198 U.S. BROWN, J., The CHIEF JUSTICE, BREWER and DAY, JJ., dissenting. tion. To justify an inspection in law there must be an inspection in fact. We had occasion in Vance v. Vandercook Co., No. 1, 170 U. S. 438, 456, to pass upon a law requiring a sample of alcoholic liquor proposed to be shipped, to be sent to the state officer in advance of the shipment, and as a prerequisite to making a subsequent shipment. We held that the inspection of a sample so sent in advance was not in the slightest degree an inspection of the goods subsequently sent into the State. "The sample may be one thing and the merchandise which thereafter comes in another." This is a much stronger case for the application of the principle, as there is no inspection at all, but the acceptance of an affidavit made by an interested party in lieu thereof. Indeed, so perfunctory is this inspection that it appears to have awakened a suspicion in the court below "that the legislature was more concerned in collecting fees to swell the exchequer of the State, than in the protection of the people who might drink beer." The obvious inefficacy of the inspection has an important bearing upon the more serious objection to this act, in that the fees for inspection bear no just relation to the expense, and make it evident that the law was not passed in a bona fide exercise of the police powers of the State, but as a convenient method of increasing the public revenues. Section 8 provides for an inspection fee of one cent per gallon and two cents for labelling each package containing eight gallons, making a total fee of one and a quarter cent per gallon. All of these fees are required to be paid into the state treasury, and pass to the general revenue fund of the State. The inspectors cannot even deduct their salaries from the fees, but are paid by a distinct appropriation for that purpose. It is conceded in the stipulation of facts that the entire expenditure authorized on account of actual inspection amounts to $12,500, and that the inspection fees annually collected amount to $350,000, or $337,500 in excess of the costs for inspection, and that the fees chargeable under said act upon the BROWN, J., The CHIEF JUSTICE, BREWER and DAY, JJ., dissenting. 198 U. S. malt liquors manufactured out of and brought into the State from other States and from foreign countries, for sale in Missouri, exceed the total authorized cost for inspection, approximately, $60,000 a year. In this connection it is pertinent to notice that the bill in question when first introduced in the House was entitled "An act creating the office of inspector of beer and malt liquors, and providing for the creation of a fund for the construction of roads and highways;" and as originally introduced into the Senate contained the words "providing for the increase of the general revenue fund." In the bill as passed these words were stricken out, and the words "providing for the inspection of beers and malt liquors manufactured and sold in this State" inserted in their place. Notwithstanding these changes in the title of the bill as finally passed, it is evident that the main object was to increase the general fund of the State by the amount of the inspection fees, less the expenses of the inspection, and that the inspection was really an incident to or an excuse for the revenue to be derived from the act. These facts are a cogent argument in favor of applying to this case the rule established in a number of recent cases, that fees cannot be imposed for the purpose of inspection upon companies doing an interstate business which are so far in excess of the expenses of such inspection as to make it plain that they were adopted, not as a means of paying such expenses, but as a means of raising revenue. The latest of these is that of the Postal Telegraph-Cable Company v. Taylor, 192 U. S. 64, wherein a license fee was imposed upon the telegraph company which largely exceeded the entire cost to the company of maintaining its line, including repairs, reconstruction, costs of labor and of material and travelling expenses of employés, and all expenses incurred by it in a careful inspection of its poles and wires. The ordinance was defended as a police regulation. It was argued that the question of revenue was not its object, but that the defendant had the right to constantly inspect the poles and wires to protect 198 U. S. BROWN, J., The CHIEF JUSTICE, BREWER and DAY, JJ., dissenting. the lives of its citizens. The court found the borough to have been sparsely settled; that it had done nothing in the way of inspection, and had incurred no liability therefor; that the fee was twenty times as large as was necessary to make the most careful and efficient inspection that could have been made. The ordinance was adjudged to be invalid, the court saying: "To uphold it in such a case as this is to say that it may be passed for one purpose and used for another; passed as a police inspection measure and used for the purpose of raising revenue; that the enactment as a police measure may be used as a mere subterfuge for the purpose of raising revenue, and yet, because it is said to be an inspection measure, the court must take it as such and hold it valid, although resulting in a rate of taxation which, if carried out throughout the country, would bankrupt the company, were it added to the other taxes properly assessed for revenue, and paid by the company." In previous cases arising under a similar state of facts the ordinances had been upheld as within the police