LEGAL ASPECTS OF THE PHILIPPINES

country just conquered, is interesting, not only for the stately purity of its diction, but because its reproduction is a necessary step in this effort briefly to present the present status of the Philippine corpus juris. The part of it referred to is as follows: "Though the powers of the military occu pant are absolute and supreme and immedi ately operate upon the political condition of the inhabitants, the municipal laws of the conquered territory, such as affect private rights of person and property and provide for the punishment of crime, are considered as continuing in force, so far as they are com patible with the new order of things, until they are suspended or superseded by the oc cupying belligerent; and in practice they are not usually abrogated, but are allowed to remain in force and to be administered by the ordinary tribunals substantially as they were before the occupation. This enlight ened practice is, so far as possible, to be adhered to on the present occasion." . . . Article 8 of the Treaty of Paris signed December 10, 1898, provided, with regard to our taking over the Philippines from Spain, that "the . . . cession . . .can not in any respect impair the property or rights which by law belong to the peaceful possession of property of all kinds, of (i.e., belonging to) . . . public or private estab lishments, ecclesiastical . . . bodies or ... private individuals." There you have a complete guarantee on our part of all vested rights existing when the treaty was concluded. It is as necessary for a lawyer in the Philippines to acquaint himself with the whole body of the Spanish Law, -i.e., with what we may for the moment call the Common Law of Spain as it stood prior to December 10, 1898, as it is for an American law student to read Blackstone. It will be observed that in the President's above-quoted instruction to the General commanding the first expedition to the Philippines, permission is impliedly given to make changes in the old law where there are defects in it not "compatible with the

new order of things," the specific clause now alluded to being this: "The municipal laws such as affect pri vate rights . . . and provide for . . . the punishment of crime are considered as con tinuing in force so far as they arc compatible with the new order of things." After a year or more of experience with the native courts, it became evident that the Spanish criminal procedure was entirely incompatible with American ideas of ad ministering justice. For instance, its red tape was so interminable as to amount practically to a denial of justice. Again, evidence would be presented in court against absent persons, the testimony would be reduced to writing, slowly from day to day, and when enough was accumulated to con vict, the man would be seized and im prisoned, informed that he was guilty of such and such a crime, and, if he denied it, told that he must prove his innocence. Without further specific instances, it will at once become apparent that under Presi dent McKinley's instructions aforesaid, it was both permissible and advisable, to put in force legislation containing the Bill of Rights and other fundamentals of our law, including the right to a writ of Habeas Corpus, so that a man should always enjoy the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, the right to be confronted by and to cross-examine the witnesses against him, to have counsel and a copy of the charges, etc. To meet this need, on April 23, 1900, there was • published what has since been known, continuously down to the present time, as General Orders 58, Office of United States Military Governor, Series of 1900. It was simply a piece of legislation, a code of criminal procedure, drawn princi pally by Maj. R.W. Young, a lawyer- of Salt Lake City, a volunteer officer of the Utah Battery, who before the war had been Chairman of the Utah Code Commission.1 1 Under a misapprehension, the writer has hereto fore stated publicly (in a paper read before the