CLARKE, J., dissenting. 257 U.S. points," or "tariff points." This movement of the oil was under a tariff filed by the company with the State Public Service Commission, which, in the year under discussion, read: "Local Tariff. The rates named in this tariff are for intrastate transportation of crude petroleum." "For gathering and transporting oil from wells to delivery points within the State of West Virginia, 20 cents. Storage, per day, 1/40th cent." Thus, by the contract between the parties, the oil was received for transportation to points within the State only. No consignee or destination was named, but, on the contrary, a charge was provided for indefinite storage, which the record shows was often paid, and the parties united in calling this part of the transportation a "Local and an intra-state shipment." Further, in order to give the oil any intrastate delivery the owner was required to issue to the company a paper called a delivery order," but, if he wished it to move in interstate commerce he must deliver to the company an entirely different order called a "tender of shipment," which was a paper naming a place of delivery outside the State and reciting that the transportation should be under a designated interstate tariff. All transportation of the oil before the issuing of the "tender of shipment" was under the local tariff described. It was not released for transportation or delivery of any kind, either state or interstate, until a delivery order" or a "tender of shipment" was delivered to the company by the owner and when the latter was delivered the oil moved thereafter under the terms of another, a joint interstate tariff, filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission at Washington by the Eureka Company, in conjunction with other companies owning lines connecting with its mains at the state line. 265. CLARKE, J., dissenting. To this we must add that, as a West Virginia corporation, the Eureka Company was subject to the statute of that State, requiring that any company engaged in the transportation of petroleum in the State shall not in any manner ship or transport, or permit to be shipped or transported, or in any manner remove from the tanks or pipe lines of such company, any petroleum without a written order (a "delivery order" for intrastate, or a "tender of shipment" for interstate, delivery); and also that every such company "shall at all times have in their pipes and tanks an amount of merchantable oil equal to the aggregate of outstanding credit balances, on the books thereof." If this were all there was in the transaction, plainly the oil could not be considered as moving in interstate commerce until a "tender of shipment" was issued, for until that time it was without a consignee or destination and was held under a local tariff, providing a rate of twenty cents per barrel for intrastate transportation, and a charge for storage. But the court concludes that this plainly intrastate shipment is converted into an interstate shipment by a single circumstance, viz: that when the oil, thus moving under a local tariff for a local charge, reached the trunk line, if that line happened to be "running" oil of the same kind and quality, the local oil was turned into the main and was at once moved out of the State, even though a "tender of shipment" may not have been issued to release it and give it destination. It is to be noted, however, that if the company was not "running" oil of the like kind and quality when the local oil reached the trunk line, it was held at the junction (tariff point) until like oil was to be "run" again, when it was sent forward. This may have been for a day or for two weeks. This circumstance, that the oil became under these conditions a "part of a stream that is pouring through 6267°-22-23 CLARKE, J., dissenting. 257 U.S. and out of the State," it is held, gave the shipment an interstate character from the moment it left the wells. This holding is adopted, says the court, as a "practical conception" of the matter, but it is precisely because it seems to me a too highly technical conception to find place in the world of practical business, that I dissent from such a conclusion. It is true that the physical oil moved, as stated, out of the State, but its removal without a tender of shipment caused no reduction whatever in the volume of like oil in the State; that volume, by the statute, by the contract of the parties and by the tariff filed by the company, must continue undiminished to meet all outstanding "credit balances" and the evidence of the assistant superintendent of the company is that this requirement was constantly complied with. The conclusion of the court, therefore, allows the mere business convenience of the company (it saves storage tankage) to convert into interstate commerce that which all the parties, by their contract and conduct treated, and charged and paid for, as an intrastate transportation, and thereby subordinates, in my judgment, the substance to the merest form of the transaction. Believing, as I do, that this transporting of oil over approximately four thousand miles of "gathering" lines in the State to the trunk lines, was a local shipment, as the parties all declared it to be, I think the State should be permitted to impose a reasonable license or occupation tax upon the company engaged in such extensive state activity, measured by the volume of such traffic, and that the judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia restraining the statute to this scope should be affirmed. For the reasons stated in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Brandeis in No. 30 of this term, Dahnke-Walker Milling Co. v. Bondurant, post, 282, I think this case is subject to review in this court only upon writ of certiorari, 265. Statement of the Case. and that, therefore, the motion to dismiss the writ of error should have been granted, but it has seemed to me important to discuss, as I have done, the question of interstate commerce involved. MR. JUSTICE PITNEY and MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS join in this opinion as to the merits of the controversy. MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS also concurs as to the question of jurisdiction. UNITED FUEL GAS COMPANY v. HALLANAN, STATE TAX COMMISSIONER OF THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA, ET AL. ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA. No. 276. Argued November 9, 10, 1921.-Decided December 12, 1921. 1. A writ of error sustained, following Eureka Pipe Line Co. v. Hallanan, ante, 265. P. 280. 2. Natural gas, collected and purchased by a pipe line company within a State and moving through its pipes, and the pipes of other companies to which it sells it, in continuous streams destined beyond the State, is a subject of interstate commerce, the transportation of which the State may not tax. P. 280. 3. Held, that the interstate character of the gas so destined was not affected by the right of transporting companies to divert to local destinations, or by the fact that smaller quantities for local delivery were commingled with the other and the proportions between the two were not precisely fixed. P. 281. 87 W. Va. 396, reversed; petition for certiorari dismissed. ERROR to a judgment sustaining a tax in a suit by the plaintiff in error to restrain its enforcement. See the preceding case, ante, 265. Argument for Plaintiff in Error. 257 U.S. Mr. Malcolm Jackson, with whom Mr. R. G. Altizer and Mr. E. W. Knight were on the briefs, for plaintiff in error. The final decree is reviewable by writ of error. Jud. Code, § 237; Merchants' National Bank v. Richmond, 256 U. S. 635. Natural gas is an article of commerce and its transportation from one State to another is interstate commerce. Such transportation is none the less interstate commerce because accomplished by two or more connecting carriers, one or more of which operates within the limits of a single State. The Daniel Ball, 10 Wall. 557; Wabash &c. Ry. Co. v. Illinois, 118 U. S. 557; Norfolk & Western R. R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 136 U. S. 114; Railroad Commission v. Texas & Pacific Ry. Co., 229 U. S. 336; Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Harold, 241 U. S. 371. In determining whether commerce is interstate or intrastate, regard must be had to its essential character-mere billing or the place at which title passes is not determinative. The transportation and sale of natural gas by plaintiff to other companies for further transportation to points outside the State, under contracts contemplating such interstate transportation, were transactions in interstate commerce, to the extent that said gas was intended to be and actually was transported outside the State, notwithstanding said gas was delivered by plaintiff to the purchaser in West Virginia and notwithstanding a relatively small portion of the gas so delivered was resold by the purchasers to consumers along their lines in West Virginia. Public Utilities Commission v. Landon, 249 U. S. 236; Pennsylvania Gas Co. v. Public Service Commission, 252 U. S. 23; Ohio R. R. Commission v. Worthington, 225 U. S. 201. The intrastate business-transportation from points of production to other localities in the same State, where |