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a distinct and separate one, and is capable of being tried distinctly and separately from the others. If the State Circuit Court had equity powers, it might direct a separate issue for the trial of this controversy by itself. It might try the other appeals without a jury (the parties waiving a jury), and try this controversy by a jury.

If this view of the subject is correct, we see no difficulty in removing the controversy between the city of Kansas and the railway company for trial in the Circuit Court of the United States. The proceedings for widening the street, pending in the State court, may have to await the decision of the case in the federal court; and the result of those proceedings may be materially affected by the decision of that case; but that consideration does not affect the separate and distinct character of the controversy between the city and the railway company, although it might raise a question of proper parties in a pure chancery proceeding as between the city and the company. This controversy is to all intents and purposes "a suit." The indirect effect upon the general proceedings for widening the street which would ensue in case the federal court should determine that the City of Kansas had no right to widen the street in the company's depot grounds, or that the valuation of its property was much too small, or the assessment of benefits against it was much too large, furnishes no good reason for depriving the company of its right to remove its suit into a United States court. We think that the case was removable to that court under the act of March 3, 1875.

This disposes of all the cases now before us, and renders it unnecessary to inquire whether the allegations in the several petitions of removal were, or were not, sufficient to bring the cases within Rev. Stat. § 640; or whether this section still remains in force.

The judgments are reversed in all the cases, and the causes will be remanded, with instructions to enter judgments in accordance with this opinion.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE, with whom concurred MR. JUSTICE MILLER, dissenting.

Dissenting Opinion: Waite, C.J., Miller, J.

I am unable to agree to these judgments. In my opinion Congress did not intend to give the words "arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States," in the act of 1875, the broad meaning they have when used by Chief Justice Marshall in the argument of the opinion in Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat. 738. I do not doubt the power of Congress to authorize suits by or against federal corporations to be brought in the courts of the United States. That was decided in Osborn's case, and with it I have no fault to find. Neither do I doubt that Congress did, in the charters under which these corporations exist, authorize suits by or against them to be brought in the courts of the United States as well as in the courts of the States; but I cannot believe that, if the charters had given jurisdiction to the courts of the United States in only a limited class of actions, and had provided that in all others the suits must be brought in the courts of the proper State, the act of 1875 would have extended the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States to all suits by or against such corporations when the value of the matter in dispute exceeded $500.

The acts of incorporation made no provision for the removal to the courts of the United States of suits begun in a State court. The act of July 27, 1868, ch. 255, § 2, 15 Stat. 227, now Rev. Stat. § 640, did, however, give authority for that purpose in suits brought against the company in a State court "upon the petition of such defendant, verified by oath, stating that such defendant has a defence arising under or by virtue of the Constitution or of any treaty or law of the United States." If all suits by or against, and all defences by, a federal corporation necessarily arise under the laws of the United States "because the charter of incorporation not only creates it, but gives it every faculty which it possesses," why require the corporation, when asking for a removal, to cause an oath to be filed with its petition that it has a defence in the suit which arises under the Constitution or laws? If, "because the power to acquire rights of any description, to transact business of any description, to make contracts of any description, to sue on those contracts, is given and measured by its charter, and

Opinion of the Court.

that charter a law of the United States," every suit by or against, and every defence to such a suit by, a federal corporation must arise under the laws of the United States, why require it to set forth in its petition for removal that its defence does arise under such a law? If such a corporation cannot "have a case which does not arise literally, as well as substantially, under the law," what the necessity for saying more than that it is such a corporation?

The act of 1868, Rev. Stat. § 640, related specifically to this class of corporations and this class of suits, and it shows distinctly that the words "arising under the laws of the United States" were there used in a restricted sense. I see no evidence of any intention by Congress to use them in any other sense in the act of 1875, when applied to the same kind of suits and to the same kind of corporations.

I am authorized to say that MR. JUSTICE MILLER unites with me in this dissent.

HADDEN & Others v. MERRITT, Collector.

IN ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK.

Argued April 23, 1885.-Decided May 4, 1885.

