In  this case, which appears to be in the nature of a test case,  there is no contention as to the facts, which are definitely and comprehensively stipulated, and  the only question submitted for our consideration is whether, under the facts  thus stipulated,  defendant and  appellee,  who is  a Chinese person, apprehended  under the provisions  of Act No. 702, is a "merchant" and was a "merchant" during the period of registration prescribed  in that Act, as that term is defined therein.

Sectiqn 12 of Act No. 702 of the Philippine Commission provides that:

"The term 'merchant' as employed in this Act signifies a person  engaged in buying and selling merchandise at  a fixed  place of business,  which business is conducted in his name, and who during the time  he claims  to be engaged as a merchant does not engage in the performance  of any manual labor except such as is necessary in  the conduct of his business as such merchant.  The definition of 'laborer' and 'merchant' set out in this section shall receive the same construction as that given to it by the Federal courts of the United States and the rulings  and  regulations  of the Treasury Department of the United States."

This definition is taken bodily from the provisions of the Chinese-exclusion laws  enacted  by Congress which were extended to the island territory of the United States;  and the Philippine Commission, upon which was imposed the duty of enforcing the laws thus extended to these Islands, properly refrained from any attempt to modify or to  change the requisites of the definition laid down by Congress, and took  care  to  provide  that  the  terms  "merchant" and "laborer" as used in the Act should have the same meaning as that given to them by the Federal courts of the United States,  thus eliminating any possibility that, influenced by local law, the meaning given these terms should in any wise affect the uniformity of application and administration of the Chinese-exclusion laws in the  United States and the Philippines.

The facts as stipulated by counsel are as  follows:

1. Tan Sam Tao, the defendant,  is a Chinaman, 38 years of age, who has been in the Philippines for the past twenty-four years.
   
   
2. On June 15,  1909, an  officer  of  the Manila  customhouse demanded of the said Tan Sam Tao that  he  exhibit his certificate as a Chinese resident in the Philippines, and the said. Tan Sam Tao declined and refused to  exhibit it, and in consequence thereof was arrested by the said officer and brought before this court, where the complaint in this case was filed against him requesting the deportation of the said Tan Sam Tao  from these Islands.
   
   
3. The said Tan Sam Tao  justifies his sojourn  in the Philippines by alleging that he is a merchant, as  defined by the Act of Congress for the  exclusion of Chinese from the territory of the United States, which claim  is disputed by the officers charged  with administration of  the  provisions of the said Act in the Philippines.
   
   
4. The said Tan  Sam Tao is at the present time, and has been for more than ten years, a member of a firm  having a fixed  place of business,  to wit, No. 27  calle Nueva, Binondo, Manila.
   
   
5. The said Tan Sam Tao is interested  to the extent of P11,100  of the  capital  of P40,900 invested  in the  said business among the six members, in the following manner:

Tan Sam   Tao..........................................................................	P11,100
Tan   Sara   Chian.......................................................................	9,500
Tan Se   Ken...........................................................................	6,600
Tan Bu   Ay.............................................................................	4,500
Ching Suy   Hong.....................................................................	5,200
Tan Sam   Juan.......................................................................	4,000

6.  The said Tan Sam Tao can prove these facts by two competent witnesses who do not belong to the Chinese race.
   
   
7. Proof of the existence of the said firm, composed of the six members aforesaid, appears  in the articles of incorporation, wherein  it is set forth that the defendant is the owner of his  share in his own name, and the same facts are to be found in the books of the firm.
   
   
8. The said business consists of the purchase and sale to the public,  by wholesale and retail, of textiles, under the firm name of "Jap Jin," sometimes called  "Jap Jin & Co.," which, translated into English, means "United for prosperity."
   
   
9. The  said Tan Sam  Tao does not do  nor has he done other manual labor than what is or was necessary in the said business to which he devotes himself exclusively.
   
   
10. Neither the said Tan Sam Tao  nor  his firm are registered in the  Mercantile Register, nor in the Bureau of Internal  Revenue, but the  license for the said  business, issued by the Collector of Internal Revenue, is in the name of one of the other members of the said firm.
    
