Court Opinion

ID: 9419620
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:50:28.727962+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:19.127537
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Stone,
dissenting.
Mr. Justice Roberts, Mr. Justice Frankfurter, Mr. Justice Jackson, and I think that the application of the State of Georgia for leave to file its amended bill of complaint in this Court should be denied (1) because in its judicial discretion, this Court should, without deciding the merits, leave the State to its remedy, if any, in the district court; (2) because the State lacks standing to present the only substantial issue in the case; and (3) because in the present posture of the case, the bill of complaint, for several reasons, fails to state a cause of action for which a court of equity can give effective relief.
As the Court concedes and for reasons which will presently be more fully considered, the State, under the rule laid down in Keogh v. Chicago & Northwestern R. Co., 260 U. S. 156, cannot maintain its suit for damages resulting from the alleged conspiracy to fix unlawful interstate railroad freight rates. But the Court grants Georgia’s application to file on the ground that its bill of complaint, *469as now amended, states a cause of action under § 16 of the Clayton Act, c. 323, 38 Stat. 737, 15 TJ. S. C. § 26, for an injunction against a conspiracy in violation of the antitrust laws. The Court holds that such a suit is within the original jurisdiction of this Court, conferred by Article III, § 2, Cls. 1 and 2 of the Constitution. Clause 1 provides that the judicial power of the United States extends “to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under . . . the Laws of the United States” and “to Controversies . . . between a State and Citizens of another State. . . .” Clause 2 confers on this Court original jurisdiction of those cases or controversies “in which a State shall be Party.”
The Court disregards the fainthearted and unconvincing assertion of the State that it has a “common law” cause of action entitling it, independently of the Clayton Act and the federal antitrust laws, to maintain the present suit to restrain the alleged conspiracy to fix and maintain rates or charges for the interstate transportation of freight. We do not stop to consider this contention, for we are of the opinion that the objections to the maintenance of the present suit are essentially the same, whether it be regarded as a suit upon a cause of action arising under the Clayton Act or as one maintainable upon the equitable principles generally applicable in the federal courts independently of the Clayton Act.
I
If it be assumed that the State may maintain this action, either as -parens patriae or for the injury to itself as a shipper and consignee of interstate freight, the right sought to be established is in point of substance like that of a private corporation, and the remedy asked is one normally pursued in district courts whose facilities and prescribed judicial duties are better adapted to the trial *470of issues of fact than are those of this Court. In an original suit, even when the case is first referred to a master, this Court has the duty of making an independent examination of the evidence, a time-consuming process which seriously interferes with the discharge of our ever-increasing appellate duties. No reason appears why the present suit may not be as conveniently proceeded with in the district court of the proper venue as in this Court, or why the convenience of the parties and witnesses, as well as of the courts concerned, would be better served by a trial before a master appointed by this Court than by a trial in the appropriate district court with the customary appellate review. The case seems preeminently one where this Court may and should, in the exercise of its discretion and in the interest of a more efficient administration of justice, decline to exercise its jurisdiction, and remit the parties to the appropriate district court for the proper disposition of the case there. North Dakota v. Chicago & Northwestern R. Co., 257 U. S. 485; Georgia v. Chattanooga, 264 U. S. 472, 483; Oklahoma ex rel. Johnson v. Cook, 304 TJ. S. 387, 396; Massachusetts v. Missouri, 308 U.S. 1,17-20.
It is said that Georgia should not be deprived of the jurisdiction of this Court unless it can bring suit against all the defendants in one convenient district; and that there is no reason for assuming that all the defendants are amenable to suit in airy one judicial district. But this puts the shoe on the wrong foot. It is Georgia which seeks to invoke our equity jurisdiction to hear this case, and when the question of our discretionary power to remit the parties to an adequate remedy in some other court is raised, it is incumbent upon it to show that it will be unable to reach all the defendants in a convenient district. And Georgia, although invited on the argument of this motion to do so, has made no showing that the suit cannot be proceeded with in a district court as readily as in this *471Court. It made no such allegation in the amended bill of complaint which it tenders.1 Hence we can only conclude that there is no such obstacle.
