best for the public good. Whenever, by priority of possession, rights to the use of water for mining, agricultural, manufacturing, or other purposes have vested and accrued, and the same are recognized and acknowledged by the local customs, laws, and decisions of the courts, the possessors and owners of such vested rights shall be maintained and protected in the same, and all patents granted under this Act shall be subject to any vested and accrued rights to ditches and reservoirs used in connection with such water rights as may have been acquired in the manner above described prior to April eleventh, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine.

SEC. 76. There is hereby reserved from the operation of all patents, certificates, entries, and grants by the Insular Government authorized under this Act, the right to use for the purposes of power any flow of water in any stream running through or by the land granted, the convertible power from which at ordinary low water exceeds fifty horse power. Where the convertible power in any stream running through or running by land granted under the authority of this Act thus exceeds fifty horse power, and there is no means of using such power except by the occupation of a part of the land granted under authority of this Act, then so much land as is reasonably necessary for the mill site or site for the power house, and for a suitable dam and site for massing the water, is hereby excepted from such grant, not exceeding four hectares, and a right of way to the nearest public highway from the land thus excepted, and also a right of way for the construction and maintenance of such flumes, aqueducts, wires, poles,

or other conduits as may be needed in conveying the water to the point where its fall will yield the greatest power, or the power from the point of conversion to the point of use, is reserved as a servitude or easement upon the land granted by authority of this Act: Provided, however, That when the Government or any concessionaire of the Government shall take possession of land under this section which a grantee under this Act shall have paid for, supposing it to be subject to grant under this Act, said grantee shall be entitled to indemnity from the Government or the concessionaire for the amount, if any, paid by him to the Government for the land taken from him by virtue of this section: And provided further, That with respect to the flow of water, except for converting the same into power exceeding fifty horse power, said grantee shall be entitled to the same use of the water flowing through or along his land that other private owners enjoy by the laws of the Philippine Islands, subject to the governmental regulation provided in the previous section. Water power privileges in which the convertible power at ordinary low water shall exceed fifty horse power shall be disposed of only upon terms to be embodied in a special Act of the Commission until a general law shall be passed concerning the use, lease, or acquisition of such water privilege.

SEC. 77. Any person who shall willfully and knowingly submit, or cause to be submitted, any false proof, or who shall make, or cause to be made, any false affidavit in support of any application or claim in any manner respecting the public lands of the Philippine Islands, shall be deemed guilty of perjury and punished accordingly.

SEC. 78. The provisions of this Act shall extend and apply to all provinces and places of the Philippine Archipelago except the Moro Province and the Provinces of Lepanto-Bontoc, Benguet, Paragua, and Nueva Vizcaya; but the provisions of this Act or of any chapter hereof may at any time, by resolution of the Philippine Commission, be extended over and put in force in any of the provinces or any part thereof hereby excepted from its operation.

SEC. 79. When this Act shall have been approved by the President of the United States and shall have received the express or implied sanction of Congress, as provided by section thirteen of the Act of Congress approved July first, nineteen hundred and two, entitled "An Act temporarily to provide for the administration of the affairs of civil government in the Philippine Islands, and for other purposes," such facts shall be made known by the proclamation of the Civil Governor of the Islands, and this Act shall take effect on the date of such proclamation.

Enacted, October 7, 1903.

[No. 927.]

AN ACT appropriating the sum of one thousand five hundred dollars, in money of the United States, for the payment of the salary of the Collecting Librarian of the Insular Government.

By authority of the United States, be it enacted by the Philippine Commission, that:

SECTION 1. There is hereby appropriated, out of any funds in the Insular Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of one thousand five hundred dollars, in money of the United States, for the payment