A license tax on an importer, or on the business of importing goods from another State, is a taxation of, and therefore an unconstitutional regulation of interstate commerce. This was early determined in the case of Brown v. Maryland.52 This principle was somewhat disturbed in the License Cases,53 but was later fully reestablished.

In Leloup v. Mobile54 the court declared invalid a general license tax on a telegraph company, on the ground that it affected entire business, interstate as well as domestic. "The tax affects the whole business without discrimination," the court declared. "There are sufficient modes in which the internal business, if not already taxed in some other way, may be subjected to taxation, without the imposition of a tax which covers the entire operations of the company."

Where, however, a company is doing both interstate and in-trastate commerce business, a license tax may be levied upon the latter if it be separable from the former and if the company be left free, should it desire to do so, to give up its domestic business and continue undisturbed its interstate transactions.

In Pullman Co. v. Adams55 the court say: "If the Pullman Company, whether called a common carrier or not, had the right to choose between what points it would carry, and therefore to give up the carriage of passengers from one point to another within the State, the case is governed by Osborne v. Florida, 164 XT. S. 650, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 214; 41 L. ed. 586. The company cannot complain of being taxed for the privilege of doing a local business which it is free to renounce." 56 condition precedent to the transaction of interstate business. And, furthermore, if the tax, whatever its name, amounts to more than an ordinary tax upon the property of the company doing both an interstate and domestic business, it will be held void. In Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. Adams57 the court say: "Property in a State belonging to a corporation, whether foreign or domestic, engaged in foreign or interstate commerce, may be taxed, or a tax may be imposed on the corporation on account of its property within a State, and may take the form of a tax for the privilege of exercising its franchises within the State, if the ascertainment of the amount is made dependent in fact on the value of its property situated within the State (the exaction, therefore, not being susceptible of exceeding the sum which might be leviable directly thereon), and if payment be not made a condition precedent to the right to carry on the business, but its enforcement left to the ordinary means devised for the collection of taxes. The corporation is thus made to bear its proper proportion of the burdens of government under whose protection it conducts its operations, while interstate commerce is not in itself subjected to restraint or impediment."

It must clearly appear, however, that the license tax is exclusively upon the local business, and that its payment is not a

52 12 Wh 419; 6 L. ed. 678. 53 5 How. .104: 12 L ed 256.

54 127 U. S. 640; 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1383; 32 L. ed. 311. 55 189 U. S. 420: 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 494: 47 L. ed. 477.

56 But see, in modification of this. Pullman Co. v. Kansas, 216 U. S. 54: 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 232.

The exaction by a city of a tax on the poles of a telegraph company, doing an interstate commerce business, has been held to be not a license tax on the interstate commerce, but a rental for the use by the company of the city streets.58 Such a tax, however, the court point out, may not be unreasonable in amount59