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Show 148 THE PUEBLO WATER RIGHT and acknowledged that claimed right, the latter could not now assert a claim of right adverse to that of the city.10 The conclusions of the California Supreme Court as to pueblo water rights expressed in Lux v. Haggin, whether right or wrong, were accepted by that court in the following decade in again adjudicating the Los Angeles pueblo right, after perusing translations of Spanish and Mexican laws, regulations, ordinances, and rules pertaining to the subject.11 A few years later these conclusions were not only reiterated, but were so enlarged as to declare that the pueblo right was capable of expanding with the growing needs of the city up to the full capacity of the water supply, thus inexorably supplanting private water rights that may have been exercised beneficially for many years.12 Question of Local Law Assertion of rights or titles to the use of water derived under Spanish and Mexican land grants and United States patents based on the original grants does not raise a Federal question if it does not involve any title or right claimed under the United States Constitution, or any treaty, statute, commission held, or authority exercised under the Constitution.13 The controversy in the California State court did not involve construction of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo between Mexico and the United States, but involved only the validity of Mexican and Spanish grants prior to the treaty. Hence the question of private title or right in the land and whatever appertained thereto was one of State law and general public law, on which the decision of the State court was final. A suit does not arise under the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States, said the United States Supreme Court, "unless it really and substantially involves a dispute or controversy as to the effect or construction of the Constitution or some law or treaty of the United States, upon the determination of which the result depends."14 In a later case the Supreme Court said that "whatever the rule may be as to patents conveying title to the lands of the United States, it has been distinctly held in this court that neither the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo nor patents under the act of March 3, 1851, are original sources of private title, but are merely confirmatory of rights "Feliz v. Los Angeles, 58 Cal. 73, 78-80 (18S1). Elms v. Los Angeles, 58 Cal. 80 (1881), was presented on the same facts and submitted on the same arguments as the Feliz case, and on the authority of that case the same decision was rendered by the supreme court. 11 Vernon In. Co. v. Los Angeles, 106 Cal. 237, 250, 39 Pac. 762 (1895). "Los Angeles v. Pomeroy, 124 Cal. 597,649-650, 57 Pac. 585 (1899). "Hooker v. Los Angeles, 188 U.S. 314, 317-318 (1903), dismissing writ of error, Los Angeles v. Pomeroy, 124 Cal. 597, 57 Pac. 585 (1899). See generally Kinney, C. S., "A Treatise on the Law of Irrigation and Water Rights," 2ded.,vol. I, § 583(1912). "Devine v. Los Angeles, 202 U.S. 313, 332-333, 337 (1906). |