ruling of the Land Department resulting in a failure to withdraw the granted lands from entry; and upon the ground that the lieu land locations were without warrant in law, suit had been brought, and was then pending, to cancel the patents.1

1 (From 28 Cong. Rec., Pt. 2, p. 1906.) "Mr. Hepburn: In another instance that I am familiar with, Mr. Speaker, in your own State [Mr. Mercer in the chair], there was a grant to a company when practically, by an error or an oversight on the part of the officers of the United States, the lands lying on the line on either side of the file plat of the road were not withdrawn from market for a considerable period. Settlers came in and took these lands. Later, when the railroad was constructed, it was found that there was not within the limits of the grant a sufficient quantity to meet the purposes of the grant. The Department held that lieu lands might be given-lands in another locality-and the company was compelled to go away beyond its grant to lands that did not have the benefit of the construction of this road and take 201,000 acres, and one block of 10,000 acres of it they sold for $2,500-25 cents an acre; but they took these lands under the then ruling of the Department. Under the advice of the law officers of the Department, subsequently the Department changed its view. . . . Then they changed the ruling and held that lands must be taken within the prescribed limits or else the entries and selections were void. Now, one of the suits ordered is to recover the title of these lands taken in lieu of those that the company lost through the failure of the federal officers to withdraw the lands from market.

"Mr. Lacey: As to the instance that my colleague cites as having occurred in Nebraska, I propose at the proper time to offer an amendment which I think will cover the points he has in mind. I will send the amendment to the Clerk's desk to be read as a part of my remarks, so that it may appear in the Record for the information of members. "The amendment was read, as follows:

"Add at the end of section 1: 'Provided, that no suit shall be brought or maintained, nor shall recovery be had for lands or the value thereof, that were certified or patented in lieu of other lands covered by a grant which were lost or relinquished by the grantee in consequence of the failure of the Government or its officers to withdraw the same from sale or entry.""

On the following legislative day (p. 1937), the amendment was offered by Mr. Lacey, accompanied with this explanation: "My

It is not our purpose to relax the rule that debates in Congress are not appropriate or even reliable guides to the meaning of the language of an enactment. United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight Assn., 166 U. S. 290, 318. But the reports of a committee, including the bill as introduced, changes made in the frame of the bill in the course of its passage, and statements made by the committee chairman in charge of it, stand upon a different footing, and may be resorted to under proper qualifications. Blake v. National Banks, 23 Wall. 307, 317; Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U. S. 457, 464; Dunlap v. United States, 173 U. S. 65, 75; Binns v. United States, 194 U. S. 486, 495; Johnson v. Southern Pacific Co., 196 U. S. 1, 20; Pennsylvania R. R. Co. v. International Coal Co., 230 U. S. 184, 198; Five Per Cent. Discount Cases, 243 U. S. 97, 107. The remarks of Mr. Lacey, and the amendment offered by him, in response to an objection urged by another member during the debate, were in the nature of a supplementary report of the committee; and as they related to matters of common knowledge they may very properly be taken into consideration as throwing light upon the meaning of the proviso; not for the purpose of construing it contrary to its plain terms, but in order to remove any ambiguity by pointing out the subject-matter of the amendment. This is but an application of the doctrine of the old law, the mischief, and the remedy.

The case of the Nebraska lands, mentioned in the debate, is easily identified from public sources of infor

colleague [Mr. Hepburn] on yesterday explained that in Nebraska and in some other localities 'lieu lands' had been patented in place of lands that the railroad companies had lost by reason of mistake in the Department in allowing settlement upon those lands. The amendment that I offer confirms the title to those lands that have been thus patented to railroad companies where they have lost other lands by reason of mistake committed in the Department."

The amendment was agreed to (p. 1938).

310.

