Opinion of the Court.

rated by and doing business wholly within one State, cannot be compelled to agree to a common control, management or arrangement with connecting companies, and thus be deprived of its rights and powers as to rates on its own road. It was also said that it did not follow that, even if such a state corporation did agree to form a continuous line for carrying foreign freight at a through rate, it was thereby prevented from charging its ordinary local rates for domestic traffic originating within the State.

Thus understood, there is nothing in that case which we need disagree with in disapproving the Circuit Court's view in the present case. All we wish to be understood to hold is, that when goods shipped under a through bill of lading, from a point in one State to a point in another, are received in transit by a state common carrier, under a conventional division of the charges, such carrier must be deemed to have subjected its road to an arrangement for a continuous carriage or shipment within the meaning of the act to regulate commerce. When we speak of a through bill of lading we are referring to the usual method in use by connecting companies, and must not be understood to imply that a common control, management or arrangement might not be otherwise manifested.

Subject, then, as we hold the Georgia Railroad Company is, under the facts found, to the provisions of the act to regulate commerce, in respect to its interstate freight, it follows, as we think, that it was within the jurisdiction of the Commission. to consider whether the said company, in charging a higher rate for a shorter than for a longer distance over the same line, in the same direction, the shorter being included within the longer distance, was or was not transporting property, in transit between States, under "substantially similar circumstances and conditions."

We do not say that, under no circumstances and conditions, would it be lawful, when engaged in the transportation of foreign freight, for a carrier to charge more for a shorter than a longer distance on its own line, but it is for the tribunal appointed to enforce the provisions of the statute, whether the Commission or the court, to consider whether the exist

VOL. CLXII-13

Opinion of the Court.

ing circumstances and conditions were or were not substantially similar.

It has been forcibly argued that, in the present case, the Commission did not give due weight to the facts that tended to show that the circumstances and conditions were so dissimilar as to justify the rates charged. But the question was one of fact, peculiarly within the province of the Commission, whose conclusions have been accepted and approved by the Circuit Court of Appeals, and we find nothing in the record to make it our duty to draw a different conclusion.

We understand the record as disclosing that the Commission, in view of the circumstances and conditions in which the defendants were operating, did not disturb the rates agreed upon whereby the same charge was made to Augusta as to Atlanta, a less distant point. Some observations made by the Commission in its report on the nature of the circumstances and conditions which would justify a greater charge for the shorter distance, gave occasion for an interesting discussion by the respective counsel. But it is not necessary for us, in the present case, to express any opinion on a subject so full of difficulty.

These views lead to an affirmance of the decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals, in so far as the appeal of the defendant companies is concerned; and we are brought to a consideration of the appeal by the Interstate Commerce Commission.

That appeal presents the question whether the Circuit Court of Appeals erred in its holding in respect to the action of the Interstate Commerce Commission in fixing a maximum rate of charges for the transportation of freight of the first class in less than carloads from Cincinnati to Atlanta.

This question may be regarded as twofold, and is so presented in the assignment of error filed on behalf of the Commission, namely: Did the court err in not holding that, in point of law, the Interstate Commerce Commission had power to fix a maximum rate, and, if such power existed, did the court err in not holding that the evidence justified the rate fixed by the Commission and not decreeing accordingly?

It is stated by the Commission, in its report, that "the only testimony offered or heard as to the reasonableness of the rate

Opinion of the Court.

to Atlanta in question was that of the vice president of the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Company, whose deposition was taken at the instance of the company." And in acting upon the subject, the Commission say:

"This statement or estimate of the rate from Cincinnati to Atlanta, ($1.01 per hundred pounds in less than carloads,) we believe is fully as high as it may reasonably be, if not higher than it should be, but without more thorough investigation than it is now practicable to make we do not feel justified in determining upon a more moderate rate than $1 per hundred pounds of first class freight in less than carloads. The rate on this freight from Cincinnati to Birmingham, Alabama, is 89 cents as compared with $1.07 to Atlanta, the distances being substantially the same. There is apparently nothing in the nature and character of the service to justify such difference, or in fact to warrant any substantial variance in the Atlanta and Birmingham rate from Cincinnati."

