within the ordinary meaning of those words in statutes of the United States. It is therefore clear that Revised Statute 398 and Revised Statute 4028, supra, do not have reference to postal arrangements between the Postmaster General and the postal authorities of the Philippine Islands. Presumably such postal intercourse must be regulated as is the domestic postal service, at any rate to the extent of conforming therein to any specific provisions of law regulating such domestic service.

Your second question concerns your right to make postal or money-order conventions with foreign Governments. which shall cover the mail and money-order service between the Philippine Islands and such foreign Govern

ments.

It appears that the Secretary of War has ruled that the Philippine government has the jurisdiction to conclude conventions with foreign Governments as to postal matters, as well as to money orders, when they relate to the Philippine Islands solely, this power being incidental to its control, by virtue of the organic act of July 1, 1902, of its own domestic postal service.

The determination of this question is not free from difficulty. The power of the Postmaster General to enter into conventions relating to postal service or money orders with foreign countries, whether involving the Philippine Islands or not, must be derived from sections 398 and 4028 Revised Statutes, supra. In 19 Op. 513, Solicitor General Taft, with the approval of Attorney General Miller, held that these sections did not involve the treatymaking power, but, by long usage, had been placed outside it. He said (p. 520):

"From the foundation of the Government to the present day, then, the Constitution has been interpreted to mean that the power vested in the President to make treaties, with the concurrence of two-thirds of the Senate, does not exclude the right of Congress to vest in the Postmaster General power to conclude conventions with foreign Governments for the cheaper, safer, and more convenient carriage of foreign mails. The existence of such

a power in Congress may, perhaps, be worked out from the authority given to that body in the seventh clause of section 8, of Article I, of the Constitution, to establish post offices and post roads. This has always been construed to mean power to organize and carry on the Post Office Department. Foreign mail is so closely connected with a proper system of inland mail as that the power to organize and carry on a general post-office system would seem to imply a power to organize, in connection therewith, a system of foreign mails, and, in the maintenance of such a system, a power to conclude contracts with the post-office departments of other countries."

I believe this view, that the right to conclude conventions with foreign countries as to mails and money-order exchanges is incidental to the power to establish post offices and post roads, to be sound. No doubt the same ends could be constitutionally accomplished by the exercise of the treaty-making power, but, as that power has only once been employed for that purpose (19 Op. 517, 518), and as the general usage, illustrated by sections 398 and 4028, Revised Statutes, supra, has been to proceed under enactments of Congress founded on its authority to establish post offices and post roads, your second question resolves itself to the inquiry, Where has Congress, if that body has acted at all on the subject, deposited the power to conclude conventions affecting the postal intercourse of the Philippine Islands with foreign countries? In my opinion, if sections 398 and 4028, Revised Statutes, supra, stood alone, they would be sufficient to place the negotiations of such conventions or arrangements within the jurisdiction of the Postmaster General. The subject matter of section 398 is the conveyance of mails "between the United States and foreign countries." Since the allusion here is evidently to the United States as a physical body to and from which mails may be conveyed, the term "United States" in the section must refer, not to the United States as a body politic or to the various States composing that body politic, but to all the country of any kind under the jurisdiction of the United States, whether

it be within the boundaries of a State or of a Territory or of one of the possessions. The term, therefore, would include the Philippine Islands, though not a possession of the United States at the time Revised Statute 398 was passed. (De Lima v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 1.) This same construction must be given to Revised Statute 4028, since this section evidently refers to the same subject matter as Revised Statute 398.

