were to be accomplished was the placing upon all carriers the positive duty to establish schedules of reasonable rates which should have a uniform application to all and which should not be departed from so long as the established schedule remained unaltered in the manner provided by law. (Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Ry. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 162 U. S. 184; Interstate Commerce Commission v. Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Ry. Co., 167 Ib. 479.)

"When the general scope of the Act is enlightened by the considerations just stated it becomes manifest that there is not only a relation, but an indissoluble unity between the provision for the establishment and maintenance of rates until corrected in accordance with the statute and the prohibitions against preferences and discrimination. This follows, because unless the requirement of a uniform standard of rates be complied with it would result that violations of the statute as to preferences and discrimination would inevitably follow. This is clearly so, for if it be that the standard of rates fixed in the mode provided by the statute could be treated on the complaint of a shipper by a court and jury as unreasonable, without reference to prior action by the Commission, finding the established rate to be unreasonable and ordering the carrier to desist in the future from violating the Act, it would come to pass that a shipper might obtain relief upon the basis that the established rate was unreasonable, in the opinion of a court and jury, and thus such shipper would receive a preference or discrimination not enjoyed by those against whom the schedule of rates was continued to be enforced. This can only be met by the suggestion that the judgment of a court, when based upon a complaint made by a shipper without previous action by the Commission, would give rise to a change of the schedule rate and thus cause the new rate resulting from the action of the court to be applicable in future as to all. This suggestion, however, VOL. CCXXX--19

is manifestly without merit, and only serves to illustrate the absolute destruction of the Act and the remedial provisions which it created which would arise from a recognition of the right asserted. For if, without previous action by the Commission, power might be exerted by courts and juries generally to determine the reasonableness of an established rate, it would follow that unless all courts reached an identical conclusion a uniform standard of rates in the future would be impossible, as the standard would fluctuate and vary, dependent upon the divergent conclusions reached as to reasonableness by the various courts called upon to consider the subject as an original question. Indeed the recognition of such a right is wholly inconsistent with the administrative power conferred upon the Commission and with the duty, which the statute casts upon that body, of seeing to it that the statutory requirement as to uniformity and equality of rates is observed. Equally obvious is it that the existence of such a power in the courts, independent of prior action by the Commission, would lead to favoritism, to the enforcement of one rate in one jurisdiction and a different one in another, would destroy the prohibitions against preferences and discrimination, and afford, moreover, a ready means by which, through collusive proceedings, the wrongs which the statute was intended to remedy could be successfully inflicted. Indeed no reason can be perceived for the enactment of the provision endowing the administrative tribunal, which the Act created, with power, on due proof, not only to award reparation to a particular shipper, but to command the carrier to desist from violation of the Act in the future, thus compelling the alteration of the old or the filing of a new schedule, conformably to the action of the Commission, if the power was left in courts to grant relief on complaint of any shipper, upon the theory that the established rate could be disregarded and be treated as unreasonable, without reference to previous action by the

Commission in the premises. This must be, because, if the power existed in both courts and the Commission to originally hear complaints on this subject, there might be a divergence between the action of the Commission and the decision of a court. In other words, the established schedule might be found reasonable by the Commission in the first instance and unreasonable by a court acting originally, and thus a conflict would arise which would render the enforcement of the Act impossible.

"Nor is there merit in the contention that section 9 of the Act compels to the conclusion that it was the purpose of Congress to confer power upon courts primarily to relieve from the duty of enforcing the established rate by finding that the same as to a particular person or corporation was so unreasonable as to justify an award of damages. True it is that the general terms of the section when taken alone might sanction such a conclusion, but when the provision of that section is read in connection with the context of the Act and in the light of the considerations which we have enumerated, we think the broad construction contended for is not admissible. And this becomes particularly cogent when it is observed that the power of the courts to award damages to those claiming to have been injured, as provided in the section, contemplates only a decree in favor of the individual complainant, redressing the particular wrong asserted to have been done, and does not embrace the power to direct the carrier to abstain in the future from similar violations of the Act; in other words, to command a correction of the established schedules, which power, as we have shown, is conferred by the Act upon the Commission in express terms. In other words, we think that it inevitably follows from the context of the Act that the independent right of an individual originally to maintain actions in courts to obtain pecuniary redress for violations of the Act conferred by the ninth section must be confined to redress of such wrongs as can, con

sistently with the context of the Act, be redressed by courts without previous action by the Commission, and, therefore, does not imply the power in a court to primarily hear complaints concerning wrongs of the character of the one here complained of. Although an established schedule of rates may have been altered by a carrier voluntarily or as the result of the enforcement of an order of the Commission to desist from violating the law, rendered in accordance with the provisions of the statute, it may not be doubted that the power of the Commission would nevertheless extend to hearing legal complaints of and awarding reparation to individuals for wrongs unlawfully suffered from the application of the unreasonable schedule during the period when such schedule was in force."

After citing two decisions in the lower Federal courts, and distinguishing several previous decisions of this court, and relying upon the Hefley Case, 158 U. S. 98, and the Mugg Case, 202 U. S. 242, as showing that the established rates were binding, the opinion proceeds (p. 445):

"In view of the binding effect of the established rates upon both the carrier and the shipper, as expounded in the two decisions of this court just referred to, the contention now made if adopted would necessitate the holding that a cause of action in favor of a shipper arose from the failure of the carrier to make an agreement, when, if the agreement had been made, both the carrier and the shipper would have been guilty of a criminal offense and the agree ment would have been so absolutely void as to be impossible of enforcement. Nor is there force in the suggestion that a like dilemma arises from the recognition of power in the Commission to award reparation in favor of an individual because of a finding by that body that a rate in an established schedule was unreasonable. As we have shown, there is a wide distinction between the two cases. When the Commission is called upon on the complaint of an individual to consider the reasonableness of an established

rate, its power is invoked not merely to authorize a departure from such rate in favor of the complainant alone, but to exert the authority conferred upon it by the Act, if the complaint is found to be just, to compel the establishment of a new schedule of rates applicable to all. And like reasoning would be applicable to the granting of reparation to an individual after the establishment of a new schedule because of a wrong endured during the period when the unreasonable schedule was enforced by the carrier and before its change and the establishment of a new one. In other words, the difference between the two is that which on the one hand would arise from destroying the uniformity of rates which it was the object of the statute to secure and on the other from enforcing that equality which the statute commands. "But it is insisted that, however cogent may be the views previously stated, they should not control, because of the following provision contained in section 22 of the Act to Regulate Commerce viz: ‘. Nothing in this

Act contained shall in any way abridge or alter the remedies now existing at common-law or by statute, but the provisions of this Act are in addition to such remedies.' This clause, however, cannot in reason be construed as continuing in shippers a common-law right, the continued existence of which would be absolutely inconsistent with the provisions of the Act. In other words the Act cannot be held to destroy itself. The clause is concerned alone with rights recognized in or duties imposed by the Act and the manifest purpose of the provision in question was to make plain the intention that any specific remedy given by the Act should be regarded as cumulative, when other appropriate common-law or statutory remedies existed for the redress of the particular grievance or wrong dealt with in the Act.

"The proposition that if the statute be construed as depriving courts generally, at the instance of shippers, of the power to grant redress upon the basis that an estab