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the sale of spirituous liquors, the products of sister states. Comparing the tax with others applicable to domestic products, the court upheld the statute. The methods of collection were different, but the taxes were complementary and were intended to effect equality. Hinson v. Lott, 8 Wall. 148. Louisiana laid a tax in lieu of local taxes on rolling stock operated within the state. but belonging to corporations domiciled elsewhere. The court compared the tax with the local taxes upon residents, and found discrimination lacking. General American Tank Car Corp. v. Day, 270 U. S. 367, 372, 373. South Carolina laid a tax on the storage of gasoline brought from other states and held for use in local business. The statute was interpreted by the state court as covering “all gasoline stored for use and consumption upon which a like tax has not been paid under other statutes." Upon comparison of all the statutes, the impost was upheld. The taxpayers had "failed to show that whatever distinction there existed in form, there was any substantial discrimination in fact." Gregg Dyeing Co. v. Query, supra.

Baldwin v. G. A. F. Seelig, Inc., 294 U.S. 511, is invoked by appellees as decisive of the controversy, but the case is far apart from this one. There a statute of New York had made provision for a minimum price to be paid by dealers in milk to producers in that state. Cf. Nebbia v. New York, 291 U. S. 502; Hegeman Farms Corp. v. Baldwin, 293 U. S. 163. The same statute provided that when milk from another state had been brought into New York, the dealer should be prohibited from selling it at any price unless in buying the milk from the out-of-state producer he had paid the price that would be necessary.if he had bought within the state. New York was attempting to project its legislation within the borders of another state by regulating the price to be paid in that state for milk acquired there. She said in effect to farmers in Vermont: your milk cannot be sold by dealers to whom you ship it in

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New York unless you sell it to them in Vermont at a price determined here. What Washington is saying to sellers beyond her borders is something very different. In substance what she says is this: You may ship your goods in such amounts and at such prices as you please, but the goods when used in Washington after the transit is completed, will share an equal burden with goods that have been purchased here.

We are told that a tax upon the use, even though not unlawful by force of its effects alone, is vitiated by the motives that led to its adoption. These motives cause it to be stigmatized as equivalent to a protective tariff. But motives alone will seldom, if ever, invalidate a tax that apart from its motives would be recognized as lawful. Magnano Co. v. Hamilton, 292 U. S. 40, 44; Fox v. Standard Oil Co., 294 U. S. 87, 100, 101. Least of all will they be permitted to accomplish that result when equality and not preference is the end to be achieved. Çatch words and labels, such as the words “protective tariff,” are subject to the dangers that lurk in metaphors and symbols, and must be watched with circumspection lest they put us off our guard. A tariff, whether protective or for revenue, burdens the very act of importation, and if laid by a state upon its commerce with another is equally unlawful whether protection or revenue is the motive back of it. But a tax upon use, or, what is equivalent for present purposes, a tax upon property after importation is over, is not a clog upon the process of importation at all, any more than a tax upon the income or profits of a business. The contention would be futile that Washington in laying an ownership tax would be doing a wrong to non-residents in allowing a credit for a sales tax already borne by the owner as a result of the same ownership. To contend this would be to deny that a state may develop its scheme of taxation in such a way as to rid its exactions of unnecessary oppression. In the statute in dispute such a scheme has

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been developed with sedulous regard for every interest affected. Yet a word of caution should be added here to 'avoid the chance of misconception. We have not meant to imply by anything said in this opinion that allowance of a credit for other taxes paid to Washington made it mandatory that there should be a like allowance for taxes paid to other states. A state, for many purposes, is to be reckoned as a self-contained unit, which may frame its own system of burdens and exemptions without heeding systėms elsewhere. If there are limits to that power, there is no need to mark them now. It will be time enough to mark them when a taxpayer paying in the state of origin is compelled to pay again in the state of destination. This statute by its framework avoids that possibility. The offsetting allowance has been conceded, whether the concession was nécessary or not, and thus the system has been divested of any semblance of inequality or prejudice. A taxing act is not invalid because its exemptions are more generous than the state would have been free to make them by exerting the full measure of

her power.