Opinion of the Court.

mation. By Act of July 2, 1864, c. 216, § 19, 13 Stat. 356, 364, the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad Company was granted ten alternate sections per mile on each side of its road in that State. Owing to the failure of the Land Department to take the proper steps about withdrawing the land from the entry, large quantities of the granted lands south of the line were taken up by settlers, and in lieu of this the company was permitted by the Department to take excess lands on the north side of the line to the amount of over 200,000 acres. In United States v. Burlington & Missouri River R. R. Co. (1878), 98 U. S. 334, this court held that the grant was not limited to lands situate within twenty miles of the road, nor confined to the land opposite to each twenty-mile section of the line, as the Department had held; the court saying (p. 340): "If, as in the present case, by its [the Department's] neglect for years to withdraw from sale land beyond twenty miles from the road, the land opposite to any section of the road has been taken up by others and patented to them, there can be no just objection to allowing the grant to the company to be satisfied by land situated elsewhere along the general line of the road." At the same time the court held (p. 342): "The Act of Congress contemplates that one-half of the land granted should be taken on each side of the road; and the department could not enlarge the quantity on one side to make up a deficiency on the other." However, because the bill as drawn did not identify that part of the land as to which the company's patents were invalid, the decree of the circuit court in favor of the company was affirmed. Soon after the passage of the Act of March 3, 1887, an adjustment was directed for the purpose of distinguishing the tracts erroneously patented to the company on the north side in excess of the amount to which it was entitled on that side, the excess being 200,364.70 acres, and procuring a relinquishment by the company or a cancellation of the pat

ents in accordance with the Act of 1887. Burlington & Missouri River R. R. Co., 6 L. D. 589; Chapman v. Burlington & Missouri River R. R. Co., 20 L. D. 496. It appears that a suit to carry out the adjustment by vacating the erroneous patents was pending at the time of the passage of the Act of 1896. The language of the proviso was aptly chosen to bar such a suit.

But it is said that there is no reason for confining the policy of the proviso to past patents; that if it is only fair, honest, and just that lands patented in lieu of others lost or relinquished by the grantee in consequence of some failure on the part of the Government or its officers should be held by indefeasible title, the same policy would with equal reason apply to future patents. In short, the appeal is to the equity of the statute. But equity implies equality; equal fairness and honesty on both sides. If the prospective interpretation of the proviso could be confined to future patents obtained without fraud or mistake, there would be force in the argument; but suits for the annulment of patents based upon fraud or mistake are the very ones that are proposed to be barred; and in such circumstances no appeal to the equity of the statute can carry us beyond what is clearly expressed in the language of the lawmaker; equitable considerations lie on the side of a strict construction of a statutory provision that proposes to bar an equitable remedy.

And we deem the prospective interpretation as unreasonable as it is inequitable. It was one thing for Congress to pass an act to prevent further prosecution of a suit or suits to annul patents that already had been made, unlawfully indeed, but for the purpose of making good the consequences of previous mistakes by the Land Department. Thus far it could act in the reasonable belief that it knew the extent and consequences of the immunity it was granting. But to say that where lieu lands were thereafter certified or patented in place of

lands lost or relinquished by the grantee no suit should be maintained nor recovery had either for the lands or their value, no matter through what fraud or mistake they might be acquired, would be an entirely different matter, and would offer a premium for future wrongdoing, the extent of which could not easily be foreseen. We cannot attribute such a purpose to Congress without plainer language than is contained in this act.

For the reasons stated, we hold that the proviso is not a bar to the present suit, brought to annul a patent applied for and issued long after its enactment; and the decree under review is

Reversed, and the cause remanded to the District Court for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.

MR. JUSTICE MCREYNOLDS took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

UNITED STATES GLUE COMPANY v. TOWN OF OAK CREEK.

ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF MILWAUKEE COUNTY, STATE OF WISCONSIN.

No. 233. Argued March 21, 1918. Decided June 3, 1918.

A State, in laying a general income tax upon the gains and profits of a domestic corporation, may include in the computation the net income derived from transactions in interstate commerce, without contravening the commerce clause of the Constitution.

So held in respect of the Wisconsin income tax law (Laws 1911, c. 658), as applied to income from sales to customers outside the State of goods delivered from the company's factory within it, and from