dians and the right of the United States to have the same set aside, are stated in the opinion. Mr. J. C. Stone, Mr. Robert J. Boone and Mr. S. T. Bledsoe, for appellants.1 The Solicitor General and Mr. A. N. Frost and Mr. Harlow A. Leekley, Special Assistants to the Attorney General, for the United States.1 MR. JUSTICE HUGHES delivered the opinion of the court. The United States sought by this suit to cancel certain deeds and mortgages of lands allotted to members of the Seminole tribe of Indians. The judgment of the Circuit Court, sustaining demurrers to the bill, was reversed by the Circuit Court of Appeals. United States v. Allen, and similar cases, 179 Fed. Rep. 13. The suit was brought on July 22, 1908, and embraced several conveyances to distinct grantees. This appeal is prosecuted-under § 3 of the act of June 25, 1910, c. 409, 36 Stat. 837-by only one of the defendants, The Deming Investment Company, of Oklahoma City. The bill attacks mortgages made to this appellant, by others than the allottees, during the months of August, October and December, 1906. It is alleged that they were attempted incumbrances of allotted lands of members of the Seminole tribe; that none of these lands had been patented to individuals at the time of the transactions; and that all contracts for the sale, disposition and incumbrance of the lands prior to the date of patent were expressly declared by law to be void. (Agreement of December 16, 1897, ratified by the act of July 1, 1898, c. 542, 30 Stat. 567.) In its brief the appellant states that "each conveyance only involves the surplus allotment and not the home 1 See abstract of arguments in Heckman v. United States, ante, p. 413. 224 U.S. Opinion of the Court. stead of the particular allottee," a statement which we do not understand the Government to challenge so far as the mortgages to the appellant are concerned. The bill does not allege that these mortgages, or any of them, embraced homestead lands. Nor is it alleged in the bill that any of the allottees whose allotments had been mortgaged to the appellant were of Indian blood, but the lands are described as those which had been allotted to Seminole freedmen whose names appear upon the freedmen rolls of that tribe. Upon the allegations of the bill, these allottees, so far as they were adults, must be held to come within the provision of the act of April 21, 1904, c. 1402 (33 Stat. 189, 204), which removed all restrictions upon alienation by adult allottees not of Indian blood with respect to their surplus lands; and, by virtue of the allotment, they had an interest in the allotted lands which on the removal of the restriction they were entitled to convey. Goat v. United States, decided this day, ante, p. 458. Minors were excepted from this enabling provision of the act of 1904; and in one instance the mortgage is described as covering a portion of the allotment of a minor freedmen allottee, Ellen Sango, age 17. In this, as in other cases, the age of the allottees is given apparently as of the time when the mortgage was executed. The dates of the conveyances made by the allottees are not set forth. Upon the authority of Goat v. United States, supra, the bill, with respect to the appellant, should be sustained so far as it relates to mortgages covering lands which had been conveyed by minor allottees, or by adult allottees before April 21, 1904; and it should be dismissed as to the surplus lands conveyed by adult freedmen allottees subsequent to that date. The judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals is affirmed, with the modification that the cause shall proceed in conformity with this opinion. It is so ordered. v. INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION ERROR TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. No. 859. Argued April 16, 1912.-Decided April 29, 1912. Alaska is a Territory of the United States within the meaning of § 1 of the Interstate Commerce Act, as amended June 29, 1906, 34 Stat. 584, c. 3591. An organized Territory of the United States does not necessarily mean one having a local legislature as distinguished from one having a less autonomous form of government, such as that of Alaska. Even if "Territory of the United States" as used in § 1 of the InterState Commerce Act as amended includes only organized Territories, Alaska falls within its meaning. The Steamer Coquitlam, 163 U. S. 346; Binns v. United States, 194 U. S. 486; Rassmussen v. United States, 197 U. S. 516. The Hepburn Act of June 29, 1906, 34 Stat. 584, c. 3591, extended the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act to interterritorial commerce and for the first time gave to the Commission the power to fix rates. In so doing it made the act completely