Further, it may be readily determined from standard works of reference, such as The Official Guide of the Railways, Moody’s Steam Railroads, railroad timetables, and telephone directories, that the supposed difficulty is not a real one. Under § 12 of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. § 22, these defendants may be sued in any district in which they are “found” or “transact business.” A corporation both is “found” and “transacts business” in a district in which it operates a railroad or in which it maintains an office for the solicitation of freight or passenger traffic. See Eastman Kodak Co. v. Southern Photo Co., 273 U. S. 359, 370-374; United States v. Univis Lens Co., 316 U. S. 241, 246. These facts may be ascertained readily from the sources we have mentioned. It appears from them that there are several districts which would be as convenient for a trial as Washington, D. C., where proceedings before this Court would be had, and in which Georgia may obtain service of process upon at least as many of the defendants named in the complaint, as it may sue in this Court. For Georgia, itself, as well as this Court, seems reconciled to the suit’s continuing here with but eighteen of the twenty defendants, since two may be required to be dismissed from the suit as citizens of Georgia.2
*472Of the twenty defendants, at least 18, not including the New York, Chicago & St. Louis R. Co. and the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac R. Co. (R. F. & P.), are within the jurisdiction of the Northern District of Georgia. Of these defendants, at least 19, all but the R. F. & P., transact business in the Northern District of Illinois and in the Southern District of New York. At least 18, not including the R. F. & P. and the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Ry., are amenable to suit in the Western District of Pennsylvania and in the Eastern District of Michigan. At least 18, all but the R. F. & P. and the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway,3 are suable in the Eastern District of Missouri. Thus, there is no want of a suitable forum in which Georgia can reach at least the same number of defendants as she may sue in this Court. And it may be that service can be had on the other defendants in the districts named.
II
If leave to file were denied, as we think it should be, without prejudice to a suit in a district court, it would be unnecessary at this stage of the proceedings to pass upon the question whether the suit is one which a court of equity could entertain. But in assuming jurisdiction of the case, the Court passes on that question. Hence it becomes necessary to state the reasons why, in the present posture of the case, the State does not state a case for relief within our original jurisdiction.
The gist of the cause of action asserted by the amended complaint is the injury visited upon the inhabitants of the State of Georgia by the alleged conspiracy among the defendant railroads to fix and maintain unlawfully excessive and discriminatory rates upon freight moving *473by interstate rail transportation to and from Georgia. It is further alleged that the conspiracy violates the Sherman Act, and that its effect is to retard the economic growth of the State. To this is added what the Court concedes is a mere “makeweight” allegation of injury to the State in its capacity as an owner of a railroad, and as a shipper and consignee of freight.
But the inhabitants of the State who have suffered injury or who are threatened with injury by the unlawful practices alleged in the amended complaint are alone entitled to seek a legal remedy for their injury, and are the proper parties plaintiff in any suit to enforce their rights which are alleged to have been infringed. It has long been settled by the decisions of this Court that a State is without standing to maintain suit for injuries sustained by its citizens and inhabitants for which they may sue in their own behalf. New Hampshire v. Louisiana, 108 U. S. 76; Louisiana v. Texas, 176 U. S. 1; Oklahoma v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 220 U. S. 277, 289; Oklahoma ex rel. Johnson v. Cook, supra, 396-396; Jones ex rel. Louisiana v. Bowles, 322 U. S. 707. And many years ago it was established by decisions of this Court, whose authority has remained unimpaired until discarded by the opinion of the Court just announced, that a State does not stand in such relation to its citizens and inhabitants as to enable it to maintain an original suit in this Court to protect them by injunction from injuries to the State’s economy resulting from the maintenance of unlawful interstate freight rates. Oklahoma v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., supra; cf. Oklahoma v. Gulf, C. & S. F. R. Co., 220 U.S. 290, 301.
In the Atchison Railway.cam the plaintiff State alleged as the basis for its capacity to sue for relief, see 220 U. S. at 283-284, as does. Georgia here, that the maintenance of the unlawful structure of freight rates on commodities widely used by inhabitants of ■•the State was “ 'a menace *474to the future of said State’ . . . [and] a hindrance to the growth of the State.” This Court nevertheless held that the wrong was to the individuals of the State, and that the State was therefore not in a position to bring the suit as parens patriae.
The federal government is parens patriae with respect of the cause of action here alleged, and not the State. The federal government alone stands in such relationship to the citizens and inhabitants of the United States, as to permit the bringing of suit in their behalf, to protect them from the violation of federal laws relating to interstate commerce. See Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 485-486; Florida v. Mellon, 273 U. S. 12,18; Jones ex rel. Louisiana v. Bowles, supra. The Sherman Act, §§ 1-4, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1-4, recognized that it is the United States which is parens patriae, when it authorized the United States, not the individual States, to bring criminal prosecutions or suits for injunctions under the Act.
