The lack of clear and exact laws for properly authenticating the documents regarding the ownership of the lands of the Indians, and the uncertain and unlimited possession which the villages have of lands under the pretext, of their being communal, have been and always will be in Filipinas the origin of a multitude of ruinous lawsuits and contentions--sometimes those of Indians and villages among themselves, sometimes between these and the Spanish and mestizo proprietors. The Indians, as a rule, have no title of ownership in the lands which they possess, and if any one has such it is a private document, signed by other Indians--who with the greatest readiness deny, change, and forge their signatures--or it will be simply a writing signed by the alcalde-mayor, a copy of which, if it remains in the court, will disappear or be mutilated, with equal readiness, by the Indian clerks of the alcalde, in whose charge the archives are--if indeed these are not entirely destroyed in the frequent fires which occur in the villages. The most common method which the Indians of the villages have for proving their territorial property is by tradition, and the depositions of witnesses; and with that powerful weapon they undertake and maintain the most contentious lawsuits, aided by the fiscals of the Audiencia--who often forget that their office of defenders of the Indians is bona fide, and for the sake and protection of the natives in the tribunals to which the laws commend them. But any person who may have exercised the duties of magistrate for any time in Filipinas will know that in the decisions of judges there is nothing more discredited than the evidence presented by Indian and mestizo witnesses, who are not restrained from perjury by either an intimate acquaintance with the obligations of religion or by sentiments of conscience, honor, and reputation. It is very common to see, in court cases, that witnesses of that sort will swear, and then contradict their own testimony, according as the witnesses [are affected by] either their own interests or the influence of the litigant who presents them. These causes, besides rendering the lawsuits of this kind eternal, have very frequently produced scandalous disobedience of the villagers to the enactments of the Audiencia of the islands, and uprisings of armed men in order to prevent effectually even the judicial possession of the crown lands which had been sold, with all the formalities of the laws, by the government there; and, finally, they withhold the Spanish families and persons of wealth from purchasing rural establishments in order to undertake on a large scale the cultivation of the products of the country, which is perhaps the only means of promoting the agriculture of the islands.