In order, however, to determine whether the above sections are applicable to conventions regulating postal intercourse between the Philippine Islands and foreign countries, it is necessary to examine the legislation of Congress in regard to those islands, because, if the power to conclude postal conventions with foreign countries is in Congress, Congress can, in the exercise of its plenary sovereignty over the Philippine Islands, delegate that power to the Philippine government, just as it has delegated to that government the power to coin money. (Ling Su Fan v. United States, 218 U. S. 302; United States v. Heinszen & Co., 206 U. S. 370.) By the instructions of the President of April 7, 1900, legislative power over the Philippine Islands was transferred to a commission, subject to the approval of the President, through the Secretary of War, the executive power being left with the military governor. By order of the President, through the Secretary of War, of June 21, 1901, the executive power was transferred to a civil governor, and this action of the President had congressional sanction in the Spooner amendment of March 2, 1901 (31 Stat. 895, 910.) No doubt postal service existed in the Philippines prior to the military occupation and was continued by the military authorities. At any rate, the commission, which began its work on September 1, 1900, on October 15, 1900, by act No. 23 made an appropriation for the director of posts, including the expense of outgoing foreign mail. By act No. 102, of March 9, 1901, the salaries of the director general of posts and of the employees were fixed, and by section 4 of the act No. 181, of July 25, 1901, the director general is given power to establish post offices. By act No. 222, of Septem

ber 6, 1901, after reciting that the President, through the Secretary of War, has directed the establishment of four departments, one of which is the department of commerce and police, it is provided that the department of commerce and police shall have under its executive control, inter alia," the bureau of post offices." The above establishment by the President of legislative and executive government in the islands, and the action of the commission in establishing a bureau of post offices under the control of the department of commerce and police, was ratified by Congress in section 1 of the organic act of July 1, 1902, and the continuance of the legislative and executive government, as above described, provided for, subject to the change in the legislative power to occur by the coming into existence of the legislative assembly and subject to the reserved power of Congress to annul legislative acts. By section 87 of the same act the Bureau of Insular Affairs of the War Department was created to exercise, under the authority of the Secretary of War, the jurisdiction of the War Department over the islands. It thus appears that Congress, acting by virtue of its full sovereignty over the islands, has granted legislative power therein to the commission, to be succeeded by a legislative assembly as to certain portions, and executive power to a civil governor, responsible to the Secretary of War, acting through the Bureau of Insular Affairs.

On October 26, 1905, by section 15 of the reorganization act, No. 1407, the commission provided that

"The bureau of posts shall have exclusive jurisdiction and control of all mail and postal business within the maritime jurisdiction of the Philippine Islands."

The commission has also provided for the carriage of mails between the islands by coast-guard or Government vessels, but, so far as I am aware, no act has been passed purporting to regulate, or granting power to others to regulate, postal intercourse between the Philippines and foreign countries.

It thus appears that the Philippine postal administration is a wholly autonomous system, independent of the

administration's control. The delegation to the Philippine government, subject to the control of the Secretary of War, of executive control over post offices and post roads within the Philippine Islands, resulting from the various acts above referred to, carried with it the grant of all incidental powers necessary to make such delegation effective. The case Ling Su Fan v. United States, supra, is very significant in this connection. Congress, by the organic act of July 1, 1902, section 76 et seq., and by sections 2 and 6 of the act of March 2, 1903, chapter 980, granted to the Philippine Islands authority to coin money, to fix a standard of value, to coin silver pesos, and to adopt such measures as might seem proper to maintain the parity between the gold and silver coins. This was held to justify a law of the commission prohibiting the export of silver coin and bullion. The court said (218 U. S. 310):

"The power to 'coin money and regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin,' is a prerogative of sovereignty and a power exclusively vested in the Congress of the United States. The power which the government of the Philippine Islands has in respect to a local coinage is derived from the express act of Congress."

And further (p. 311):

(* * * There can be no serious doubt but that the power to coin money includes the power to prevent its outflow from the country of its origin."

So the grant by Congress to the Philippine government of the power to establish post offices and post roads in the islands carried with it as an incident to its exercise the authority to enter into agreements with other countries concerning foreign mail. For, as Solicitor General Taft in the above-quoted opinion said:

"Foreign mail is so closely connected with a proper system of inland mail as that the power to organize and carry on a general post-office system would seem to imply a power to organize, in connection therewith, a system of foreign mails, and, in the maintenance of such a system, a 89760°- VOL 29-13- -25