Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/391

 384 FEDBBAL BEPOKTEB. �state. The feea which it exacts to that end, although denom- inated wharfage dues, cannot be regarded, in the sense of our former decisions, as compensation merely for the use of the city's property, but as an expedient or device to accomplish, by indirection, what the state could not accomplish by a direct tax, viz. : build up its domestic commerce by means of une- qual and oppressive burdens upon the industry and business of other states. Sueh exactions, in the name of wharfage, must be regarded as taxation upon inter-state commerce." �These views cover the question in the present case. It is a burden upon inter-state commerce to exact from a canal- boat of a given tonnage, bringing a cargo of eoal from Balti- more, through canals not in the state of New York, and dis- charging it on a given wharf in the port of New York, larger fees per day for the use of such wharf than are charged to a canal-boat of the same tonnage bringing a like cargo from Buffalo through the Erie canal. The same thing is true in respect to the two canal-boats, if coming to the same wharf empty, to load with like cargoes; the one to go to Buffalo through the Erie canal, and the other to go to Baltimore through canals not in the state of New York. Boats are presumed to bring or take cargoea, and to seek wharf accom- modations to discharge- or receive cargoes. The increased wharfage rates must, presumably, be added by the carrier to the charge of carriage, and then added by the owner of the cargo to the priee of the cargo, and thus become a tax to the prejudice of inter-state commerce, and the building up of the purely internai commerce of the state. The wharfage fees are not equal on two canal-boats of the same tonnage, but a discrimination is made against one of them because she does not ply from the city of New York to places situated on a canal in the state of New York, but plies to and from Balti- more through canals not in the state of New York. The state of New York authorizes the wharf owner to obstruct inter-state commerce, in the interest of commerce wholly internai to the state of New York. This view of the act of 1875 îurther appears by its plaeing in the same category ����