234 U.S. Opinion of the Court. of the proviso of Article VIII which might have interfered with such intent. It is not the purpose of the court to intimate any opinion upon the merits of the contentions thus presented, and we have only stated the opposing views far enough to enable us to decide whether the suit is or is not one against the United States. The petition proceeds by averring that the action of the defendant Treasury officials in instructing customs officers to admit Cuban sugar after March 1, 1914, at a reduction of 20% of the rate effective on that date, was "arbitrary, illegal and unjust and will work great and irreparable injury to your petitioner unless they are restrained and inhibited from demanding and collecting the said illegal charges on Cuban sugar imported into the United States; and another, and higher duty, as shown above, be exacted and collected by said officials on said sugar instead." It is then contended that this direction to continue the allowance of a reduction of 20% upon the reduced rates fixed by the Underwood Act is such a flagrant exercise of arbitrary power as to make it the duty of a court of equity, upon application of anyone having a definite and distinct interest, to prohibit the allowance of the reduction and require the collection of the full duty imposed by the Underwood Act, or, if any preferential be allowed, it be only upon the higher duty exacted by the act of 1897. But what definite and distinct interest has the State of Louisiana whether the rate collected be too high or too low? She is a producer of sugar which must be sold in competition with foreign sugar, and the petition avers that the lowering of the duty upon Cuban sugar will lower the price for which she must sell her sugar yet unsold. But if Louisiana, as a mere producer and seller of sugar may review the action of the Secretary of the Treasury in determining the rate to be collected on Cuban sugar, why Opinion of the Court. 234 U.S. may not any consumer, though not an importer, make a similar complaint if in his judgment the Secretary of the Treasury is exacting a higher rate than justified by the law, thereby enhancing the price he must pay in the market upon imported articles which he uses? Obviously such suits to review the official action of the Secretary of the Treasury in the exercise of his judgment as to the rate which should be exacted under his construction of the Tariff Acts would operate to disturb the whole revenue system of the Government and affect the revenues which arise therefrom. Such suits would obviously, in effect, be suits against the United States. New York Guaranty Co. v. Steele, 134 U. S. 230; Louisiana v. Jumel, 107 U. S. 711; Hopkins v. Clemson College, 221 U. S. 636, 642. There have always been remedies by which an importer may recover an excess rate of duty exacted from him by a customs collector, either by common law action against the collector, as in Elliott v. Swartwout, 10 Peters, 137, or by statute, § 2931, Revised Statutes; act of June 10, 1890, c. 407, 26 Stat. 131, 137; act of August 5, 1909, c. 6, 36 Stat. 11. But the claim that even an importer may complain by appeal or otherwise of the exaction of too low a rate of duty seems not to have been asserted until 1912, when an appeal by an importer against an assessment as too low was sustained by the Customs Court of Appeals, 3 Customs Appeal, 24, upon the theory that one might be aggrieved by an assessment too low as well as by one too high. But this decision did not meet with favor and the remedy by appeal was confined to cases in which the duty imposed was claimed to be higher than authorized by existing law. Act of October 3, 1913, c. 16, 38 Stat., § III, part N. But we can discover no precedent where even an importer has sought to clog the wheels of government by reviewing the action of the Secretary of the Treasury by a bill such as this. The duties imposed upon the Secretary of the Treasury in the collection of sugar tariffs are not ministerial. They are executive and involve the exercise of judgment and discretion. The facts show a situation in which the Secretary of the Treasury was confronted with the necessity of construing the law and then instructing the customs officers as to whether the twenty per cent. preferential duty on Cuban sugar required by the convention and the act of 1903 confirming that treaty had been superseded or in any wise affected by the later provisions of the Underwood Act. By statute originally enacted in 1792 (May 8, 1792, c. 37, 1 Stat. 280), now § 249, Revised Statutes, it is expressly provided that the Secretary of the Treasury is to "superintend the collection of customs duties as he shall think best." His interpretation of any custom law is made conclusive and binding upon all officers of customs, and upon his successors, until reversed by judicial decision. Revised Statutes, § 2652; act of March 3, 1875, c. 136, 18 Stat. 469, § 2. In the discharge of his duties, semijudicial in character, the Secretary of the Treasury is, by statute, entitled to the opinion of the Attorney General, which, as we may judicially know, was obtained in this matter. 30 Ops. Att. Gen., February 14, 1914. There is a class of cases which hold that if a public officer be required by law to do a particular thing, not involving the exercise of either judgment or discretion, he may be required to do that thing upon application of one having a distinct legal interest in the doing of the act. Such an act would be ministerial only. But if the matter in respect to which the action of the official is sought, is one in which the exercise of either judgment or discretion is required, the courts will refuse to substitute their judgment or discretion for that of the official entrusted by law with its execution. Interference in such a case would be to interfere with the ordinary functions of government. Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, 137; Kendall v. United States, 12 Peters, 524, 610; United States v. Schurz, 102 U. S. 378, are examples of instances where the duty was supposed to be ministerial. Cases upon the other side of the line are, Decatur v. Paulding, 14 Peters, 497, 514, et seq; Mississippi v. Johnson, 4 Wall. 475; Cunningham v. Macon &c. Railroad, 109 U. S. 446; United States, ex rel. Dunlap v. Black, 128 U. S. 40; United States ex rel. v. Lamont, 155 U. S. 303; Roberts v. United States, 176 U. S. 221; Riverside Oil Company v. Hitchcock, 190 U. S. 316; Ness v. Fisher, 223 U. S. 683. This application for leave to file must be denied. THE CHIEF JUSTICE took no part in the decision of this case. MR. JUSTICE MCKENNA concurs upon the ground last stated. COLLINS v. COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY. ERROR TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KENTUCKY. No. 35. Submitted April 22, 1914. Decided June 22, 1914. A state penal statute which prescribes no standard of conduct that it is possible to know violates the fundamental principles of justice embodied in the conception of due process of law. International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky, ante, p. 216, followed to the effect that the provisions in regard to pooling crops in chapter 117 of the Laws of Kentucky of 1906 as amended by chapter 8 of the Laws of 1908, as construed by the courts of that State, in connection with the anti-trust act of 1890 and § 198 of the Kentucky constitution of 1891 do not prescribe any standard of conduct, and there fore amount to a denial of due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment. 141 Kentucky, 565, reversed. THE facts, which involve the constitutionality of provisions of the statutes of Kentucky of 1906, permitting combinations or pools of tobacco and other farm products, are stated in the opinion. Mr. E. L. Worthington and Mr. J. M. Collins for plaintiff in error. Mr. James Garnett, Attorney General of the State of Kentucky, for defendant in error. MR. JUSTICE HUGHES delivered the opinion of the court. The plaintiff in error, Patrick Collins, and other tobacco growers of Mason County, Kentucky, entered into a pooling contract with the Burley Tobacco Society and the Mason County Board of Control whereby they consigned to the Society their respective crops of tobacco (raised in the year 1907) to be sold by the Society as their agent upon such terms as it should prescribe, but not less than a minimum price. Because Collins disposed of his crop, without the consent of the agents of the pool, he was indicted. He demurred to the indictment upon both state and Federal grounds, setting forth as the latter that the statutes under which he was prosecuted contravened the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution, in that they denied to him the equal protection of the laws and deprived him of liberty and property without due process of law, and also were repugnant to the commerce clause and the Federal Anti-trust Act of July 2, 1890, c. 647, 26 Stat. 209. The demurrer was overruled and trial was had. There was evidence that the tobacco had been removed by Collins to Cincinnati, Ohio, and there sold. Collins was found guilty and sen |