    
11. The  said business is  established and carried  on in accordance  with the  Chinese customs, the articles of incorporation being drawn up and the  bookkeeping done in the Chinese language.

From the facts thus stipulated, there can  be no  doubt that appellee is in fact a merchant, but the  question submitted is whether from these facts he can be said to have conducted his business in his own name, so as to bring him under the definition of the term "merchant" as above set out.

This precise question was submitted and  decided upon an  agreed  statement  of facts  substantially similar to the stipulation of  facts above set out,  by  the  Circuit  Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Lee Kan vs. U. S., 10 C. C. A., 669; 15 U. S. App., 516;  62 Fed., 914) in an opinion delivered by Mr. Justice McKenna, then circuit judge, which was cited with approval by the  Supreme Court of  the United States in the cases of Tom Hong, Tom  Dock and Lee Kit vs. U. S. (193 U. S., 517, 518), and  in which, as observed by Justice Day in the latter cases,  "the subject was so fully  considered as to leave little to  be  added to the discussion."

From this opinion  we quote at length:

"To ascertain the  meaning of Congress, the purpose of the Act as well as the language must be considered.  The provisions of section 2, supra, are amendments to the Act of May 5, 1892, commonly called the 'Geary Act,' and they and the Act they amend are but steps in legislation to regulate and restrict the coming of Chinese laborers into the United States, and all provisions in regard to other classes are but means to that end.  In interpreting' that legislation, this purpose has been steadily regarded, as by well-known canons of interpretation  it must have been regarded, and the general language of the Acts confined to executing this purpose.   (In re Low Yam Chow, 13 Fed., 605.)   The sanction  of these Acts is the treaty of November,  1880, modifying that of 1868, except the Scott law, which, to its extent, abrogated the treaty; but this also was no exception to  the purpose of the legislation, to wit,  the exclusion  of laborers.  Besides, it was expressed in terms so irresistibly clear as  to  leave  interpretation  no  function.  The  first article of the treaty of November,  1880, provides that 'the Government  of  the United States  may  regulate,  limit,  or suspend the coming or residence of Chinese laborers to the United States, but may not absolutely prohibit it;' but the treaty also provides 'that  the limitation or suspension shall be  reasonable, and shall  apply  only to  Chinese  who  may go  to the  United States  as laborers, other classes not being included  in the limitation.'   Furthermore, in the second article it  is declared  that 'Chinese subjects, whether  proceeding to the United  States as teachers, students, merchants, or from curiosity, together with their body or house-hold servants, and Chinese laborers who  are  now in the United States, shall be allowed to go and come of their own free will and  accord,  and shall be accorded all the rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions which are accorded to the citizens and  objects of the most favored  nations.' The first Act after this treaty was that of May 6, 1882.  It prohibited the coming  of Chinese laborers for ten years, and contained provisions to secure the prohibition.   Among others, it provided, in section 6, that the identity of 'every Chinese person  other than  a laborer should be evidenced by a certificate  issued under the authority of the Chinese Government.'   This Act came up for consideration  before Justice Field, in the case of In re Low Yam Chow, supra, and he held that the 'section was  evidently designed  to facilitate proof by Chinese, other than laborers coming from China, and  desiring to enter  the United States.   *  *  * It is not required as a  means  of restricting  their coming. To hold that such was its object would be to impute to Congress a purpose to disregard  the stipulation  of the second article of the new treaty that they should be allowed to go and come of their own  free will and accord.'  The learned justice also  says:

" 'And we will not assume, in the absence of plain language to the contrary, that Congress intended to disregard the obligation of the original treaty of 1868, which remains in full force except as modified by the supplementary treaty of 1880.'