When the United States brings such a suit it is acting on behalf of the people of the United States, and in the national interest. The authority to bring such suits includes the discretionary authority not to bring them, if the responsible officers of the government are of the opinion that a suit is not warranted or would be of disservice to the national interest. To permit a State to bring a Sherman Act suit in behalf of the public is to fly in the face of the national policy established by Congress that the federal government should determine when such a suit is to be brought and how it should be prosecuted.
Thus the Sherman Act entrusted to the national government the duty to represent the people in the vindication of their rights under the antitrust laws. And this is confirmed by § 16 of the Clayton Act, which permits injunction suits by the United States against common carriers in respect of matters within the province of the Interstate Commerce Commission, while prohibiting such suits to all others, including a State. ' "
*475Ill
But even if, as the Court decides, Georgia has standing to maintain this suit, either in its own right or as parens patriae, and this Court has jurisdiction of the suit and should, in the exercise of its discretion, entertain it rather than remit the parties to the district court, the more important question remains whether the present suit is one in which a court of equity can give any effective relief.
The suit, so far as the Court allows its prosecution, is in equity to restrain an alleged conspiracy by the defendant rail carriers to fix and maintain unjust, unlawful, excessive, and discriminatory freight rates in violation of the antitrust laws. Section 16 of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. § 26, authorizes “any person” to maintain a suit to restrain violations of the antitrust laws, and the State of Georgia, suing for its own injuries, is a person within the meaning of that section. Georgia v. Evans, 316 U. S. 159. The section provides that the relief to be given is an injunction “against threatened loss or damage by a violation of the antitrust laws, . . . when and under the same conditions and principles as injunctive relief against threatened conduct that will cause loss or damage is granted by courts of equity, under the rules governing such proceedings . . .” And even though, as asserted, the suit be maintainable in the federal courts independently of the Clayton Act, the controlling principles governing the maintenance of the suit are the same in either case. The plaintiff must show threatened injury, Vicksburg Waterworks Co. v. Vicksburg, 185 U. S. 65, 82; Paine Lumber Co. v. Neal, 244 U. S. 459, 471; Duplex Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443, 464-465; compare Texas v. Florida, 306 U. S. 398, 406-412 with Massachusetts v. Missouri, supra, 15-16, for which he is without other adequate remedy, Matthews v. Rodgers, 284 U. S. 521, 525-526, and cases cited; Schoenthal v. Irving Trust Co., 287 U. S. 92, 94; Myers v. Bethlehem Corp., 303 U. S. 41, 50-52, and *476cases cited, and for which a court of equity is able to provide a remedy.
Georgia is threatened with injury only as the alleged conspiracy will result in the defendants’ charging freight rates other than those which would exist in the absence of the conspiracy. That is, Georgia is not injured unless other rates than those now in force would be charged if the alleged conspiracy were to cease. While threatened damage in that sense could be assumed in a free competitive market, freight rates are not, under the Interstate Commerce Act, arrived at by the processes of free competition. The requirements of the Act are, as we will see, that the rates be just and reasonable and that they accord with the national transportation policy; the determination, in the first instance, whether the rates conform to those standards is left by Congress to the Interstate Commerce Commission, not to the courts. And unless Georgia can show that the present rates are unlawful, or that some other rate structure, which could be substituted for that now in force, would be just and reasonable, which Georgia cannot do without prior resort to the Commission, it can not show that any other structure could lawfully exist or that any injury to it is threatened by the conspiracy.
It follows from this that the prerequisites to the maintenance of the present suit are lacking for the following reasons: First, the State has not availed itself of or exhausted the administrative remedies provided by the Interstate Commerce Act, which may afford an adequate remedy and which must in any case precede the institution of the present suit in equity. Second, the suit as now framed falls within the proviso of § 16 of the Clayton Act denying to any “person,” except the United States, authority “to bring suit in equity for injunctive relief against any common carrier subject to the provisions of” the Interstate Commerce Act, “in respect of any matter subject to the regulation, supervision, or other jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission.” And *477third, in the absence of a determination by the Commission of the unlawfulness of the interstate freight tariffs filed or proposed to be filed by the several defendant carriers, no court of equity could, within the scope of its authority, frame a decree effectively enjoining an agreement or “conspiracy” to file tariffs establishing interstate freight rates.