Finally, there is argument that the tax now in question, though in form upon the use, was in fact upon the foreign sale, and not upon the use at all, the form being a subterfuge. The supposed basis for that argument is a reading of the statute whereby the use shall not be taxable if the chattel was manufactured by the user or received as a legacy or acyuired in any way except through the medium of purchase, and a retail one at that. But the fact that the legislature has chosen to lay a tax upon the use of chattels that have been bought does not make the tax upon the use a tax upon the sale. One could argue with as much reason that there would be a tax upon the sale if a property tax were limited to chattels so acquired. A legislature has a wide range of choice in classifying and limiting the subjects of taxation. Bell's Gap R. Co. v.

Pennsylvania, 134 U. S. 232, 237; Ohio Oil Co. v. Conway, 281 U. S. 146, 159. The choice is as broad where the tax is laid upon one or a few of the attributes of ownership as when laid upon them all. Flint v. Stone Tracy Co., 220 U. S. 107, 158, 159. True, collections might be larger if the use were not dependent upon a prior purchase by the user. On the other hand, economy in administration or a fairer distribution of social benefits and burdens may have been promoted. when the lines were drawn as they were. Such questions of fiscal policy will not be answered by a court. The legislature might make the tax base as broad or as narrow as it pleased.

The interlocutory injunction was erroneously granted. and the decree must be

Reversed.

MR. JUSTICE MCREYNOLDS and MR. JUSTICE BUTLER dissent.

MARTIN v. NATIONAL SURETY CO. ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE

EIGHTH CIRCUIT.

No. 500. Argued March 2, 3, 1937.—Decided March 29, 1937.

1. A payment by the Government of money due on a construction

contract, made to one who collected it under a power of attorney and letter from the contractor intended to operate as an assignment (contrary to R. S., § 3477), is to be regarded as payment

to the contractor through his representative. P. 594. 2. The provisions of R. S., $ 3477; 31 U. S. C. 203, declaring all

assignments of any claim upon the United States "absolutely null and void" unless made after the allowance of such claim, the ascertainment of the amount due, and the issuing of a warrant for the payment thereof, are provisions for the protection of the Government, and not for the regulation of the equities of claimants growing out of irregular assignments, when collection is complete and the Government's liability ended. P. 594.

3. Moneys due by the Government as deferred payments under a

building contract were paid over by the Government to the contractor, although the contractor had failed to perform the obligation imposed on him by the Materialmen's Act, 40 U. S. C. 270, and by his bond, to pay persons who supplied labor and materials in the progress of the work. The contractor, in obtaining his bond, had promised the surety in writing that he would not assign any such payments to any third person and had, on the contrary, undertaken to assign them to the surety to the end that, in the event of any breach or default in the government contract, such money might be credited upon any loss or damage sustained by the surety under the bond. Held that an equitable lien arose from the assignment in favor of the surety to have the moneys received by the contractor from the Government applied to the satisfaction of the claims of laborers and materialmen, and that this equity was superior to the claim of one who, with notice, had lent money to the contractor and, under power of attorney from the contractor, had collected the deferred payments from the Government

and applied them to his loan. P. 595. 4. Failure to pay materialmen, as required by 40 U. S. C. 270, and

by the contractor's bond, is a default in the performance of the construction contract, since the statute commands that the bond, conditioned on such payments, shall be executed by the contractor before the commencement of the work, and the terms of the bond

are read into the contract. P. 597. 85 F. (2d) 135, affirmed.

CERTIORARI, 299 U. S. 536, to review the affirmance of a final decree of the District Court in a suit by the surety on a bond securing a public building contract. At the prayer of the surety, money paid the contractor by the Government was impounded and applied to the claims of materialmen and laborers. The petitioner in this case, who had lent money to the contractor, had, by the contractor's authority, received the payment from the Government and applied it to his debt.

Mr. Richard S. Bull, with whom Mr. Harold R. Small was on the brief, for petitioner.

Mr. J. H. Cunningham, Jr., with whom Mr. William L. Igoe was on the brief, for respondents.