Opinion of the Court. tially dissimilar circumstances and conditions of the fourth section and the commands of the third section as to discrimination and undue preference being found in the one statute must be construed together, so that the dissimilarity of circumstance and condition cannot be availed of if either discrimination or preference will arise from doing so. We quote the exact language in which this proposition is stated by counsel, reproducing the italics by which the import of the contention is emphasized: “Fifth. That the injury or prejudice to Chattanooga, shown by the proof to be the effect of the discriminations practiced against Chattanooga and in favor of Nashville, brings the case within the evil which the act to regulate commerce was designed to remedy, and that competition, no matter how forceful, should not be held to nullify the law itself—in other words, should not be held to justify the very wrongs which the law was enacted to remedy." It is argued that this proposition is sustained by the opinions in the Alabama Midland case, 168 U. S. 144, and in Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. v. Behlmer, 175 U. S. 648, in both of which cases, as we have seen, the right of the carrier to take into view on his own motion competition which substantially affected traffic and rates as the producing cause of dissimilarity of circumstance and condition was upheld. The portion of the opinion relied upon in the Alabama Midland case is found on page 167, and is as follows: "In order further to guard against any misapprehension of the scope of our decision, it may be well to observe that we do not hold that the mere fact of competition, no matter what its character or extent, necessarily relieves the carrier from the restraints of the third and fourth sections, but only that these sections are not so stringent and imperative as to exclude in all cases the matter of competition from consideration in determining the questions of 'undue or unreasonable preference or advantage,' or what are 'substantially similar circumstances and conditions.' The competition may in some cases be such as, having due regard to the interests of the public and of the carrier, ought justly to have effect upon the rates, and in such cases Opinion of the Court. there is no absolute rule which prevents the commission or the courts from taking that matter into consideration." The expressions in the Behlmer case which are relied upon are found on page 674 of the opinion in that case, and are as follows: "It follows that whilst the carrier may take into consideration the existence of competition as the producing cause of dissimilar circumstances and conditions, his right to do so is governed by the following principles: First, the absolute command of the statute that all rates shall be just and reasonable and that no undue discrimination be brought about, though, in the nature of things, this latter consideration may, in many cases, be involved in the determination of whether competition was such as created a substantial dissimilarity of condition; second, that the competition relied upon be not artificial or merely conjectural, but material and substantial, thereby operating on the question of traffic and rate making, the right in every event to be only enjoyed with a due regard to the interest of the public, after giving full weight to the benefits to be conferred on the place from whence the traffic moved as well as those to be derived by the locality to which it is to be delivered." The reasoning which we have thus quoted in the opinions in question, it is insisted, maintains the doctrine that although competition of the character therein described may serve to engender dissimilarity of circumstance and condition which a carrier can avail of of its own motion, it does not necessarily do so. Whether it can be allowed to produce this effect, it is argued, must depend upon all the surrounding circumstances, such as the preference or discrimination which may arise from allowing it to be done and the degree to which the interests of the public may be injuriously affected by permitting it to do so. To support this view, it is argued, "that to hold otherwise would be placing Congress in the absurd position of laying down a rule and then providing that the rule should not be enforced in the only cases in which violations of the rule were known to exist. In other words, enacting a law and providing at the same time that it should be of no effect." But in substance this reasoning only amounts to the assertion Opinion of the Court. that the settled construction of the statute, by which it has been held that real and substantial competition gives rise to the dissimilarity of circumstance and condition, pointed out in the fourth section, is wrong, and should be overruled. The language of the opinions which is relied upon must be read in connection with its context, and must be construed by the light of the issue which was in controversy in the cases and which was decided; that is, the right of the carrier to take the competitive conditions into consideration as creating dissimilarity of circumstance and condition. The right of a carrier to do so could not have been sustained if the proposition now asserted had not necessarily been decided to be unsound. The summing up or grouping of the various provisions of the act which was made in the passages relied upon but served to point out that the provisions of the statute allowing competition to become the cause of dissimilarity of circumstance and condition could operate no injurious effect in view of the other provisions of the act protecting against discrimination and preference; that is, the undue preference and unjust discrimination against which the other provisions