First. The fact that a State may constitutionally invoke the jurisdiction of this Court in a suit brought by it against citizens of another State, does not dispense with the further requisite that if equitable relief is sought, the bill of complaint must state a cause of action cognizable in equity, of such a nature that the Court can give relief. Texas v. Florida, supra, 405. It is, as we have said, a familiar principle governing the exercise of equity jurisdiction of federal courts that equitable relief may be invoked only when the plaintiff is without other adequate remedy. And it is a corollary of this that a suitor may not seek such relief until he has exhausted his available administrative remedies. Myers v. Bethlehem Corp., supra, 51, n. 9, and cases cited; Natural Gas Co. v. Slattery, 302 U. S. 300, 310-311.
Here, by the terms of § 16 of the Clayton Act, as well as the principles generally governing equitable relief in the federal courts, the State, in order to secure the aid of equity, must show injury caused or threatened by the alleged unlawful acts of which it complains. Since the wrongful acts relied upon are a conspiracy to adopt and maintain unjust, unlawful, excessive or discriminatory freight rates, the only threatened injury to the State or its inhabitants, resulting from the conspiracy, is that which is or may be caused by such unlawful rates.
But the Interstate Commerce Act requires all interstate rail carriers, before putting into effect rates or charges for interstate transportation to adopt and file with the Commission just and reasonable rates. §§ 1 (4) (5) (6),6 (1) (3), 49 U. S. C. §§ 1 (4) (5) (6), 6 (1) (3). It confers on *478the Commission exclusive jurisdiction to determine the lawfulness of all rates appearing in the filed tariffs, and authority to suspend rates, and to order the railroad to cease and desist from charging other than the lawful rates. §§ 15 (1) (7), 49 U. S. C. § 15 (1) (7). The Commission’s determination is to be in accordance with the “national transportation policy,” to develop and preserve a national transportation system, see Wisconsin Railroad Commission v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 257 U. S. 563, 585; New England Divisions Case, 261 U. S. 184, 189-190; Railroad Commission v. Southern Pacific Co., 264 U. S. 331, 341-342, and to establish and maintain “reasonable charges . . ., without . . . unfair or destructive competitive practices . . Transportation Act of 1940, c. 722, 54 Stat. 899, § 1.
The Commission is directed to consider the effect of rates on the movement of traffic, and the need of adequate and efficient railway transportation service at low cost, as well as the carriers’ need of revenues sufficient to enable them to provide that service. Interstate Commerce Act, as amended, § 15a, 49 U. S. C. § 15a. In fixing rates or divisions, the Commission’s determination may take account of the financial needs of the weaker carriers, by giving them a larger share of divisions, or by a general rate increase.4 New England Divisions Case, supra, 189-*479195; Beaumont, S. L. & W. R. Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 74; cf. Ann Arbor R. Co. v. United States, 281 U. S. 658. It may fix minimum as well as maximum rates, § 15, 49 U. S. C. § 15, thus permitting it to prevent cut-throat competition and to protect weaker competitors. It may consider the effect of competing means of transportation, or other relevant circumstances and conditions attending the transportation service. See Barringer & Co. v. United States, 319 U. S. 1, and authorities cited; and on the considerations upon which the Commission fixes rates, see Sharfman, The Interstate Commerce Commission, Volume III-B. These and many other controlling factors, which enter the Commission’s determination of rates, may be irrelevant to decision in an ordinary Sherman Act case, but are inextricably interwoven with the present suit, in which the State must establish that injury to it is threatened by the conspiracy to fix freight rates.
The Commission’s orders are enforceable by injunctions in the district courts. § 16 (12), 49 U. S. C. § 16 (12). And the administrative remedy is exclusive of any which may be afforded by courts, at least until the Commission has passed upon the validity of the rates and classifications involved. Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U. S. 426; Robinson v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 222 U. S. 506; Northern Pacific R. Co. v. Solum, 247 U. S. 477; Director General of Railroads v. Viscose Co., 254 U. S. 498; Midland Valley R. Co. v. Barkley, 276 U. S. 482. Until the Commission acts, no court can say that the rates are not lawful and reasonable or that they are not within the lowest range of the zone of reasonableness. Nor can either be assumed, the burden being upon Georgia to show that it is injured by the acts of which it complains. And if the present rates are at the lowest point of reasonableness, as they well may be, Georgia is not injured, for in that event no lower rates *480could be lawfully enforced by the Commission or the courts.
