pose of the statute to reinforce the provisions of the tariff laws; it was the purpose of such enactment to promote and facilitate commerce by the adoption of regulations, to make charges for transportation just and reasonable, and to forbid undue and unreasonable preferences or discriminations, and to abolish combinations." Competition is one of the most obvious and effective circumstances that make the conditions, under which a long and short haul is performed, substantially dissimilar, and as such must have been in the contemplation of Congress in the passage of the act to regulate commerce, this is no longer an open question.12 Congress has not conferred upon the commission the legislative power of prescribing rates, either maximum, or minimum, or absolute, and, as it has not given the express power to such commission, it did not intend to secure the same result indirectly by empowering that tribunal, after having determined what, in reference to the past, are reasonable and just rates, to obtain from the courts a peremptory order that, in the future, railroad companies should follow the rates thus determined to have been, in the past, reasonable and just.13 In construing this act, it is to be presumed that Congress in so far as it adopted the language of the English Traffic Act, had in mind the construction given by the English courts to the adopted language, and intended to incorporate it into the statute.14 And as the general purpose of the statute was to facilitate commerce and prevent discrimination, it will not be construed so as to make illegal

11 Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 162 U. S. 197, 40 L. ed. 140, 16 Sup. Ct. 666. See Interstate Commerce Commission v. Chicago Great Western Ry. Co., 141 Fed. 1003.

12 Interstate Commerce Commission v. Alabama Midland Ry. Co., 168 U. S. 144, 18 Sup. Ct. 45, 42 L. ed. 414. See Interstate Commerce Commission v. Chicago Great Western Ry. Co., 141 Fed. 1003.

sion v. Alabama Midland Ry. Co., 168 U. S. 144, 18 Sup. Ct. 45, 42 L. ed. 414; Interstate Commerce Commission v. Cincinnati, New Orleans & Tex. Pacific Ry. Co., 167 U. S. 479, 17 Sup. Ct. 896, 42 L. ed. 243; Cincinnati, New Orleans & Tex. Pacific Ry. Co., 162 U. S. 184, 40 L ed. 935, 16 Sup. Ct. 700.

14 Interstate Commerce Commission v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 145 U. S. 263, 36 L. ed. 699, 12 Sup. Ct.

13 Interstate Commerce Commis- 844.

a salutary rule to prevent the violation of the act in regard to obtaining rebates.15

§ 154. Delegation to American Railway Association.— An act of Congress which vests the American Railway Association with authority to designate the standard height of drawbars, and the maximum variation from such height, and which provides that no freight cars shall be used in interstate traffic which do not comply with such standard, is not unconstitutional as vesting such association with legislative power. The enactment vested it with authority to designate, without the power to give the designation the force or effect of the law that was derived entirely from the statute. When the designation was made the authority was exhausted, and no power to change, amend, enforce or control, existed in the association.16

§ 155. Delegation of Power to Determine Compensation Under Right of Eminent Domain Exercised by United States. The liability to make compensation for private property taken for public uses is a constitutional limitation of the right of eminent domain. As this limitation forms no part of the power to take private property for public uses, the government of the United States may delegate to a tribunal created under the laws of a State, the power to fix and determine the amount of compensation to be paid by the United States for private property taken by them in the exercise of their right of eminent domain; or it may, if it pleases, create a special tribunal for that purpose.17

15 Southern Pacific Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 200 U. S. 536, 50 L. ed. 585, 26 Sup. Ct. 330, rev'g Interstate Commerce Commission v. Southern Pacific Ry., 132 Fed. 829.

18 St. Louis, Iron Mountain &

Southern Ry. Co. v. Neal, 83 Ark. 591, 98 S. W. 958.

17 United States v. Jones, 109 U. S. 513, 27 L. ed. 1015, 3 Sup. Ct. 346, citing Kohl v. United States, 91 U.S. 367, 23 L. ed. 449.

of Banking and Insurance § 164. Delegation to Levee District. -Secretary of State.

158. Delegation to Commissioners

of Bridges.

159. Delegation to Drainage Commissioners-Removal of Bridge by Railway Com

pany.

160. Delegation to Commission of

Gas and Electricity.