comprehensive, and the power given to the Commission superseded the power of the Secretary of the Interior to revise and modify rates of railroads in Alaska given by § 2 of the act of May 14, 1898, 30 Stat. 409, c. 299. Mandamus can be issued to direct performance of a ministerial act but not to control discretion. It may be directed to a tribunal, one acting in a judicial capacity, to proceed in a manner according to his or its discretion. The jurisdiction to determine jurisdiction, Ex parte Harding, 219 U. S. 363, does not exist in an administrative body which is subject to having its jurisdicton defined by the courts. The United States Commerce Court has no jurisdiction to review the action of the Interstate Commerce Commission in refusing to entertain a complaint because the subject is beyond its jurisdiction. In such a case the remedy is by mandamus to compel the Commission 224 U.S. Argument for Plaintiff in Error. to proceed and decide the case according to its judgment and discretion. The Interstate Commerce Commission has jurisdiction to investigate violations of the Act to Regulate Commerce in Alaska, and to compel carriers in that Territory to conform to the law; and if the Commission refuses to act on the ground that it has no jurisdiction, mandamus will issue directing it to take jurisdiction. 39 Washington Law Reporter, 386, affirmed, and 19 I. C. C. 81, disapproved. THE facts, which involve the status of common carriers in Alaska under the Interstate Commerce Act, and the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission over common carriers in Alaska, are stated in the opinion. Mr. P. J. Farrell for plaintiff in error: Alaska is not a Territory of the United States within the meaning of § 1 of the Act to Regulate Commerce. Matter of Water Carriers in Alaska, 19 I. C. C. 81. In the jurisdictional clause of the Hepburn Act, the District of Alaska is not included by name and the word "District" as used in that section is confined to the District of Columbia. Alaska has never been officially designated as a Territory: see act of May 17, 1884; Rev. Stat. 1 Sup., c. 53, p. 430; act of June 4, 1887, providing for the appointment of commissioners of deeds and a marshal; act of July 24, 1897, providing for the appointment of a surveyor general; act of June 6, 1900, 31 Stat. 321, making further provision for a civil government for Alaska. In the Appropriation Acts of 1907 and 1908, 34 Stat. 963, and 35 Stat. 212, Alaska is called a District, while Arizona, New Mexico, and Hawaii are described as Territories. See also acts of January 27, 1905, 33 Stat. 616; of March 3, 1905, 33 Stat. 1262 and 1265; § 1, act of February 4, 1887; act of June 18, 1910. At the time the amendment of June 29, 1906, was passed Congress was acquainted with the rulings of the Argument for Plaintiff in Error. 224 U.S. Commission that the District of Alaska is not a Territory of the United States within the meaning of § 1 of the Act to Regulate Commerce. See the Townsend Bill (H. R. 17536), reported to the Whole House by the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce in the second session of the Sixty-first Congress on April 1, 1910; and the Fletcher Bill (S. 9975), introduced January 9, 1911. Both attempts to place common carriers operating lines of transportation in Alaska under the control of the Commission failed. Under these circumstances, this court will consider itself bound by the interpretation of the Commission, which is the tribunal primarily charged with the enforcement of the provisions of said act. See New Haven R. R. Co. v. Int. Com. Comm., 200 U. S. 361, holding that an interpretation placed on the act by the Commission in the cases of Haddock v. Delaware, L. & W. R. Co., 4 I. C. C. Rep. 296, and Coxe Bros. & Co. v. Lehigh Valley R. R. Co., 4 I. C. C. Rep. 535, was binding upon the court. The authority conferred upon the Secretary of the Interior by the act of May 14, 1898, has not been taken away by § 10 of the Hepburn Law. The law does not favor repeals by implication, Alaska is not referred to by name either in the Hepburn Law or in the act to regulate commerce, and Congress has never specifically conferred upon the Commission jurisdiction over any common carrier in any district of the United States except the District of Columbia. Mandamus is not a proper proceeding in which to correct an error of law like that alleged in the petition. Commissioner of Patents v. Whiteley, 4 Wall. 522; West v. Hitchcock, 19 App. D. C. 333, 342; Decatur v. Paulding, 14 Pet. 497, 514; United States v. Black, 128 U. S. 40, 48; United States v. Guthrie, 17 How. 284; Georgia v. Stanton, 6 Wall. 50; Gaines v. Thompson, 7 Wall. 347; United States v. Windom, 137 U. S. 636, 644; United States v. Blaine, |