Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/347

FEDERAL CONTROL OF INTRASTATE RAILROAD RATES 311 with a certain matter, which it may be contended is dealt with more generally in another part of the same statute, the specific provisions apply rather than the general provisions.^^ From what has been said it is clear that the only portions of the statute which can be opposed to the specific provisions of section 10, confiding to the Interstate Commerce Commission a degree of jurisdiction with respect to rates, etc., initiated by the President, are cast in very general language, and it would seem necessarily to follow that these specific provisions must be regarded as control- ling, and the general provisions must be construed as not intended to operate where the specific provisions apply. Turning now to the precise words of section 15, a significant difference is disclosed in its reference to the states' power of taxa- tion and the states' police power. The "existing laws or powers of the States in relation to taxation" are not to be amended, etc., but it is only the "lawful police regulations" of the states that are to be accorded a like immunity from change. There must have been some reason for refraining from preserving the "police power" of the states to the same extent as the taxing power. It seems not unreasonable to regard the words "police regulations" as in- tended to refer to police regulations already in effect which were to remain in effect unless superseded by acts of the President under the Federal Control Law. Or, possibly, the words are intended to refer to the "police power" in its more limited and proper use as describing the au- thority of the state to legislate to protect the health, safety, and morals of its people,^^ and not in its more extended and general use, within which the power to regulate rates, etc., has sometimes been classified. For there is grave doubt whether the regulation of rates, etc., by the states is in truth a branch of the poHce power within the meaning of section 15. It is true that various cases have so characterized it when referring to the general classification of legislation .^° But this use of the term is clearly open to just criticism. 1* Rodgers v. United States, 185 U. S. 83 (1902); In re Anderson, 214 Fed. 662 (1914); Colonial Navigation Co. v. N. Y., etc. Co., 50 L. C. C. 625 (1918), and cases cited. 1' See the difference between "police power" and "police regulations" suggested in 31 Cyclopedia of Law and Procedtjre, 902-03. ^ Munn V. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113 (1876); Budd v. New York, 143 U. S. 517, 534, 537,