161. Delegation to Grain and Warehouse Commission. 162. Delegation to Inspectors of Coal Mines.

163. Delegation to Bureau of Insurance or to Superin

165. Delegation to Board of Loan Commissioners-Territory.

166. Delegation to Public Service Commission of New York. 167. Delegation to Railroad Commissioners.

168. Delegation to Railroad Commission-Public Utility Law of Wisconsin.

169. Delegation to Railroad and Warehouse CommissionRailroad Carriers Increase of Capital.

170. Delegation to State Corporation Commission.

§ 156. Delegation of Power to Board of Agriculture.-A board of agriculture, which is a branch of the executive department, may be constitutionally empowered to regulate the transportation of cattle within state limits, and such authorization is not a delegation of legislative power.1 And where the legislature gives a board of agriculture authority to grant or refuse a license to mine for phosphate rock on the State's property and to exercise its discretion for the State's best interest, such authority so vested is not a delegation of legislative power to that board nor does it constitute a violation of the fourteenth constitutional amendment.2

1 State v. Southern Ry. Co., 141 N. C. 846, 54 S. E. 294, Laws 1901, p. 662, c. 479, § 4, sub. "b" construed.

2 State ex rel. Port Royal Mining Co. v. Hagood, 30 S. C. 519, 3 L. R. A. 841, 9 S. E. 686.

§ 157. Delegation to Commissioner of Banking and Insurance-Secretary of State."-Duties in relation to insurance matters, which are administrative and neither legislative nor judicial, may be devolved upon the Secretary of State and subsequently transferred by statute to the commissioner of banking and insurance, the object being to regulate certain corporations which are subject, by the law of their creation, to regulation. And it is not a delegation of legislative or judicial power for a statute to require the approval of the Secretary of State to a contract for reinsurance.5

§ 158. Delegation to Commissioners of Bridges.-Where the legislature has authority under the state constitution to provide for building bridges over navigable waters and the power to charter companies for that purpose, it may exercise such authority and regulate the construction and management of bridges, and it may delegate its authority to commissioners to be named, and such delegation of power vests the control in them; and where such commission is abolished and its duties and powers vested in the commissioner of bridges of a city, who had the power to authorize to be operated, a railroad or railroads over the bridge, and authority to contract for such operation and to fix the fares to be paid by the directors of the company or companies so contracting, such contract does not create a franchise, and if it did, it would be illegal and void and beyond the power of the municipal officer making it.

159. Delegation to Drainage Commissioners-Removal of Bridge by Railway Company.-Where the proper drainage of the land in a district is impossible without the removal of a railway bridge over the natural water course into which the

3 See § 163, herein.

Iowa Life Ins. Co. v. East Mut. Life Ins. Co., 64 N. J. L. 340, 45 Atl. 762.

Iowa Life Ins. Co. v. Eastern Mut. Life Ins. Co., 64 N. J. L. 340, 45 Atl. 762.

Schinzel v. Best, 92 N. Y. Supp. 754, 45 Misc. 455, 48 Misc. 234, aff'd 96 N. Y. Supp. 1145, 109 App. Div. 917 (this was the Williamsburg bridge over the East river, New York).

lands drained and the construction of a bridge with a larger opening for the increased volume of water, it is the duty of the railway company, at its own expense, to remove the existing bridge, and also, unless it abandons or surrenders its right to cross the creek at or in that vicinity, to erect at its own expense and maintenance a new bridge in conformity with regulations established by the drainage commissioners under the authority of the State; and such a requirement, if enforced, will not amount to a taking of private property for public use within the meaning of the Constitution, nor to a denial of the equal protection of the laws."

§ 160. Delegation to Commission of Gas and Electricity.A statute may authorize the appointment by the governor of a commission to fix the maximum price to be charged for service by gas and electric light corporations where such commission is only intrusted with the duty of investigating the facts, and, after a public hearing, of ascertaining and determining "within the limits prescribed by law" what is a reasonable maximum rate. Such a statute does not violate that provision of the Federal constitution which guarantees to every State a republican form of government, although such statute is violative of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution guaranteeing "equal protection of the laws" where it does not afford companies the right to petition for a new rate at the end of the term of three years or at any time thereafter. Under the statute of 1905 entitled: "An act to establish a commission of gas and electricity with power to regulate the price of gas and electric light and certain other electric services, and to provide for the control and supervision of gas, electric light and other electric corporations and making an appropriation therefor," and providing for an apSaratoga Gas, Electric Light & Power Co., 191 N. Y. 123, 83 N. E. 693, rev'g 107 N. Y. Supp. 341. Board of gas trustees, see § 198, herein. 'Laws N. Y. 1905, chap. 737. See

'Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Ry. Co. v. Drainage Comrs., 200 U. S. 561, 50 L. ed. 596, 26 Sup. Ct. 341, aff'g 212 Ill. 103, 72 N. E. 219. See § 152, herein.

Village of Saratoga Springs v.