"This case and its language were approved by the United States Supreme  Court in Lau Ow Bew vs. U. S. (144 U. S., 59, 12 Sup.  Ct.,  517), and other cases were there  collected and commented  on which sustain its  principle.  There  is nothing in  the  Geary and the McCreary  Acts which excludes  them from the  doctrine of these cases, or in any way includes merchants in  the limitations or prohibitions on immigration.  That we  are right in this case is sustained by the explanation made by Mr. Geary in the House of Representatives when the McCreary bill was under consideration.  The provisions of section 2, supra,  were not contained in the bill reported by the  Committee on Foreign Affairs.   They were moved as amendments by Mr. Geary, and in explanation of them he said:

" 'There is one other definition that we think necessary. The treaty permits "merchants" to come into this country. We have no desire to restrict the movements of the mercantile class; but the trouble has been that men pretending to be merchants have asked  for admission  at New  York and  other  places, have  sworn  that  they  had interest in stores established in those communities, have been admitted as merchants,  and immediately developed  into full-fledged laborers.  We  merely ask  for a definition of the  word "merchant" which shall  be  broad enough to protect every man  legitimately  engaged  in  that industry, and narrow enough to prevent the designation being used as an instrument of  fraud by a class  that we  do not desire.  This amendment  requires every Chinaman asking to  be admitted  into the United  States, and  who  claims  to  have formerly resided here, to prove that for at least one  year, at some fixed place of business within  the Union, he was engaged in buying and  selling merchandise. We  do not demand that he shall have  a dollar's  worth of stock, or a thousand dollars'  worth; we  simply  follow  the language of the  treaty,  and  demand this  protection  to our own people.'

"How efficient the amendment is for the purposes declared by Mr. Geary we shall hereafter  show. It is incontestable that it was not directed at merchants  any more than prior legislation was, or that it was  not intended to regulate their methods of business, except so far as necessary to prevent evasions of the Act.   It was directed  at laborers - to prevent  them  from assuming a false  character.   To construe it otherwise is to make merchants its primary objects and subject them to a  discrimination and inconvenience within  the country to which no other merchants are subjected.  It would not only forbid them to do business as it is their custom to do, but to do business as it  is the custom of all commercial people to do. It is  stipulated in this case that the designation of the firm of which petitioner is a member was  selected in  accordance with a custom which has prevailed  from time immemorial among the Chinese, and expresses a propitious  omen, and means, when  literally rendered in English, 'everlasting,'  'great,' 'bountiful.'   But, as stated by counsel, the custom is not exclusive with  Chinese.  It prevails  with  other  people, and the Bon Marche of Paris, and the Golden Rule Bazaar of this city were cited, among others, as examples.   These designate, as the name Wing Tai Lung designates, a house rather than a firm, and expresses the  sentiment and principle which shall govern its dealings.  It might be better if the  practice were more general.  The construction contended for by the Government would  not  only forbid the Chinese  this practice,  but forbid them,  as we have said, the common practice of this country, and of all commercial countries.  The designations of very few  business houses contain the names of all of the partners.   One or two are usually named,  and the others are not named,  but only their  existence  indicated  by the addition  'and company.' We can  not believe that Congress  intended to forbid to Chinese  merchants, not only their own  customs,  but the custom of merchants wherever trading is  practiced.  But we construe section 2  to  mean  that  the  interest  of the merchant must  be  real, and appear in  the business and partnership articles in his own  name, and not that his name  must appear in the firm designation.  And this reaches the evil which existed.   It was not complained that the firm designation was a cover to deception.  According to the stipulation, it could not be in many cases.  It contained no name to claim.   It was complained that  an interest was claimed which stood in a name other than the claimant's, and that the ownership was established  by Chinese testimony.  Section  2 prevented this, and  required name and ownership  to go together, and to be established  by the testimony of credible witnesses other than Chinese.  This view is  confirmed  by considerations  drawn from other sections of the Act. The definition of 'merchant' is general.  The provision of section  2  is:

"'The  term merchant employed herein and in the Acts of which this Act is  amendatory shall  have the following meaning, and none other.'

"The definition is  then  given  as hereinbefore stated. Section 6  requires all  Chinese laborers to register, the penalty of refusal being deportation from the country.  All who are not merchants  within the requirements of the definition (excluding, of  course,  certain  privileged classes) are laborers;  hence the definition applies not only to the merchant  who claims to  enter the United  States, having formerly been here, but to him who stayed and while he stays.