It is not without pertinence to the present application that the State of Georgia and seven other southern States are parties to proceedings now pending before the Interstate Commerce Commission, Docket No. 28300, Class Rate Investigation, and Docket No. 28310, Consolidated Ereight Classification, in which the Chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission has appeared as the principal witness on behalf of the State. In these proceedings the witness urged uniformity of rates in southern and official classification territories, in conformity to the official territory system of rates. The witness relied on § 3 (1) of the Act, 49 U. S. C. § 3 (1), making it unlawful for any rail carrier to make or give undue or unreasonable preferences or advantage to any particular person, locality or particular description of traffic; on § 1 (4) (5) (6), 49 U. S. C. § 1 (4) (5) (6), requiring common carriers by rail to establish just and reasonable rates, fares, charges and classifications; and on § 5 (b) of the Transportation Act of 1940, which requires the Commission to investigate the lawfulness of rates between points in different classification territories and to enter such orders as may be appropriate for the removal “of any unlawfulness which may be found to exist.”
It is plain that the Commission has jurisdiction in these proceedings to set aside such unlawful rates as may have resulted from the conspiracies alleged in the State’s amended complaint. If the Commission orders them set aside, nothing further remains for any court to do, for reasons which will presently more fully appear, save only as it may be asked to review or enforce the Commission’s order. Without prior resort to the Commission, Georgia does not and cannot establish in a court proceeding that it is threatened with injury by the conspiracy or that it *481is necessary for it to resort to the courts to secure the relief which it seeks in the present suit.
The State seeks to avoid these plain provisions of the Clayton and Interstate Commerce Acts by its insistence that by its amended complaint it asks relief not from the unlawful rates which have been or will be established as a result of the alleged conspiracy, but from the conspiracy itself, over which the Interstate Commerce Commission is said to have no jurisdiction, and from which it can give no relief. In the State's bill of complaint, as originally presented, it sought an injunction setting aside the unlawful rates. Evidently realizing that all courts are precluded from taking such action before the Commission has determined the validity of the rates, the State sought to overcome the difficulty by an amendment to its bill of complaint, purporting to withdraw its attack on the rates and assailing the conspiracy alone. But, as the Court seems to recognize, even the amended complaint contains allegations and raises issues as to whether the rates charged by the defendants are discriminatory. The complaint therefore raises questions as to interference with the primary jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission which are essentially the same as those presented by the original bill.
This verbal maneuver, as a means of conferring jurisdiction on this Court, is futile, for the reason, as we have said, that the State cannot maintain its suit in equity either under § 16 of the Clayton Act or upon general equity principles, without establishing a threatened injury to it or those whom it represents. And this is equally true whether it sues as parens patriae or as owner of a railroad, and a shipper and consignee of freight. The threatened injury can ensue only from the maintenance of the unlawful rates and practices, which are specially charged to be discriminatory. But “a rate is not necessarily illegal be*482cause it is the result of a conspiracy in restraint of trade in violation of the Anti-Trust Act. What rates are legal is determined by the Act to Regulate Commerce” and not by the antitrust laws. Keogh v. Chicago & Northwestern R. Co., supra, 162. Hence it follows in this case that the suit can be maintained only by showing that the alleged conspiracy has resulted or will result in unlawful rates, or that without the conspiracy, lawful rates, other than those now in force, would prevail, determinations which can be made only by the Interstate Commerce Commission, and which must be made by it, before this Court can take any judicial action based upon such determinations.
We assume for present purposes that a conspiracy to fix lawful rates may be a violation of the antitrust laws, as was intimated in the Keogh case. But as this Court there pointed out, pages 161-162, the remedy is not to be had by the suit of a private individual; “the Government may have redress by criminal proceedings under § 3, by injunction under § 4, and by forfeiture under § 6.” The State cannot, more than a private individual, bring a suit under the Clayton Act to restrain the conspiracy unless it be a conspiracy to do something injurious to the plaintiff. The only such injury alleged in a great variety of ways is that caused by unlawful and discriminatory freight rates established by the conspiracy. No such injury can be presumed from a conspiracy to fix lawful rates or to fix any rate unless it can be known with what new rates those now in force will be replaced by Commission action.
