William R. Day

“ However this may be, in our view the question must be decided upon consideration of the applicable provisions of the statutes of the United States regulating interstate commerce. The purpose of the Act to Regulate Interstate Commerce (Act Feb. 4, 1887, c. 104, 24 Stat. 379) , frequently declared in the decisions of this court, was to provide one rate for all shipments of like character, and to make the only legal charge for the transportation of goods in interstate commerce the rate duly filed with the Commission. ”

“ The transaction, in the light of the act, amounted to an assumption on the part of Fink to pay the only legal rate the carrier had the right to charge or the consignee the right to pay. This may be in the present as well as some other cases a hardship upon the consignee due to the fact that he paid all that was demanded when the freight was delivered; but instances of individual hardship cannot change the policy which Congress has embodied in the statute in order to secure uniformity in charges for transportation. ”