"The interpretation of  the Government makes the law forbid him to stay as a merchant and do business as he formerly did, and to what  end?   That he may be deported? No one desires it.  That he may be compelled to register as a laborer?   A useless compulsion.  And, to accomplish an undesired  or useless  result, we are asked to attribute to Congress an  intention to  change the business methods of many  people,  and to  compel them to adopt inconvenient and, maybe, impracticable ones.  Chief Justice Fuller, delivering the opinion of the court in Lau Ow Bew vs. U. S., supra, said:

"'Nothing  is better  settled  than  that  statutes should receive a sensible construction, such as will effectuate the legislative  intention,  and, if possible,  so as to  avoid an unjust or  an  absurd  conclusion.'

"And the  learned  Chief  Justice cites  Church  of  Holy Trinity vs. U. S. (143 U.  S., 457, 12  Sup. Ct, 511) ;  Henderson vs. Mayor (92  U. S., 259) ; U. S.  vs. Kirby (7 Wall., 482);  Oates  vs. Bank  (100 U. S., 239).  This is a wise canon  of construction.  By it language general  enough to include other things is confined to the purpose of the lawmakers, securing it and  avoiding confusion and disappointment, and often absurdity.  Illustrating this canon, Justice Field, in the case of Ah Tie (13 Fed., 294), said:

"'So the judges of England construed the  law which enacted that  a prisoner breaking prison should be deemed guilty of felony, holding that it did not apply to one breaking  out  when the prison was on fire, observing that the prisoner was "not to be hanged because he would not stay to be burnt."  And, in illustration  of this doctrine, the construction given to the Bolognian law against drawing blood in the street is often cited.  That law enacted that whoever thus  drew  blood  should be  punished with the utmost severity, but the courts held that it did not extend to the surgeon who  opened the vein of a person  falling down in  the streets in a fit.'

"And the learned justice, In re Low Yam Chow, supra, gave two additional  illustrations  taken from decisions of the Supreme Court:

"'A law of Congress declares  that whoever  willfully obstructs or retards the carrier of the mails of the  United States shall be deemed guilty  of  a  public offense, and be punished by a  fine.   A mail carrier  in Kentucky was arrested by the sheriff upon a charge of murder, and for the arrest the  sheriff was indicted.  The Supreme  Court held that the  general language of the Act of Congress was not to be construed to extend to the case;  for it could not be supposed that Congress intended to interfere with the enforcement  of the criminal laws of the  State in its legislation  to prevent unnecessary obstruction in the carriage of the mails.  It would have been absurd to hold that, in order to secure the speedy transportation of the mails, immunity from punishment for  a crime was given to the mail carrier. (U.  S. vs. Kirby,  7  Wall.,  482.)   So the Act of Congress for the recovery of the proceeds of captured and abandoned property during the late war required the claimant in the Court of Claims to prove that he had  never given  aid or comfort to the  rebellion; yet the Supreme Court held that one who  had been pardoned by the President was relieved from this requirement.  The general language of the Act covered his case,  but, as the pardon in legal effect blotted out the guilt of the  offender - that  is, closed the eyes  of the court so that it could not  be considered as an element in the determination of his case - the  pardon was deemed to take the place of the proof, and relieved  him from the necessity of establishing his loyalty.  "It is not to be supposed," said the Supreme Court, "that Congress intended by the language of the Act to encroach  upon any of the prerogatives of the President, and especially that benign prerogative of mercy which lies  in the  pardoning power. It is more reasonable to conclude that claimants restored to their rights of property by the pardon of  the President were not in contemplation of Congress in passing the Act, and were not intended to be embraced by  the requirement in question.  All general terms in statutes should be limited in  their  application  so  as  not to  lead  to injustice, oppression, or any unconstitutional  operation, if that be possible.   It will be presumed that exceptions were intended which would avoid results of that nature."   Carlisle vs. U. S., 16 Wall., 153.)'

