The further objection is made that the prohibition of section 3 is directed against unjust discrimination or undue preference only when it arises from the voluntary act of the carrier and does not relate to acts which are the result of conditions wholly beyond its control. East Tennessee &c. Ry. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 181 U. S. 1, 18. The reference is not to any inherent lack of control arising out of traffic conditions, but to the requirements of the local authorities which are assumed to be binding upon the carriers. The contention is thus merely a repetition in another form of the argument that the Commission exceeded its power; for it would not be contended that local rules could nullify the lawful exercise of Federal authority. In the view that the Commission was entitled to make the order, there is no longer compulsion upon the carriers by virtue of any inconsistent local requirement. We are not unmindful of the gravity of the question that is presented when State and Federal views conflict. But it was recognized at the beginning that the Nation could not prosper if interstate and foreign trade were governed by many masters, and, where the interests of the freedom of interstate commerce are involved, the judgment of Congress and of the agencies it lawfully establishes must control.

In conclusion: Reading the order in the light of the report of the Commission, it does not appear that the Commission attempted to require the carriers to reduce their interstate rates out of Shreveport below what was found to be a reasonable charge for that service.

ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY v.
HENDERSON ELEVATOR COMPANY.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 1913.

[226 U. S. 441.]

Memorandum opinion, by direction of the court, by Mr. Chief Justice WHITE.

The Henderson Elevator Company, defendant in error, as plaintiff below brought this action to recover damages from the Railroad Company, the plaintiff in error, because of a loss alleged to have been sustained by an erroneous quotation by the agent of the Railroad Company of the freight rate on corn shipped in interstate commerce from the station of the Railroad Company at Henderson, Kentucky. A rate of 10 cents per hundred pounds was quoted by the agent when in fact the rate as fixed by the published tariff on file with the Interstate

Commerce Commission and effective at the time was 132 cents per hundred pounds. On the trial before a jury the court instructed that if the loss sustained by the plaintiff "was occasioned and brought about by defendant's failure to have posted or on file in its office in Henderson, Kentucky, its freight tariff rate in question and by reason of any erroneous quotation of defendant of its freight rate from and to the points in question, of which plaintiff complains, . . ." there should be a verdict for the plaintiff. A verdict having been rendered for the plaintiff in accordance with this instruction and the judgment entered thereon having been subsequently affirmed by the Court of Appeals of Kentucky (138 Kentucky, 220), this writ of error was sued out.

It is to us clear that the action of the court below in affirming the judgment of the trial court and the reasons upon which that action was based were in conflict with the rulings of this court interpreting and applying the Act to Regulate Commerce. New York Cent. R. R. v. United States (No. 2), 212 U. S. 500, 504; Texas & Pacific R. R. Co. v. Mugg, 202 U. S. 242; Gulf Railroad Co. v. Hefley, 158 U. S. 98. That the failure to post does not prevent the case from being controlled by the settled rule established by the cases referred to is now beyond question. Kansas City So. Ry. Co. v. Albers Comm. Co., 223 U. S. 573, 594 (a).

Reversed.

UNITED STATES EX REL. v. UNION STOCK YARD & TRANSIT COMPANY.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, 1912.

[226 U. S. 286.1]

MR. JUSTICE DAY delivered the opinion of the Court.

By 2 of the Act to Regulate Commerce the carrier is guilty of unjust discrimination, which is prohibited and declared unlawful, if by any rebate or other device it charges one person less for any service rendered in the transportation of property than it does another for a like service. The Elkins Act makes it an offense for any person or corporation to give or receive any rebate, concession or discrimination in respect to the transportation of property in interstate commerce whereby any such property shall be transported at a rate less than that named in the published tariff or whereby any other advantage is given or discrimination is practiced. By the very terms of the con