of the statute were aimed. True it is that all of the provisions of the statute must be interpreted together, and because this is the elementary rule the argument now pressed upon our attention is unsound. If it were adopted, it would follow of necessity that competition could never create such a dissimilarity of circumstance and condition as would justify the lesser charge to the competitive point than was made to the non-competitive point. This would be the inevitable consequence, since under the view which the argument assumes it would be impossible for the lesser rate to prevail to the competitive point without creating a preference in favor of that point, and without giving rise to a discrimination against the non-competitive point to which the higher rate was asked. Thus the reasoning conduces to the deduction which it is advanced to refute; that is, the assumption that the statute at one and the same time expressly confers a right, and yet specifically destroys it. This is plainly the consequence flowing from the argument that competition, "however forceful" it may be, cannot produce dissimilarity of circumstance and condition if disVOL. CLXXXI-2 Opinion of the Court. crimination and preference is held to necessarily arise from the charging of the lesser rate to the longer distance competitive point. It is not difficult to perceive the origin of the fallacy upon which the contention rests. It is found in blending the third and fourth sections in such a manner as necessarily to destroy one by the other instead of construing them so as to cause them to operate harmoniously. In a supposed case when, in the first instance, upon an issue as to a violation of the fourth section of the act, it is conceded or established that the rates charged to the shorter distance point are just and reasonable in and of themselves, and it is also shown that the lesser rate charged for the longer haul is not wholly unremunerative and has been forced upon the carriers by competition at the longer distance point, it must result that a discrimination springing alone from a disparity in rates cannot be held, in legal effect, to be the voluntary act of the defendant carriers, and as a consequence the provisions of the third section of the act forbidding the making or giving of an undue or unreasonable preference or advantage will not apply. The prohibition of the third section, when that section is considered in its proper relation, is directed against unjust discrimination or undue preference arising from the voluntary and wrongful act of the carriers complained of as having given undue preference, and does not relate to acts the result of conditions wholly beyond the control of such carriers. And special attention was directed to this view in the Behlmer case, in the passage which we have previously excerpted. To otherwise construe the statute would involve a departure from its plain language, and would be to confound cause with effect. For, if the preference occasioned in favor of a particular place by competition there gives rise to the right to charge the lesser rate to that point, it cannot be that the availing of this right is the cause of the preference, and especially is this made clear in the case supposed, since it is manifest that forbidding the carrier to meet the competition would not remove the discrimination. The only principle by which it is possible to enforce the whole statute is the construction adopted by the previous opin Opinion of the Court. ions of this court; that is, that competition which is real and substantial, and exercises a potential influence on rates to a particular point, brings into play the dissimilarity of circumstance and condition provided by the statute, and justifies the lesser charge to the more distant and competitive point than to the nearer and non-competitive place, and that this right is not destroyed by the mere fact that incidentally the lesser charge to the competitive point may seemingly give a preference to that point, and the greater rate to the non-competitive point may apparently engender a discrimination against it. We say seemingly on the one hand and apparently on the other, because in the supposed cases the preference is not "undue" or the discrimination "unjust." This is clearly so, when it is considered that the lesser charge upon which both the assumption of preference and discrimination is predicated is sanctioned by the statute, which causes the competition to give rise to the right to make such lesser charge. Indeed, the findings of fact made by the commission in this case leave no room for the contention that either undue preference in favor of Nashville or unjust discrimination against Chattanooga arose merely from the act of the carriers in meeting the competition existing at Nashville. The commission found that if the defendant carriers had not adjusted their rates to meet the competitive condition at Nashville, the only consequence would have been to deflect the traffic at the reduced rates over other lines. From this it follows that, even although the defendant carriers had not taken the dissimilarity of circumstance and condition into view, and had continued their rates to Nashville just as if there had been no dissimilarity of circumstance and condition, the preference in favor of Nashville growing out of the conditions there existing would have remained in force and hence the discrimination which thereby arose against Chattanooga would have likewise continued to exist. In other words, both Nashville and Chattanooga would have been exactly in the same position if the long and short haul clause had not been brought into play. That, as indicated in the previous opinions of this court, there may be cases where the carrier cannot be allowed to avail of |