Legal Aspects of Fees. 
209 
barely cover the cost of regulation; and yet the incidental or 
indirect results may be of such a character that it becomes an 
interference with commerce. The best example of this kind of 
a fee may be found in the case of Minnesota vs. Barber. 1 The 
validity of a statute passed by Minnesota in 1889 was here ques¬ 
tioned. This law provided for the inspection of all cattle, 
sheep, or swine designed for slaughter for human food, which 
inspection was required to be made within twenty-four hours of 
such slaughter. The inspectors appointed for this purpose, 
were allowed a small fee for their services. The avowed pur¬ 
pose of this law was to prevent the sale of infected and unsound 
meat, and the regulations imposed were devised to attain this 
end; nor were the fees charged exorbitant. No distinction was 
made in the law between residents of Minnesota and those of 
other states; and yet the act was held by the U. S. Supreme 
Court to result in a discrimination against citizens of other 
states, and to interfere with the commerce carried on by them. 
It became a discrimination because it was more difficult for a 
resident of Illinois to conform to its provisions than for a resi¬ 
dent of Minnesota. The court therefore declared it to be uncon¬ 
stitutional, not because the fee itself interfered with commerce, 
but because the indirect effects were such. It seems, therefore, 
to be accepted by the courts that any law which requires a 
party, under any pretext, to take out a license to carry on in¬ 
terstate commerce, interferes to that extent with such com¬ 
merce, and hence is unconstitutional. 2 
In the most recent cases quoted in the preceding, the courts 
seem to assert that inspection regulations involving fee pay¬ 
ments and other requirements of the same nature, come under 
this inhibition. 
1 136 U. S., 313. No beef packer in Illinois could send his cattle to Min¬ 
nesota and have them inspected and then ship them back to Illinois for 
slaughter; and yet this would be the practical effect of the law, if the 
meat was designed for sale in Minnesota. 
2 This has been the interpretation of the Supreme Court in Pickard vs. 
Pullman Southern Car Co ., 117 U. S., 594; Boffins vs. Shelby City 
Taxing District, 120 U. S., 489; Stutenbourgh vs. Henrick, 129 U. S., 
141; M. C. Call vs. Calif., 136 U. S., 129; Norfolk and Western R. B. 
Co. vs. Pa., 136 U. S., 114. , 