For this and like reasons, this Court has uniformly refused to permit a party under guise of suing under the antitrust laws, to seek in the courts by indirection, determinations which are reserved for the Commission in the first instance. Keogh v. Chicago & Northwestern R. Co., supra; Central Transfer Co. v. Terminal Railroad Assn., 288 U. S. 469, 476; Terminal Warehouse Co. v. Pennsyl*483vania R. Co., 297 U. S. 500; and compare United States Navigation Co. v. Cunard S. S. Co., 284 U. S. 474; Armour & Co. v. Alton R. Co., 312 U. S. 195. As these cases show, the State cannot make its assault on a matter said not to be within the jurisdiction of the Commission, when adjudication must turn upon matters which are within its jurisdiction. Here the Court cannot ascertain and enjoin threatened injury resulting from a conspiracy to fix unlawful freight rates without considering their lawfulness and reasonableness, and thus encroaching upon the authority which Congress has given to the Commission alone. The case is therefore peculiarly one for the application of the rule that equity will not undertake to give relief until the plaintiff has exhausted his administrative remedies, for until that has occurred, it cannot be known that the plaintiff is without adequate relief or, in the event that it is not, what relief equity may appropriately give.
Second. Independent of, but supplementing the considerations which indicate the unmistakable intention of Congress that a suit like the present should not be made the means of breaking down the regulatory powers of the Commission, are the provisions of § 16 of the Clayton Act. As already noted, a proviso to the section withholds from “any person” other than the United States the right “to bring suit in equity for injunctive relief against any common carrier subject to the provisions of” the Interstate Commerce Act “in respect of any matter subject to the regulation, supervision, or other jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission.”
When the Clayton Act was adopted in 1914, the Commission had already been given broad powers to fix and regulate rates by the Hepburn Act of June 29, 1906, c. 3591, 34 Stat. 584, and the Mann-Elkins Act of June 18, 1910, c. 309, 36 Stat. 539. Congress realized the danger that indiscriminate suits for injunctions under the *484antitrust laws, in many cases affecting interstate rail carriers, would substitute the many district courts for the Commission, the single rate-making authority, a retrogression from the consistent Congressional policy to avoid confusion and conflict in this field. Hence, when Congress, by § 16 of the Clayton Act, for the first time authorized private suitors to seek relief by injunction under the antitrust laws, it was at pains to bar such suits against carriers with respect to any matters within the province of the Commission. Thus it was the purpose of § 16 to preclude the breakdown of the unified rate structure established for the nation by the Commission, as would inevitably result from the maintenance under the Sherman Act of numerous individual suits, like the present one, affecting rates which Congress had left within the Commission's exclusive control in the first instance.
The statutory command can no more be evaded than may the exclusive jurisdiction of the Commission to regulate rates, by saying that the “relief” which Georgia seeks is not a matter subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission. Section 16 does not foreclose a suit merely where the “relief” is a matter subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission'. Its words are much broader. They deny the remedy, except to the United States, “in respect of any matter subject to . . . the jurisdiction” of the Commission. As we have said, Georgia cannot show damage save by showing that the Commission would approve some rate structure other than that presently existing. That is certainly a “matter subject to the . . . jurisdiction” of the Commission, sufficient to preclude a suit under § 16.
The inseparability of equitable relief against a rate-making conspiracy from that against the unlawfulness of the rates which are or may be its fruits; has already been pointed out. Suffice it to say here that precisely the argument now made for disregarding the prohibition of § 16 was rejected by this Court in a suit brought by an injured *485private party to restrain agreements or conspiracies, to do acts within, the jurisdiction of the Commission. Central Transfer Co. v. Terminal Railroad Assn., supra. And compare United States Navigation Co. v. Cunard S. S. Co., supra, where this Court gave the like construction to § 16 of the Clayton Act, in its comparable relation to the authority of the Shipping Board to fix rates under the Shipping Act of 1916, c. 451, 39 Stat. 728, 46 U. S. C. §§ 801-842, as amended by the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, c. 250, 41 Stat. 988.
In the Central Transfer Co. case it was urged that § 16 of the Clayton Act did not preclude the relief sought, since the Commission did not have jurisdiction over the agreements or contracts complained of, but only .over the acts involved in their performance. This Court gave the conclusive answer which we think should be given now, that no injunction could be effectively given against the agreement or conspiracy without in some manner relating it to the lawfulness of the acts done or to be done in execution of the agreement or contract, and that the determination of the lawfulness of those acts and their regulation were within the exclusive jurisdiction of the administrative agency. In that case, as well as in the United States Navigation Co. case, it was pointed out that any other construction would defeat the plain purpose of § 16 to preclude, except in suits by the Government, judicial interference with or prejudgment of the lawfulness of matters which Congress has indubitably placed within the jurisdiction of the administrative agency.