"And the learned justice said, virtually, that these cases would have justified him  in  restricting  section 6 of  the Act of 1882 to merchants  coming from China, even if the general term used in the section were  susceptible of a larger meaning.   Undoubtedly, if the purpose of the Act had been a limitation on the immigration of merchants, as it was of laborers, its language would have applied to their coming from everywhere.  There  can be no temptation, in order to secure the exclusion of Chinese  laborers,  to  give a  strained construction to section 2.   As we construe  it, it is entirely sufficient, and completely fulfills the objects of the legislation.  It does not disturb real merchants  in the privileges guaranteed  by the treaty,  and it prevents false  ones from  claiming  them.  It makes the definition of the word  'merchant' that which Mr. Geary aptly  said it was  intended  to be - 'broad enough to protect every man legitimately  engaged in  that industry,  and narrow enough  to prevent the  designation being used as an  instrument of fraud by a class that we do not desire.'   The burden of proof is on the person seeking to land, and the character of the facts which he must prove, the time which they must have existed, and the witnesses by whom proved, together with the possibilities of counter proof inevitably suggested, make deception impossible,  except under a  very negligent administration of the law.   A place in the  firm name would not prevent this, nor is it to be apprehended."

The reasoning and authority of the foregoing decision, accepted and approved by the Supreme Court of the United States, is clearly decisive of the  issue  involved in this appeal, and renders further discussion wholly superfluous.

It is proper, nevertheless, to direct attention to the decisions of this court in the cases of the U.  S. vs. Sy Quiat (12 Phil. Rep., 676) and U. S. vs. Lim Co  (12 Phil. Rep., 703), in each of which we held the defendant not to be a "merchant" as that term is  employed in the Act under consideration, the  evidence not sustaining the claim of the defendant that he owned an  interest in  a certain store as alleged by him, or that his name was included in  any partnership agreement touching the ownership of that store, and  it affirmatively appearing that the store  in question was  conducted in the individual name  of a Chinese person other than the defendant.  Upon  the facts thus found these decisions were clearly correct, and are in nowise in  conflict  with the reasoning of the decision in  the  case of Lee Kan vs.  U. S., above cited and adopted as  its own by  this court.

In support of our ruling in  those cases, we cited a number of decisions of the Federal courts, and among others we quoted at length from the  case U. S. vs. Quan Gin   (61 Fed. Rep., 395), which  goes much farther than was necessary for the purposes of our decisions  in the former cases; and  is in direct conflict with the later decisions  of  the Supreme Court  of the United States  above  cited,  in so far as it holds  that the mere fact that  the  name of a Chinese  person  is not  included in the firm name of  the business in which he claims to be a  partner is sufficient ground to  sustain a holding that the  business is not conducted "in his own  name," as that phrase is used in the statute defining the  word "merchant."

The rule laid down in the Quan Gin case  (supra) was not necessarily drawn in question  by the  facts proven in the Sy Quiat and Lim Co cases, and the only proper bearing of the Quan Gin case on those cases was to show, when taken  together  with the other Federal cases cited, that the Federal courts  have uniformly held that proof that one is a "merchant" as that term  is used1 in the Chinese-exclusion Acts is incomplete without proof that the alleged merchant conducts his business under his own name.  The quotation from that case, however, setting out as it does the objectionable rule, doubtless was calculated to mislead those interested, and  we are  glad to avail  ourselves  of this opportunity to correct  any mistaken inference which may have  been  drawn  from the fact that this quotation appears  in  the  body of the opinion,  without an express disavowal of the rule.   The rule itself not being necessary to the decisions in  the Sy  Quiat  and Lim Co  cases was not given  the consideration which it would  have had if it had been necessary for the purpose of those cases  to adopt or reject it, and, indeed, the attention of the court and of the writer of the opinions  in  those  cases, who is also the writer of this opinion, was not directed to the Lee Kan case (supra) and the case in the Supreme Court  of the United  States adopting the reasoning of that case  (193 U. S., 517, 518), at  the time when the Sy Quiat and Lim Co cases were submitted.

The judgment of the court  below discharging the defendant from custody should be affirmed and the bail bond exonerated  with the costs of this instance against the appellant.  So ordered.

Arellano,  C. J., Torres, Mapa, Johnson, and  Moreland, JJ., concur.