The value of foreign coins, as ascertained by the estimate of the Director of the Mint, and proclaimed by the Secretary of the Treasury, is conclusive upon Custom House officers and importers.

This was a suit to recover back duties alleged to have been illegally exacted. The facts are stated in the opinion of the

court.

Mr. Mason W. Tyler for plaintiff in error.

Mr. Solicitor-General submitted on his brief.

MR. JUSTICE MATTHEWS delivered the opinion of the court. This was an action brought by plaintiffs in error against the

Opinion of the Court.

Collector of the Port of New York, to recover an excess of duties, alleged to have been illegally exacted and paid under protest. A verdict was returned for the defendant under instructions to that effect by the court, and judgment rendered accordingly. To this ruling of the court exceptions were duly taken, and it is now assigned for error.

The plaintiffs' case was this: In the year 1879 they imported from China several invoices of merchandise, subject to an ad valorem duty, the value of which was stated in the invoices in Mexican silver dollars, the currency of the country whence the goods were exported. In converting the value of the invoices, as expressed therein, from Mexican silver dollars into the value by which the actual ad valorem duty upon them was to be ascertained, the dutiable value was arrived at in each case by estimating the value of the Mexican dollar in accordance with the value of such coin as estimated by the director of the mint, and proclaimed by the Secretary of the Treasury on the 1st day of January of the year during which the importations were made; and the value of the Mexican dollar so ascertained, estimated and proclaimed, was $1.01, and duties were assessed upon the importations accordingly.

The plaintiff offered to prove that this valuation of the Mexican dollar, as estimated and proclaimed, was erroneous in this, to wit, that it was based on the value of the Mexican dollar as compared with the silver dollar of the United States, whereas it ought by law to have been estimated and proclaimed by relation to the value of the gold dollar of the United States, and that this would have diminished the dutiable value of the goods imported, by the difference between from 84 cents to 86 cents, and 101% cents, as the value of the Mexican dollar, varying, according to the dates of the several importations, with the commercial difference in value between gold and silver. The evidence offered on this point was rejected, and the ruling of the court, in its instruction to the jury to return a verdict for the defendant, was based on the proposition that, in assessing the duties collected on the value of the invoices, reduced from Mexican silver dollars to the money of account of the United States, the collector and importer were concluded by

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the estimate of the director of the mint, proclaimed by the Secretary of the Treasury, and then in force.

In opposition to that, it is contended that such estimate is not conclusive, in a case where it can be shown that it is based on the value of the foreign silver coin computed in terms of the silver dollar, instead of the gold dollar, of the coinage of the United States, in violation, it is argued, of the statutory rule prescribed for making such estimate, which requires that the value of the foreign coin, so estimated, shall be expressed in the money of account of the United States, the standard unit of value of which is assumed to be the gold dollar and not the silver dollar.

Section 2838 Rev. Stat. requires all invoices of merchandise, subject to a duty ad valorem, to be made out in the currency of the place or country from whence the importation shall be made, and that they shall contain a true statement of the actual cost of such merchandise in such foreign currency or currencies, without any respect to the value of the coins of the United States, or of foreign coins, by law made current within the United States in such foreign place or country.

Section 3564 Rev. Stat. is as follows: "The value of foreign coin, as expressed in the money of account of the United States, shall be that of the pure metal of such coin of standard value; and the values of the standard coins in circulation of the various nations of the world shall be estimated annually by the director of the mint and be proclaimed on the first day of January by the Secretary of the Treasury."

The value of foreign coins, as ascertained by the estimate of the director of the mint and proclaimed by the Secretary of the Treasury, is conclusive upon custom-house officers and importers. No errors alleged to exist in the estimate, resulting from any cause, can be shown in a judicial proceeding, to affect the rights of the government or individuals. There is no value, and can be none, in such coins, except as thus ascertained; and the duty of ascertaining and declaring their value, cast upon the Treasury Department, is the performance of an executive function, requiring skill and the exercise of judgment and discretion, which precludes judicial inquiry into the correctness of