Equitable relief under § 16 in the present case must be denied upon the principle identical with that upon which the Court has relied in denying the right of the State to recover damages in the suit which it proposes here. The fact that in this branch of the case, as in Keogh v. Chicago & Northwestern R. Co., supra, and Terminal Warehouse Co. v. Pennsylvania R. Co., supra, the suit is for damages *486resulting from unlawful rates, instead of an injunction restraining threatened damage or injury, is without significance. For in either case, damage cannot ensue unless the agreement or conspiracy results in an unlawful rate or practice of whose lawfulness the Commission is the sole arbiter. And in both, this Court has held that the suit cannot be maintained without first resorting to the Commission.
Congress did not see fit by its extensive revision of the Interstate Commerce Act in the Transportation Act of 1940, to alter the application of the Clayton Act to the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission. For us to alter it now to meet the exigencies of a particular case, which presents no plausible relevant differences from those which we have heretofore decided, is an assumption of power which only Congress could rightly exercise, and a power which it has plainly declined to exercise.
Third. Even assuming, as the State does, and as the Court is persuaded, that a court of equity could be called upon to enjoin a conspiracy to establish rates in anticipation of a determination of their unlawfulness, it would plainly be impossible to frame a decree for relief in advance of a determination by the Commission that the present rates are unlawful, or that those resulting from the decree would be lawful. Courts cannot enjoin, in general terms, violations of the Sherman Act, without specifying what acts are to be enjoined as violations, or as aiding or inducing violations. Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U. S. 375, 396; Swift & Co. v. United States, 276 U. S. 311, 328; cf. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Comm’n, 200 U. S. 361, 404; Labor Board v. Express Publishing Co., 312 U. S. 426. Nor can it determine in advance what rates may be lawfully established since the jurisdiction to make that determination is reserved exclusively to the Commission.
*487Hence the suggestion, which the Court has been persuaded to accept, that this Court can find a way to enjoin the alleged conspiracy to fix rates, without regard to what rates are or may be agreed upon and whether the Commission finds them to be lawful or unlawful, is an invitation to a course of the veriest futility. Any injunction which this Court could properly frame must not be an idle gesture. It must be one to prevent the threatened injury. An injunction to prevent a conspiracy without relation to its injurious consequences could not have that effect, and the injunction could be related to those consequences in this case only by defining rates and practices which the Commission has not declared, and may or may not declare, to be unlawful.
It is futile to attempt to enjoin a conspiracy to fix rates because of their injurious effect on the plaintiff, unless it is known that they are unlawful or will be and unless the Court is free to determine the point. And it is futile for this Court to attempt to prescribe what rates will be lawful since its determination will not be binding upon the Commission, and may be ignored by it. Indeed, even after the Commission has made such a determination this Court, in the first instance, is without power to set it aside, North Dakota v. Chicago & Northwestern R. Co., supra; Texas v. Interstate Commerce Comm’n, 258 U. S. 158, 164-165, for exclusive jurisdiction to set aside an order of the Commission is vested in a district court of three judges under the Urgent Deficiencies Act, c. 32, 38 Stat. 219, as amended, 28 U. S. C. §§ 41 (28), 43.
It is the duty of this Court to dismiss an original suit in which it cannot make an effective decree. See Arizona v. California, 298 U. S. 558, 572, and cases cited. A fortiori, it is its duty not to entertain such a suit.
The soundness and the compelling necessity for the construction which the Court has hitherto given to § 16 of the Clayton Act could not be better illustrated and em*488phasized than by reference to the situation exhibited by the case which is now before us. Any decree, effective to prevent the injury of which the State complains, would necessarily result in further inequalities in rates, such as are now alleged to exist. The Court cannot enjoin as unlawful the alleged conspiracy to establish rates without undertaking to say what rates and practices are to be deemed lawful and what unlawful. But by this determination the Interstate Commerce Commission would not be bound, nor would the United States or any railroad other than those which are parties defendant.
