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also include the expense of inspection of the poles and wires used, and of such supervision of the business of the company conducted in the streets, as may be reasonably necessary to secure the safety of life and property of the inhabitants and of the users of the streets; but with the authority in the courts, on proper application, to determine whether, under the conditions prevailing in a given case, the charge made is reasonably proportionate to the service to be rendered and the liabilities involved, or whether it is a disguised attempt to impose a burden on interstate commerce. St. Louis v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 148 U. S. 92; St. Louis v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 149 U. S. 465; Postal Telegraph-Cable Co. v. Baltimore, 156 U. S. 210; Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Co. v. Philadelphia, 190 U. S. 160, 163; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Pennsylvania R. R. Co., 195 U. S. 540, 566; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Richmond, 224 U. S. 160, 169.

These decisions and principles dispose of the "pole tax" before us.

The total amount of this tax was, in 1911, $344, in 1914, $384, and in 1915, owing to the extension of the city limits, it became $666. There is evidence which must be credited, that poles and wires in the streets of a city require official inspection and supervision to secure their being kept in proper position and repair, so that they will not interfere with street traffic and may not, especially in time of storm, become crossed with wires carrying high tension currents and thus cause fires and loss of life and property. There is conflict in the evidence as to the cost to the city of such inspection and regulation, but the amount stated does not seem excessive for the service which should be rendered, and which witnesses for the city testified was rendered, in looking after the many poles of the appellant, part of which, at least, carried many wires. As great or greater charges were sustained in St. Louis v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 148 U. S. 92; Postal

Telegraph-Cable Co. v. Baltimore, 156 U. S. 210; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Richmond, 224 U. S. 160, 172.

The contention cannot be allowed that the ordinance is shown to be void by a formula, devised by an officer of the appellant and pressed upon our attention, for determining the division of costs and expenses between interstate and intrastate business, which it is claimed shows that the pole tax must be paid wholly from receipts from interstate business.

Regardless of obvious criticisms which might be advanced to this formula and to the inadequacy of the data furnished by the record for testing its validity, the charge imposed upon the company, as we have seen, was so moderate in amount, having regard to the necessary burdens which the poles and wires in the streets must impose upon the city, and is so well within the prior holdings of this court, which we have cited, that it cannot be accepted as a sufficient basis for declaring the ordinance invalid.

There is no disposition on the part of this court to modify in the least the law as it has been stated in many cases, that "neither licenses nor indirect taxation of any kind, nor any system of state regulation, can be imposed upon interstate any more than upon foreign commerce; and that all acts of legislation producing any such result are, to that extent, unconstitutional and void." Crutcher v. Kentucky, 141 U. S. 47, 62; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Kansas, 216 U. S. 1. But municipal ordinances, which for constitutional inquiry are deemed state laws, will be declared void only where clearly shown to be unconstitutional and this very certainly cannot be said of the ordinances in this case, assailed as they are, upon inadequate evidence and upon purely empirical calculations which we are asked to adopt.

It results that the decree of the District Court must be

Affirmed.

BOARD OF PUBLIC UTILITY COMMISSIONERS v. MANILA ELECTRIC RAILROAD & LIGHT COMPANY.

APPEAL FROM AND ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.

No. 230. Argued March 14, 1919.—Decided March 24, 1919.

A judgment of the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands, which denied the right of the Board of Public Utility Commissioners to require a Manila street car company to give free transportation to detectives wearing their badges concealed, and was based wholly upon a construction of the company's franchise ordinance, held not subject to review under Jud. Code, § 248, before the amendment of September 6, 1916, (1) as clearly not involving the Constitution or any statute, treaty, title or privilege of the United States, and (2) because the value in controversy was not shown to exceed $25,000.

Writ of error and appeal to review 30 Phil. Rep. 387, dismissed.

THE case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. Edward S. Bailey for appellant and plaintiff in error.

Mr. Robert H. Neilson, with whom Mr. Paul D. Cravath and Mr. Sherman Woodward were on the brief, for appellee and defendant in error.

Memorandum opinion by MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WHITE.

The Manila Electric Railroad & Light Company, the appellee, operated in the City of Manila a street railway and an electric light and power plant by virtue of a franchise conferred by an ordinance adopted in 1902 by the City in the exercise of a power given it by the local legislative authority.

From the beginning, in giving effect to the provision of the franchise ordinance requiring that "members of the Police and Fire Departments of the City of Manila wearing official badges shall be entitled to ride free upon the cars of the grantee," that requirement was treated by the grantee as not embracing members of the detective branch of the Police Department who did not publicly wear official badges, although having such badges concealed upon their persons in such manner that they could be exposed or inspected when desired.

In 1914 the Board of Public Utility Commissioners, deeming that members of the detective force not publicly wearing their badges were entitled to ride free under the provisions of the ordinance, after notice and hearing to the Railroad on the subject, entered an order directing that members of the detective force be allowed to ride free under the circumstances stated. The Railroad, challenging the validity of the order, refused to obey it and, availing of the remedy provided by the local law, invoked the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. In that court it disputed not only the correctness of the interpretation which had been given the ordinance by the Utility Commissioners but charged that if such interpretation were enforced a violation would result of the rights of the company in particulars stated guaranteed to it by the Bill of Rights provided by Congress for the Philippine Islands. The court, passing as unnecessary to be considered all the contentions made by the Railroad but the single one concerning the duty of the company under the franchise ordinance to furnish the free transportation ordered, decided that under the text of that ordinance the duty to furnish such transportation did not exist, and therefore set aside the order of the Commissioners. That body, both by error and appeal, brought the subject here for consideration.

As the action of the court complained of was taken

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before the Act of September 6, 1916, and the appellate jurisdiction of this court was invoked before that act went into effect, our power to review is governed by § 248 of the Judicial Code. By that section the authority to review under the situation here disclosed can depend only upon one or both of two considerations, (a) whether the Constitution or any statute, treaty, title or privilege of the United States is involved, or (b) whether the value in controversy exceeds $25,000. Compañia General v. Alhambra Cigar Co., ante, 72.

We are of opinion that the mere construction by the court of the franchise ordinance, and its consequent ruling that the duty did not rest on the Railroad Company to give the free transportation which the orders of the Commissioners had directed to be given affords no ground for bringing the case within the first consideration, and indeed, that the contention that it does is too unsubstantial, not to say frivolous, to afford any basis for jurisdiction; and that the same conclusion is inevitably required as to the second consideration as the record discloses no ground whatever for concluding that the Utility Commissioners had any such pecuniary interest as to bring the case within the statute.

Dismissed for want of jurisdiction.