PANAMA DEVELOPMENT CO. V. LAM HING CO.

between the judicial circuits of the Canal Zone, and that it was not intended to apply to suits for waste committed upon real estate in a foreign jurisdiction. In support of this contention, counsel for plaintiff cites the case of Little vs. Chicago, St. Paul, Milwaukee & Omaha Railway Co., 33 L. R. A., 423, which holds as follows:
An action will lie in this State to recover damages for injuries to land situate n another State.
Such an action is purely personal in its nature, the reparation being purely personal, and for damages.
The statute of this State that actions for injuries to real estate must be brought in the county where the subject of the action is situated only applies to causes of action arising within the State.
But in the consideration of this case it is conceded by the court their holding in this respect is contrary to the general weight of authority in the United States, and the able dissenting opinion therein, which cites and reviews a long list of American decisions, would seem to more clearly state the rule of law as we understand it. Aside from the citations of authorities, the argument of the dissenting opinion is, to our minds, cogent and convincing. We quote as follows:
As a matter of policy, citizens of other States should not be permitted the use of our courts to redress wrongs and injuries to real property committed within their own territory. That is not what our courts were created or organized for. Nonresidents should not be invited to bring to our courts litigation arising over injuries to real property outside of our territorial limits. Certainly there is nothing in our constitution or laws which justifies them in imposing the burden of maintaining courts at our expense for their use and benefit. Protection of our own citizens is the primary object and duty of our courts, and it is, to say the least, a very generous and liberal interpretation of the law which accords the suitors residing in other States the right to litigate in our courts questions of injury to real estate there situate, while the courts of those States reject the claim of our own citizens to litigate there injury to real estate here *
The same doctrine is held in practically all States of the Union. We quote from Dodge vs. Colby, 108 N. Y., 449 as follows:
The doctrine that the courts of this State have no jurisdiction of actions for trespass upon lands situated in other States is too well settled to admit of discussion or dispute The claim urged by the plaintiff tl~at if not permitted to maintain this action he is without remedy for a most serious injury, is quite groundless, and affords no reason for the assumption of a jurisdiction by this court which it does not possess *
But even if this were a transitory action as distinguished from one purely local, we think the court should be slow to assume jurisdiction thereof upon the broad question of policy. The decisions

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