Only Georgia would secure relief approximating that sought by the bill. If relief enjoining the conspiracy complained of were effective to relieve the State of the injury from unlawful rates to which it objects, and without which it could not maintain the suit under § 16, the decree must result in a new rate structure applicable to the railroads which are parties defendant. Prejudice and discrimination would be created as to every other State in southern territory and as to shippers and consignees of freight in those States who would still be governed by the published tariff rates, against which only Georgia and its citizens would have secured some measure of relief. There would be two sets of rates between the south and the north, one, effected as a result of this Court’s decree, applicable to shippers in Georgia over the railroads which are defendants here, and another governed by published tariffs approved by the Commission and applicable to all other shippers and railroads in the south. Since illegality in existing rates is averred because of disparity in the level of rates in two rate-making areas, with no allegation that southern carriers receive more than a fair charge for their transportation service, the Court would be required to determine whether the discrimination should be removed by increasing rates in official territory or establishing an intermediate level of new rates, Interstate Commerce *489Commission v. United States, 289 U. S. 385, 392 — a determination which could be arrived at only by the performance by this Court of the legislative function of rate making which has hitherto been reserved to the Commission.
If all this is to be avoided by the injunction against the alleged conspiracy, but without enjoining any of its asserted evil consequences in rate making, the issue originally tendered would, by the amendment to the bill of complaint, seem to amount to little if anything more than a political issue. The amended complaint alleges that “The wrong done transcends that experienced by individuals. Eor as men, firms, and corporations have come and gone, the conspiracy has continued over the decades.” While trial upon the original complaint might have reduced this grievance to the dimensions of a cause of action to enjoin illegal freight rates injurious to the State, it now appears as the grievance of a section of the country against an existing federal system of rate making, which should be addressed to Congress rather than to this Court.
The support which the Department of Justice lends to Georgia’s contentions by the brief amicus, filed in this Court in behalf of the United States, removes any evident need for entertaining this suit. The Government is charged with the enforcement of the antitrust' laws, and is authorized by § 4 of the Sherman Act and § 16 of the Clayton Act to maintain suits for that purpose, which others cannot bring. If it believes that the alleged conspiracy exists and should be stopped by the remedial action of courts, without resort to the Commission, there would seem to be no reason why, avoiding the many technical obstacles to the present suit, it should not proceed to remedy in the usual manner the grievances of the citizens of the United States including citizens of Georgia. ' ’
*490Other objections aside, it seems obvious that this Court cannot give any effective relief removing the threat of injury to the State resulting from a railroad rate conspiracy without breaking down the system of rate regulation by the Commission — a system which Congress has painstakingly built up since the decisions, more than forty-five years ago, in United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Assn., 166 U. S. 290, and United States v. Joint Traffic Assn., 171 U. S. 505, when the Commission was without power to prescribe rates. See Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., supra; Terminal Warehouse Co. v. Pennsylvania R. Co., supra, 513.
The reasoning of the Court is not and cannot be restricted to this case. If Georgia may prosecute the present suit, every shipper or consignee of freight who asserts injury by a conspiracy respecting railroad rates in violation of the antitrust laws may maintain a like suit in a district court. The prosecution of such suits cannot fail to bring chaos into the field of interstate rate making. The entry of decrees for the plaintiffs could only mean the breakdown of the unified system of fixing rates by Commission action, which Congress has ordained by the Interstate Commerce Act. It was the purpose of § 16 of the Clayton Act to preclude such a breakdown. Its purpose can and should be effected by the refusal of this Court to entertain the proposed suit.

 Some reliance is placed on an allegation of the proposed amended complaint, which, in its context, is that the matters of which complaint is made are not within the jurisdiction of the state courts of Georgia; but that has no bearing on the question whether they are within the competence of a federal district court in Georgia or in any other State.

 These two defendants are the Seaboard Air Line Railway Co., and the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Ry., two of the largest of the southern defendants.

 This defendant has been operating since 1924 as the Clinchfield Railroad Company, under lease to the Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. and the Louisville & Nashville R. Co.

 Under the recapture clause of the Transportation Act of 1920, e. 91,41 Stat. 488, § 422, adding § 15a to the Interstate Commerce Act, profits of carriers in excess of a fair return were held in trust for purposes of improving railroad service. Dayton-Goose Creek R. Co. v. United States, 263 U. S. 456. The recapture clause was repealed by the Act of June 16, 1933, c. 91, 48 Stat. 220, § 205. But its underlying purpose to permit rates sufficient to provide an adequate and efficient transportation system was reaffirmed by the declaration of a “National Transportation Policy” which the Commission is commanded to observe, by the Transportation Act of 1940, c. 722, 54 Stat. 899, § 1.