The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1896-04-24

| own; ana that, upon the other hand, If
the company should not pay taxes and
the lands be sold under judgment APP
pealed from, title to the lands, If the
assessment were valid, would pass to
the purchaser whether they were min
| eral or not. but IL the railroad has pos
sessory claim to these lands they are
taxable under the statutes of Nevada,
and 1t is this, and this only, which the
state has assumed to tax.
The company has an enormous land
grant, embracing every alternate Sec
ton of land within 20 miles on each
side of the road. with the reservation
of mineral lands from the operation of
the act. Can ii possibly have been in
tended that these lands should remain
wholly untaxed, until the mineral
lands. which II may be assumed. repre-
sent but a very small portion of the
total grant, have been identified and
excepted? Clearly not There is no
presumption that the land is mineral
and If II be so and the railroad COM
pany oisclaims title to 1t for that rea-
son. II would probably be a good de-
Tense to sue for taxes. But the posi-
bility that certain lands may turn out
TO be mineral lands surely cannot be a
defense to the claim for taxes appli-
cable to the entire grant. so long as the
railroad company lays claim to the
1t is true that in the Barden case we
held that mineral lands were excluded
from the operation of the Pacific rail-
road land grant, whether such miner
ais were known or unknown at the
date of the grant, because the statutes
had accepted them in most unequivocal
terms, but nothing was said in that
case to impugn the authority of pre-
vious cases which had held that these
grants We're in praesenti of lands to be
afterwards located. They became so
located when they were surveyed. Then
grants attached to them, subject to GER
tain specified exceptions, one of which
was that minerals should be discovered
upon them before the issue of a patent,
when as to such lands the title of the
company failed The possibility, how
ever, that minerals might be discovered
upon certain sections of these lands, as
to which the title of the railroad COM
pany might be defeasible, would not
impair their title to the great bulk of
the grant or enable the company with
respect thereto to evade its Just obli-
cations to the state.
Should the company disclaim the
right to possession of any portion of
these lands by reason of the discovery
OF minerals therein, there would remain
no right to tax them under the stat
utes OF Nevada, but so long as the
company asserts possessory claim to
them II implies a corresponding obliga-
ton to pay taxes upon them. The
company has had possession of these
lands for some 80 years. and has offer
ed them for sale, and sold them as it's
own, and whenever IL has been for it's
advantage to do so, has claimed pos
session of them and dealt with them as
Its private property. To assert all the
rights of ownership in these lands and
at the same time to repudiate all obli-
cations incident to such ownership
consists neither with the terms of the
grant nor the dictates of natural JUS
tice.
The act of congress in providing that
such lands shall not be exempt from
taxation implicitly assents TO their
sale. but also guards it's own right to
them by providing that they shall be
taken by the purchaser subject to a
lien for costs for surveying, to be paid
in such manner as the secretary of the
interior may prove, and also all liens
of the United States, or mortgages of
the United States. and all rights of the
United States in respect to such lands;
and that at any such sale the govern
ment may become the preferred pur-
chaser, and in such case the lands sold
shall be restored to the public domain,
and disposed of as provided by laws re-
lating thereto. The rights of the gov
eminent with respect to such lands are
thus carefully preserved and pro-
tected.
If the company is liable for taxes up
on lands which have been surveyed but
the cost of which survey has not been
paid, a certiorari. IL is liable. If the
cost has been paid.
The decree of the court below is.
therefore. in both cases. affirmed.