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proviso may be permit obe and remain on duty for four additional hours in a twenty-four hour period on not exceeding three days in any week."

It is said that the words "except in case of emergency,' make the application of the act so uncertain as to destroy its validity. But this argument in substance denies to the legislature the power to use a generic description, and if pressed to its logical conclusion would practically nullify the legislative authority by making it essential that legislation should define, without the use of generic terms, all the specific instances to be brought within it. In a legal sense there is no uncertainty. Congress, by an appropriate description of an exceptional class, has established a standard with respect to which cases that arise must be adjudged.

Nor does the contention gather strength from the broad scope of the proviso in § 3, for if the latter, in limiting the effect of the entire act, could be said to include everything that may be embraced within the term "emergency" as used in § 2, this would be merely a duplication which would not invalidate the act.

Third. Finding that the objections to the validity of the statute are not well taken, we are brought to the question whether the Interstate Commerce Commission has authority to require the reports called for by its order.

Section 4 of the act provides:

"SEC. 4. It shall be the duty of the Interstate Commerce Commission to execute and enforce the provisions of this Act, and all powers granted to the Interstate Commerce Commission are hereby extended to it in the execution of this Act."

The Commission then may call to its aid in the enforcement of the act "all powers granted" to it. And, although there might have been doubt as to the adequacy of the authority of the Commission, under the law as it formerly

221 U S.

Opinion of

Court.

stood, to require these report

ere can be none now in

view of the amendment of $20 of the act to regulate commerce by the act of June 18, 1910, c. 309, 36 Stat. 556. As so amended, this section contains the following provision:

"The commission shall also have authority by general or special orders to require said carriers, or any of them, to file monthly reports of earnings and expenses, and to file periodical or special, or both periodical and special, reports concerning any matters about which the commission is authorized or required by this or any other law to inquire or keep itself informed or which it is required to enforce; and such periodical or special reports shall be under oath whenever the commission so requires."

This clearly embraces the power which the Commission here asserts, and it is certainly now entitled to promulgate an order requiring reports to be made. It follows that as, under the stipulation of record here, the requirement of the Commission is to operate wholly in the future and it has been suspended awaiting the final determination of this cause, the question of the authority of the Commission at the time the order was made has become a moot one. Were there no other question before us the appeal would accordingly be dismissed, and to justify a reversal of the judgment and the sustaining of the complainant's bill other grounds must appear.

Nor can it be said, so far as the scope of the requirement of the order is concerned, that it goes beyond the authority which has been conferred upon the Commission. The order relates to the employés who are "subject to said act." The bill alleges that, in the original forms prescribed, the carrier was required to show the employés who were "either on duty for a period of time in excess of that contemplated by the act or who had not been off duty after any period of service for the length of time prescribed by the act, and in the case of every such employé

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the carrier was required to state the cause of and the facts, if any, explanatory of the excess service thus rendered by the employé." By the amended instructions set forth in the stipulation, it appears that "in case no employé has been employed in excess of the time named in said act, and in case no employé has gone on duty with less than the statutory period off duty," a separate form of oath to that effect will be accepted in lieu of the forms which are to be used in detailing excess service. And, as already noted, the reports are to be made by the secretary or similar officer.

To enable the Commission properly to perform its duty to enforce the law, it is necessary that it should have full information as to the hours of service exacted of the employés who are subject to the provisions of the statute, and the requirements to which we have referred are appropriate for that purpose and are comprehended within the power of the Commission.

Fourth. There is the final objection that to compel the disclosure by these reports of violations of the law is contrary to the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States.

The order of the Commission is suitably specific and reasonable, and there is not the faintest semblance of an unreasonable search and seizure. The Fourth Amendment has no application.

Nor can the corporation plead a privilege against selfcrimination under the Fifth Amendment. Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S. 74, 75; Hammond Packing Company v. Arkansas, 212 U. S. 348, 349; Wilson v. United States, decided May 15, 1911, ante, p. 361. With respect to its officers, it would be sufficient to say that the privilege guaranteed to them by this amendment is a personal one which cannot be asserted on their behalf by the corporation. But the transactions to which the required reports relate are corporate transactions subject to the regulating power

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of Congress. And, with regard to the keeping of suitable records of corporate administration, and the making of reports of corporate action, where these are ordered by the Commission under the authority of Congress, the officers of the corporation, by virtue of the assumption of their duties as such, are bound by the corporate obligation and cannot claim a personal privilege in hostility to the requirement. Wilson v. United States, supra.

The decree of the Circuit Court is

Affirmed.

JOVER Y COSTAS v. INSULAR GOVERNMENT OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.

INSULAR GOVERNMENT OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS v. JOVER Y COSTAS.

APPEALS FROM AND IN ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.

Nos. 112, 113. Argued April 7, 1911.—Decided May 29, 1911.

Article 46 of the constitution of Spain as existing in 1859, providing that in order to alienate, cede or exchange any part of Spanish territory, the King required the authority of a special law, related to transference of national sovereignty and not to disposal of public land as property.

The laws of the Partida which affirm that the sea and its shore are among the things that are common to all men are not to be so literally construed, as held by the Spanish courts prior to the cession of the Philippine Islands, as prohibiting a grant of tide lands to one desiring to reclaim and improve them.

The Governor General of the Philippine Islands under Spanish rule possessed all the powers of the King except where otherwise provided, and a grant of lands made by him was valid unless in violation of law specially prohibiting him from making it.

Where the local authorities in the Philippine Islands, with full knowl

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edge of the circumstances under which a grant was made, imposed taxes on the property for many, in this case thirty-nine, years, it is persuasive proof that the grant was valid and that the Governor General did not exceed his authority in making it.

A grant of tide lands, although made upon condition of reclamation, is not defeated by failure to reclaim if the granting words import a present and immediate transfer of ownership; and so held as to a grant of such lands in the Philippine Islands where the grantee was "granted possession and ownership," and there was no express condition either precedent or subsequent that the land be reclaimed within any definite period.

Where a practical interpretation has been given to a grant of land by the public officials authorized to interpret it, full effect should be given thereto.

The appropriate method to review judgments of the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands in cases from the Court of Land Registration is by writ of error and not by appeal.

10 Phil. Rep. 522, reversed.

THE facts, which involve the validity of a grant of lands in the Philippine Islands, made prior to the cession to the United States, are stated in the opinion.

Mr. Aldis B. Browne, with whom Mr. W. A. Kincaid, Mr. Alexander Britton, Mr. J. H. Blount and Mr. Evans Browne were on the brief, for plaintiffs in error.

Mr. Assistant Attorney General Fowler for the Philippine Islands (Insular Government).

MR. JUSTICE VAN DEVANTER delivered the opinion of the court.

This was a petition to the Court of Land Registration of the Philippine Islands for the registration of the title to a tract of land in the City of Manila, claimed to have been granted to Don Jose Camps, February 12, 1859, by a decree of the Governor General of those Islands, reading as follows:

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