But when the Commission filed its petition in the Circuit Court of the United States, seeking to enforce compliance with the rate of one dollar per hundred pounds, as fixed by the Commission, the railroad companies, in their answers, alleged that, "the rate charged to Atlanta, namely $1.07 per hundred pounds, was fixed by active competition between various transportation lines, and was reasonably low."

Under this issue evidence was taken, and we learn, from the opinion of the Circuit Court, that, as to the rate to Birmingham, there was evidence before the court which evidently was not before the Commission, namely, that the rate from Cincinnati to Birmingham, which seems previously to have been $1.08, was forced down to 89 cents by the building of the Kansas City, Memphis and Birmingham Railroad, which new road caused the establishment of a rate of 75 cents from Memphis to Birmingham, and by reason of water route to the Northwest such competition was brought about that the present rate of 89 cents from Cincinnati to Birmingham was the result.

Without stating the reasoning of the Circuit Court, which will be found in the report of the case in 64 Fed. Rep. 981, the conclusion reached was that the evidence offered in that court

Opinion of the Court.

was sufficient to overcome any prima facie case that may have been made by the findings of the Commission, and that the rate complained of was not unreasonable.

As already stated, the Circuit Court of Appeals adopted the views of the Circuit Court, in respect to the reasonableness of the rate charged on first class freight carried on defendants' line from Cincinnati to Atlanta; and as both courts found the existing rates to have been reasonable, we do not feel disposed to review their finding on that matter of fact.

We think this a proper occasion to express disapproval of such a method of procedure on the part of the railroad companies as should lead them to withhold the larger part of their evidence from the Commission, and first adduce it in the Circuit Court. The Commission is an administrative board, and the courts are only to be resorted to when the Commission prefers to enforce the provisions of the statute by a direct proceeding in the court, or when the orders of the Commission have been disregarded. The theory of the act evidently is, as shown by the provision that the findings of the Commission shall be regarded as prima facie evidence, that the facts of the case are to be disclosed before the Commission. We do not mean, of course, that either party, in a trial in the court, is to be restricted to the evidence that was before the Commission, but that the purposes of the act call for a full inquiry by the Commission into all the circumstances and conditions pertinent to the questions involved.

Whether Congress intended to confer upon the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to itself fix rates, was mooted in the courts below, and is discussed in the briefs of counsel.

We do not find any provision of the act that expressly, or by necessary implication, confers such a power.

It is argued on behalf of the Commission that the power to pass upon the reasonableness of existing rates implies a right to prescribe rates. This is not necessarily so. The reasonableness of the rate, in a given case, depends on the facts, and the function of the Commission is to consider these facts and give them their proper weight. If the Commission, instead of

Syllabus.

withholding judgment in such a matter until an issue shall be made and the facts found, itself fixes a rate, that rate is prejudged by the Commission to be reasonable.

We prefer to adopt the view expressed by the late Justice Jackson, when Circuit Judge, in the case of the Interstate Commerce Commission v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., 43 Fed. Rep. 37, and whose judgment was affirmed by this court, 145 U. S. 263:

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Subject to the two leading prohibitions that their charges shall not be unjust or unreasonable, and that they shall not unjustly discriminate, so as to give undue preference or disadvantage to persons or traffic similarly circumstanced, the act to regulate commerce leaves common carriers as they were at the common law, free to make special contracts looking to the increase of their business, to classify their traffic, to adjust and apportion their rates so as to meet the necessities of commerce, and generally to manage their important interests upon the same principles which are regarded as sound, and adopted in other trades and pursuits."

The decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

TEXAS AND PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY v. INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND

CIRCUIT.

No. 321. Argued January 29, 30, 1896. Decided March 30, 1896.

The Interstate Commerce Commission is a body corporate, with legal capacity to be a party plaintiff or defendant in the Federal courts.

The Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York had jurisdiction of the acts complained of in this suit.

The Southern Pacific Company, although a proper, was not a necessary party to this suit.

In enacting the interstate commerce acts Congress had in view, and intended to make provision for commerce between States and Territories, commerce going to and coming from foreign countries, and the whole