answer to your question depends upon an examinathe navigation laws.

ion 4311, title, "Regulation of Commerce and Navi" of the Revised Statutes of the United States, es that vessels enrolled in pursuance of such title others "shall be deemed vessels of the United States I to the privileges of vessels employed in the coastingr fisheries."

on 4312, Revised Statutes, provides that "in order enrollment of any vessel, she shall possess the same cations, and the same requirements in all respects e complied with, as are required before registering 1."

on 4132, Revised Statutes, provides that certain "belonging wholly to citizens," or, "being wholly by citizens, and no others, may be registered as 1 in this title."

on 4131 provides that vessels registered or enrolled it to law, and no others, "shall be deemed vessels United States, and entitled to the benefits and privpertaining to such vessels; but no such vessel shall uch benefits and privileges longer than it shall e to be wholly owned by a citizen or citizens of the States or a corporation created under the laws of any 'ates thereof *

* * ""

inderscored portion of this section was added by of May 28, 1896 (29 Stat. 188).

y the policy of the law is that no vessel is a vessel nited States for purposes of registry or enrollment belongs to citizens of the United States.

her a corporation is such a citizen depends upon tion of the legislature, to be found in the statutes

́es.

riginal navigation act of September 1, 1789 (1

provided for the registry of vessels in the foreign nd their enrollment in the coasting trade or fish'n December 31, 1792 (ib. 287), was passed a new elating solely to the registering of ships in the for→; and the later act of February 18, 1793 (ib. 305), the enrollment of vessels in the coasting trade.

The foregoing sections of the Revised Statutes are taken largely from these statutes. None of them refers to the registry of vessels owned by corporations.

The act of March 3, 1825 (4 Stat. 129), provided that enrollments and registers for steamboats or vessels, owned by any incorporated company, may be issued in the name of the president or secretary of such company; and that such enrollments and registers shall not be vacated or affected by a sale of any share or shares of any stockholder, or stockholders in such company (secs. 1 and 2); that upon the death, removal, or resignation of such president or secretary, a new register or enrollment shall be taken out (sec. 3); that previously to the obtaining of such enrollment or register, the president or secretary shall swear as to the ownership of the vessel by such company, without designating the names of the persons composing the company (sec. 4); and (sec. 5) that such oath shall contain a statement that "no part of such steamboat or vessel has been, or is then, owned by any foreigner or foreigners."

The first four sections of this act have become sections 4314 and 4315 Revised Statutes, relating to enrollments and sections 4137, 4138, and 4139 Revised Statutes, relating to registers, while the fifth section was repealed by act of June 11, 1858 (11 Stat. 313).

Upon a consideration of the several statutes, I am of opinion that in the act of 1825 Congress declared a corporation of the United States a "citizen' thereof within the meaning of the navigation laws. Therefore, a vessel belonging to a domestic corporation is owned by a citizen of the United States, even though some of the stock in that corporation belongs to aliens; alien stockholders have neither the legal nor equitable ownership of any part of the vessel. As said by the Supreme Court of the United States in Humphreys v. Mc Kissock (140 U. S. 304, 312):

seem

"Both the commissioner and the court * * * to have confounded the ownership of stock in a corporation with ownership of its property. But nothing is more distinct than the two rights; the ownership of one confers no ownership of the other. The corporation— the artificial being created-holds the property, and alone can mortgage or transfer it."

** *

In its later enactments upon the subject Congress clearly indicates the same view.

Section 1 of the act to encourage American shipbuilding, of May 10, 1892 (27 Stat. 27), authorized the issue of registers to certain foreign-built vessels, of which not less than 90 per cent of the shares of the capital of the foreign corporation owning the same was owned by citizens of the United States, "including as such citizens corporations created under the laws of any of the States thereof," upon the American owners of such majority interest obtaining full and complete title and transfer to such steamships from the foreign corporations owning the same.

And in the act of May 28, 1896, amending section 4131, supra, Congress uses the expression "a corporation created under the laws of any of the States" as synonymous with "citizen of the United States."

Section 4142, Revised Statutes, is not inconsistent with this view. That section requires the taking of an oath, in order to the registry of any vessel, "that there is no subject or citizen of any foreign prince or state, directly or indirectly, by way of trust, confidence, or otherwise, interested in such vessel, or in the profits or issues thereof." As this provision first appears in section 4 of the act of December 31, 1792, it would seem to be required only in the oath of an American owner residing abroad. However, the courts early construed the law as requiring this statement in all oaths (Scudder v. Calais Steamboat Co., 21 Federal Cases No. 12566, per Curtis, circuit justice), and I believe that such is the present practice. Assuming, especially in view of a slight change in the language of this section as carried forward into section 4142 in the revision of the laws, that this construction is correct, the interest meant is clearly an interest by way of ownership, and as before stated the owner of stock in a corporation has no such interest in its property.

A similar question was raised in United States v. Delaware and Hudson Co., 213 U. S. 366, where the Supreme Court construed the so-called commodities clause of the Hepburn Act of June 29, 1906. That clause provided that it should be unlawful for any railroad company to transport in interstate or foreign commerce any commodity

owned by it in whole or in part "or in which it may have any interest, direct or indirect." The United States filed a bill to restrain, among other things, some of the carriers from transporting coal belonging to a corporation some of the stock of which was owned by the carrier. The Supreme Court, applying the foregoing reasoning, held (413, 414) that the carrier had no interest, direct or indirect, in the property of the corporation whose stock it owned. This construction of substantially the same language seems controlling here.

In a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury of April 16, 1884, Attorney General Brewster expressed the same opinion. (See Treasury Decisions for 1884, p. 187, No. 6316.)

Mr. Brewster referred with approval to the English case of Queen v. Arnaud (9 Adolphus and Ellis, N. S. 806), decided in 1846, where the Court of Queen's Bench construed similar British statutes in the same way. There Lord Chief Justice Denman said:

"It is said that some of the members of the corporation are not British subjects, but foreigners, and, consequently, that the vessel does not wholly belong to Her Majesty's subjects, as required by the fifth section of the act, and is within the prohibition, contained in the twelfth section of the act, against foreigners being entitled to be owners, in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, of any vessel requiring to be registered.

"Now, it appears to us that the British corporation is, as such, the sole owner of the ship, and a British subject within the meaning of the fifth section, as far as such a term can be applicable to a corporation, notwithstanding some foreigners may individually have shares in the company, and that such individual members of the corporation are not entitled, in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, to be owners of the vessel.

"The individual members of the corporation, no doubt, are interested, in one sense, in the property of the corporation, as they may derive individual benefit from its increase, or loss from its destruction; but in no legal sense are the individual members the owners. If all the individuals of the