Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1873.djvu/46

726 to be consummated until three months from and after the date of filing the township plat of survey in the district office shall have expired. Said period of three months is given pre-emptors who settle prior to the filing of the township plat, by statute, in which to file their declaratory statements.

The seventh section of the act of July 23, 1868 "An act to quiet landtitles in California," has received new and more liberal construction by the Department proper. Said section provides—

That where persons in good faith and for a valuable consideration have purchased lands of Mexican grantees or assigns, which grants have subsequently been rejected, or where the lands so purchased have been excluded from the final survey of any Mexican grant, and have used, improved and continued in the actual possession of the same as according to the lines of the original purchase, and where no valid adverse right or title (except of the United States) exists, such purchasers may purchase the same, after having such lands surveyed under existing laws, at the minimum price establish by law, &c

In case of Sanford E. Wilson's application to purchase certain lands under said section, the Hon. Secretary of the Interior decided in substance—following the doctrine laid down by the Supreme Court of the United States in case of Myers vs. Croft, (113 Wallace, 291)—that the right of purchase secured thereby is alienable and descends to the heirs upon the death of the purchaser: Prior to said decision the contrary doctrine prevailed.

In case of L. H. Buscom vs. Moses Davis, in which Davis is a claimant under said seventh section, the Hon. Secretary of the Interior decides, in substance, that when parties bring themselves in other respects within the law, but fail to show use, improvement, and possession of all the land as according to the lines of their original purchase they may purchase from the Government such portion of their original purchase as they have had in actual possession. These decisions constitute the precedents on which similar cases will hereafter be adjudicated.

Pursuant to my former recommendations, a bill for the repeal of the preemption laws received favorable action from both Houses of Congress of the last session, but at so late n date in the House of Representatives that the Senate was unable to act upon some slight amendments by the House, and it therefore foiled to become a law.

The many frauds which occur under the preemption laws, almost universally in the interest of speculators; the fact that most liberal terms are provided under the homestead laws for such as desire to obtain title to the public lands in good faith for purposes of actual settlement and cultivation; that actual inhabitancy and improvement are worth more to the country than the excess of revenue derived from the sole to preemptors; that the policy of the Government is that these lands should be occupied, improved, and made to augment the productions of the country, and that under the pre-emption laws this object is substantially defeated, impel me, in view of the magnitude of the interests involved, to again urge the repeal of the several pre-emption acts, so that those who wish to obtain title to the public lands us actual settlers may be required to do so under the homestead laws.

The following act, entitled "An act for the relief of settlers on the into Sioux Indian reservation in the State of Minnesota," was approved February 24, 1873:

Be it enacted &c., That all actual settlers who have duly filed their declaratory statements under the pre-emption laws with the register of the proper local land-office