Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/192

 OCTOBER TEEM, 1907. Ophn of t Com't. 9 U. & in his concurring opinion in C/co &c. Co. v. Mi, 14. U.S. 418, 460, that the proper, if not the only, mode of ju- dicial relief a?nt the tariff of rate established by the leg- islature or by its Commission is by a bill in chs,cery, asserting its unreasonable character, and that until the decree of the court n such equity suit was obtained it was not competent for each individual having dealin? with a carrier, or for the carrier in regard to each individual who demands its services, to raise a contest in the courts over the questions which ought to be settled in this general and conclusive rn,,,ner. This remedy by bill in equity is referred to and approved by Mr. Justice Shiraz, in delivering the opinion of the court in St. Lou &c. Co. v. G4//, 16 U.S. 649, 659, 666, although tkat question was not then directly before the court. Such remedy is un- doubtedly the mot conveniont, the mot comprehensive and the mot orderly way in which the rights of all parties can be properly, fairly and adequately passed upon. It cannot be to the real interest of anyone to injure or cripple the reeourese of the railroad companies of the country, because the pros- perity of both th railroads and the country is mot inthately connected. The question of sufficiency of rates is important and controlling, and being of a judicial nature it ought to be settled at the earliest moment by some court, and when a Federal court first obtains jurisdiction it ought, on general principles of jurisprudence, to be permitted to finish the in- quiry and make a conclusive judgment to the exclusion of all other cot[rts.. This is all that is claimed, and this, we think, must .be admitted. Finally it is objected that the necessary result of upholding this suit in the Circuit Court will be to draw to the lower Federal courts a great flood of litigation of this character, where one Federal judge would have it in his power to enjoin preceedin{s by state officials to enforce the legislative acts of the State, either by criminal or civil actions. To this it may be answered, in the first place, that no injunction ought to be granted unless in a case reasonably free from doubt. We

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