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"While the language from the act of 1874 above quoted would seem to favor the exclusive right claimed by the water company, a careful examination of clause 3 of section 34 shows that the legislature intended that the right should be exclusive only as against other water companies, for immediately in this connection occur the words: 'And no other company shall be incorporated for that purpose until the said corporation shall have from its earnings realized and divided among its stockholders, during five years, a dividend equal to eight per centum per annum upon its capital stock.' The provision that another company shall not be incorporated was not intended to prohibit a city or borough from providing its citizens with pure water by means of works constructed by itself from money in its own treasury.”

In considering this contract we are to remember the wellestablished rule in this court which requires grants of franchises and special privileges to be most strongly construed in favor of the public, and that where the privilege claimed is doubtful nothing is to be taken by mere implication as against public rights. This rule has been applied to a series of contracts in waterworks and lighting cases, and we have no disposition to detract from its force and effect. And unless the city has excluded itself in plain and explicit terms from competition with the Water-Works Company during the period of this contract it cannot be held to have done so by mere implication. The rule, as applied to waterworks contracts, was last announced in this court in Knoxville Water Company v. Knoxville, 200 U. S. 22, decided at this term, citing previous cases.

The contract in the respect under consideration is found in section 1 of the ordinance, and undertakes to give to Bullock & Company, their associates, successors and assigns, the exclusive right and privilege, for the period of thirty years, from the time the ordinance takes effect, of erecting, maintaining and operating a system of waterworks, with certain privileges named, for the furnishing of a supply of good water to the city of Vicksburg and its inhabitants, for public and private use.

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Without resorting to implication or inserting anything by way of intendment into this contract, it undertakes to give by its terms to Bullock & Company, their associates, successors and assigns, the exclusive right to erect, maintain and operate waterworks, for a definite term, to supply water for public and private use. These are the words of the contract and the question upon this branch of the case is, conceding the power of the city to exclude itself from competition with the grantee of these privileges during the period named, has it done so by the express terms used? It has contracted with the company in language which is unmistakable, that the rights and privileges named and granted shall be exclusive. Consistently with this grant, can the city submit the grantee to what may be the ruinous competition of a system of waterworks to be owned and managed by the city, to supply the needs, public and private, covered in the grant of privileges to the grantee? It needs no argument to demonstrate, as was pointed out in the Walla Walla case, that the competition of the city may be far more destructive than that of a private company. The city may conduct the business without regard to the profit to be gained, as it may resort to public taxation to make up for losses. A private company would be compelled to meet the grantee upon different terms and would not likely conduct the business unless it could be made profitable. We cannot conceive how the right can be exclusive, and the city have the right at the same time to erect and maintain a system of waterworks, which may and probably would practically destroy the value of rights and privileges conferred in its grant. If the right is to be exclusive, as the city has contracted that it shall be, it cannot at the same time be shared with another, particularly so when such division of occupation is against the will of the one entitled to exercise the rights alone. It is difficult to conceive of words more apt to express the purpose that the company shall have the undivided occupancy of the field so far as the other contracting party is concerned.

The term "exclusive" is so plain that little additional light

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can be gained by resort to the lexicons. If we turn to the Century Dictionary we find it defined to mean "Appertaining to the subject alone; not including, admitting or pertaining to any other or others; undivided; sole; as, an exclusive right or privilege; exclusive jurisdiction." We think, therefore, it requires no resort to implication or intendment in order to give a construction to this phase of the contract; but, on the other hand, the city has provided and the company has accepted a grant which says in plain and apt words that it shall have an exclusive right, a sole and undivided privilege. To hold otherwise in our view would do violence to the plain words of the contract, and permit one of the contracting parties to destroy and defeat the enjoyment of a right which has been granted in plain and unmistakable terms. On the authority of the Walla Walla case, the city had the power to exclude itself for the term of this contract, giving the words used only the weight to which they are entitled, without strained or unusual construction, and we think it was distinctly agreed that for the term named the right of furnishing water to the inhabitants of Vicksburg under the terms of the ordinance was vested solely in the grantee, so far at least as the city's right to compete is concerned. Any other construction seems to us to ignore the language employed and to permit one of the parties to the contract to destroy its benefit to the other. We think the court below did not err in reaching this conclusion.

The court decreed as to a sewer, which the record discloses was originally a surface-water sewer, that the city should refrain from permitting future connections therewith for the conveyance of house sewage. The company complaining that this sewer entered into the source of supply above the intake of the waterworks, the court by a mandatory injunction required the city of Vicksburg to extend the sewer and construct an outlet therefor, so as to discharge sewage into the Yazoo or Mississippi river, below the intake of the complainant, provided, if the city was unable to construct such sewer within

HARLAN, J., dissenting.

202 U. S.

twelve months from date application might be made to the court for an extension of time. The error assigned in this behalf is as to the award of the mandatory injunction. We think the court erred in this respect and that it had no authority to issue a mandatory injunction requiring the city to construct a sewer, irrespective of the exercise of discretion vested by law in the municipal authorities to determine the practicability of the sewer ordered, the availability of taxation for the purpose, and the like matters; and we think that the exercise of this authority is primarily vested in the municipality and not in the courts.

We find no error in the decree of the Circuit Court enforcing the contract rights of the complainant and enjoining the city from erecting its own works during the term of the contract, but error in granting a mandatory injunction as to the sewer, and in that respect the decree will be modified, and, as so modified,

Affirmed.

MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, dissenting. I cannot agree to the opinion and judgment in this case.

In my opinion the city of Vicksburg had no authority, under the constitution and laws of Mississippi, to give an exclusive right to any person or corporation to maintain a system of waterworks for the benefit of that city and its people.

But if I am wrong in this view, it ought not, in my judgment, to be held upon the present record that the city has, by ordinance or otherwise, precluded itself from establishing and maintaining, at its own expense, a system of waterworks for the benefit of its people. The contrary cannot be maintained, unless we hold that a municipal corporation may, by mere implication, bargain away its duty to protect the public health and the public safety as they are involved in supplying the people with sufficient water. Nothing can be more important or vital to any people than that they should be supplied with

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pure, wholesome water. And yet it is now held that it was competent for the city of Vicksburg, by mere implication, to so tie its hands that it cannot perform the duty which it owes in that regard to its people.

NAGANAB v. HITCHCOCK.

APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

No. 247. Argued April 25, 1906.-Decided May 21, 1906.

A suit brought by a Chippewa Indian on behalf of himself and other members of his tribe against the Secretary of the Interior, to enjoin him from executing the act of June 27, 1902, and to compel him to account under the act of January 4, 1889, in regard to sale and disposition of lands, the title to which is still in the Government, is in effect a suit against the United States, and in the absence of any waiver on the part of the Government of immunity from suit, the courts have no jurisdiction of such a suit. Oregon v. Hitchcock, 202 U. S. 60 followed; Minnesota v. Hitchcock, 185 U. S. 373 distinguished.

THE facts are stated in the opinion.

Mr. Tracy L. Jeffords for appellant.

Mr. William C. Pollock, Assistant Attorney, with whom Mr. Frank L. Campbell, Assistant Attorney General, was on the brief, for appellee.

MR. JUSTICE DAY delivered the opinion of the court.

In this suit a bill was filed in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia by Joseph Naganab against Ethan Allen Hitchcock, Secretary of the Interior. Complainant brought the suit as a citizen of the United States and a member of the band and tribe of Chippewa Indians of the State of Minnesota,

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