1 Only the conclusion of the case is printed. — ED.

tract it is evident that the interest of the Stock Yard Company and also of the Junction Company is in the profit to be made in receiving and delivering, handling and caring for and transporting live stock, shipments of which, to the extent stated, are made in interstate commerce. The contract provides that if the Pfälzers construct a packing plant adjacent to the stock yards of the Stock Yard Company they shall receive $50,000, and it obligates them to maintain and operate the plant for a period of fifteen years and buy and use in their slaughtering business such live stock only as moves through such stock yards, and if not so bought to pay the regular charges thereon as if the same had moved into the stock yards and had been there purchased by them. In other words, this plant in effect may pay for the services of the Stock Yard Company, up to the sum of $50,000, with the bonus given to the Pfalzers for the location of their plant in juxta-position to the stock yards. The only interest which the Stock Yard Company has in Pfalzer & Sons' interstate business is compensation for its services in handling their freight and its share of the profits realized by the Junction Company in rendering its service. Any other company with which it has made no contract would be compelled to pay the full charge for the services rendered without any rebate or concession. Another company might have a contract for a larger or smaller bonus, and thereby receive different treatment. Certainly as to the company which receives no such bonus there has been an undue advantage given to and an unlawful discrimination practiced in favor of Pfalzer & Sons. If these companies had filed their tariffs, as we now hold they should have filed them, they would have been subject to the restrictions of the Elkins Act as to departures from published rates and we must consider the case in that light — and this preferential treatment, as we have said, would have been in violation of that act. It is the object of the Interstate Commerce Law and the Elkins Act to prevent favoritism by any means or device whatsoever and to prohibit practices which run counter to the purpose of the act to place all shippers upon equal terms. We think the Commerce Court should have enjoined the carrying out of this contract.

UNITED STATES v. BALTIMORE & OHIO RAILROAD CO. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, 1913.

[231 U. S. 274.1]

MR. JUSTICE LURTON delivered the opinion of the court.

To say that the "allowance" made to Arbuckle Brothers is an allowance for lightering their own sugar across the river is to only half state the case. This so-called allowance is not only for such lighterage service, but is also compensation for the use of all of the terminal properties, docks, warehouses, tracks, steam lighters, car floats and every instrumentality used under the contract. It includes the services and responsibility of Arbuckle Brothers, as agents for the several lessees using the station, and their staff of employés engaged in receiving, delivering, loading and unloading freights thus received, both incoming and outgoing. As the measure of compensation is the tonnage in and out of the station and as this compensation is paid by the several railroads maintaining the station in proportion to the tonnage which they severally handle, there is a sense in which it is in part an allowance to Arbuckle Brothers upon their own shipments. But they receive the same compensation upon the tonnage of every other shipper through that station, and it is the aggregate of the compensation which must determine the reasonableness of the allowance when we come to deal with it as an allowance to them for services or instrumentalities furnished, under section 15 of the Act to Regulate Commerce.

THE INTERMOUNTAIN RATE CASES.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, 1914.

[234 U. S. 476.2]

CHIEF JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the court. The main insistence is that there was no power after recognizing the existence of competition and the right to charge a lesser rate to the competitive point than to intermediate points to do more than fix a reasonable rate to the intermediate points, that is to say, that under the power transferred to it by the section as amended the Commission was limited to ascertaining the existence of competition and to author

izing the carrier to meet it without any authority to do more than exercise its general powers concerning the reasonableness of rates at all points. But this proposition is directly in conflict with the statute as we have construed it and with the plain purpose and intent manifested by its enactment. To uphold the proposition it would be necessary to say that the powers which were essential to the vivification and beneficial realization of the authority transferred had evaporated in the process of transfer and hence that the power perished as the result of the act by which it was conferred. As the prime object of the transfer was to vest the Commission within the scope of the discretion imposed and subject in the nature of things to the limitations arising from the character of the duty exacted and flowing from the other provisions of the act with authority to consider competitive conditions and their relation to persons and places, necessarily there went with the power the right to do that by which alone it could be exerted, and therefore a consideration of the one and the other and the establishment of the basis by percentages was within the power granted.