earnings law of 1883 by the gross earnings law of 1889. This later act expressly declares that a failure to pay a tax on the gross earnings, both territorial and interstate, is a failure to comply with the terms of the act of 1883. I can see no justification fora distinction which applies this rule of construction when the subsequent act throws but a faint light upon the meaning of the former statute, and utterly ignores this rule of construction in the same opinion with respect to a case where the legislative interpretation is full and explicit. Such interpretation, however, could not prevail against prior judicial construction of the clear meaning of the law. The language of the Michigan act, held unconstitutional in the Fargo Case, was quite similar to the act of 1883, in so far as the question as to what gross earnings were to be taxed is concerned. It provided for the payment by persons or corporations running railroad cars within the state of a fixed tax by a percentage on the “gross amount of their receipts for freight earned within the limits of the state.” Yet in both the state and the federal supreme court it was undisputed that local earnings on interstate traffic were within the language of the act, these tribunals differing only as to the power to tax such earnings.
The next question is whether the portion of the act of 1888 exempting plaintiff's land grant (assuming that it does in fact exempt such property) falls within the unconstitutional part of the statute. On such a question authorities are unnecessary. The case is so plain that no case should be followed which would sustain the exemption under such circumstances. It was given for a consideration, six-sevenths of which has failed. In the Raymond Case it appeared that the tax derived from the percentage on earnings of local commerce was about one-seventh that which would be received from a percentage on the earnings of both local and interstate transportation. Nor do we need to test this question by what transpired subsequently to the enactment of the law. The Raymond Case is only an illustration of what every one, including the members of the legislature, knew when the act of 1883 was passed. It was known that the internal commerce of the territory was insignificant, as compared with its interstate commerce. The people were chiefly