power of the municipality, St. Louis v. Telegraph Co., 148 U. S. 92; 149 U.S. 465; Western Union Tel. Co. v. New Hope, 187 U. S. 419, in which the ordinances were sustained upon the ground that the fees were not so excessive as to justify the inference that they were not imposed as a bona fide exercise of the police powers, and in Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Co. v. Philadelphia, 190 U. S. 160, in which the question of reasonableness was held to have been properly submitted to the jury, and Postal Telegraph-Cable Co. v. New Hope, 192 U. S. 55, in which the verdict of a jury for a less amount than that fixed by the ordinance was held to be a verdict that the charge was unreasonable, and should have been followed by a judgment for the telegraph company. The facts of this case show that the inspection, as applied to malt liquors manufactured out of the State, was purely perfunctory, and accomplished nothing for the protection of its citizens, but that the fee derivable therefrom was thirty times the actual cost of such inspection, even when applied BROWN, J., The CHIEF JUSTICE, BREWER and DAY, JJ., dissenting. 198 U. S. to liquors manufactured within the State. A disproportion so gross can only be accounted for upon the theory that the act was intended for the purposes of revenue and not for inspection. It is insisted, however, that as the Supreme Court of the State has in the case of State v. Bixman, 162 Missouri, 1, by a majority vote, upheld the constitutionality of the act as an inspection law, applied to beer of domestic manufacture, and not as an act for raising revenue, we are bound by this definition, and are precluded from considering it in any other light than that of an inspection fee or license tax. But a question of constitutional law cannot be answered by a definition. While, as we have frequently said, we adopt the interpretation of the statute of a State affixed to it by the court of last resort thereof, we still feel at liberty in accepting such interpretation to determine for ourselves whether the act is a bona fide exercise of the police power of the State and not intended merely as an excuse for the taxation of interstate commerce. As was said by this court in Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 661: "If, therefore, a statute purporting to have been enacted to protect the public health, the public morals, or the public safety, has no real or substantial relation to those objects, or is a palpable invasion of rights secured by the fundamental law, it is the duty of the courts to so adjudge, and thereby give effect to the Constitution." In Railroad Co. v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465, the validity of the act of the State of Missouri, which prohibited the introduction into the State of any Texas or Mexican cattle between the months of March and November of each year, was considered. It was insisted that the law was valid as a quarantine or inspection law, as its purpose was to prevent the introduction of cattle afflicted with contagious diseases. But the court pointed out that no provision was made for the actual inspection of the cattle, so as to secure the rejection of those that were diseased, but that all importation of cattle, whether sound or diseased, was forbidden for long periods; and it was 198 U.S. BROWN, J., The CHIEf Justice, BreWER and DAY, JJ., dissenting. held that the statute was void as a plain intrusion upon the exclusive domain of Congress. And in Reid v. Colorado, 187 U. S. 137, 150, this court said: "Certain principles are well settled by the former decisions of this court. One is that the purpose of a statute, in whatever language it may be framed, must be determined by its natural and reasonable effect. Henderson v. Mayor of New York, 92 U. S. 259, 268. Another is that a State may not, by its police regulations, whatever their object, unnecessarily burden foreign or interstate commerce. Railroad Company v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465, 472. Again, the acknowledged police powers of a State cannot legitimately be exerted so as to defeat or impair a right secured by the National Constitution, any more than to defeat or impair a statute passed by Congress in pursuance of the powers granted to it. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 210; Missouri, Kansas & Texas Ry. Co. v. Haber, 169 U. S. 613, 625, 626, and authorities cited." The reasonableness of the law as compared with the cost of inspection is made the test of the validity of the law in Patapsco Guano Co. v. North Carolina Board of Agriculture, 171 U. S. 345; Willis v. Standard Oil Co., 50 Minnesota, 290. But treating it as an inspection law, the question remains whether, as applied to beer manufactured in other States, it is a bona fide exercise of the police powers of the State to protect the health of its citizens, and for the reasons already given we are of opinion it is not. The fact that the law may have been valid as applied to liquors manufactured within the State does not remove the difficulty, as the Wilson Act only applies to the police powers of the State to the same extent and in the same manner as though the liquors had been produced within the State. If foreign liquors were subject to the same inspection as domestic liquors there would be much force in the contention that the inspection was covered by the terms of the Wilson Act; but as in this case domestic liquors were actually inspected, and foreign liquors were not inspected at all, the |