ng producers
concerning terms of sale and price as to product destined for the
interstate market, they were held not to conflict with the commerce
clause or with the Sherman Act or the Agricultural Marketing Agreement
Act.[1006] To the contrary, said Chief Justice Stone, speaking for the
unanimous court, the program "is one which it has been the policy of
Congress to aid and encourage through federal agencies" under federal
act.[1007] The case was not one, he further observed, which was to be
resolved by "mechanical test," but with the object in view of
accommodating "the competing demands of the State and national interests
involved."[1008] In 1944,[1009] the Court upheld the right of Minnesota
to exclude from its courts a firm licensed by the National Government to
carry on the business of customs broker because of its failure to comply
with a State statute requiring foreign corporations to obtain a license
to do business in the State. Speaking for the Court, Justice
Frankfurter, again disparaged "the generalities" to which certain cases
had given utterance. Actually, he asserted, "the fate of State
legislation in these cases has not been determined by these generalities
but by the weight of the circumstances and the practical and experienced
judgment in applying these generalities to the particular
instances."[1010] In cases, decided in 1947,[1011] the Court ruled that
Indiana had not violated the Natural Gas Act[1012] by attempting to
regulate the rates for natural gas sold within the State by an
interstate pipe line company to local industrial consumers; and that
Illinois was not precluded by the Commodity Exchange Act[1013] from
imposing upon grain exchanges doing business within her borders
regulations not at variance with the provisions of the act or with
regulations promulgated under it by the Secretary of Agriculture. Nor,
it was held by a bare majority of the Court in 1949, did the Motor
Carrier Act of 1935, as amended in 1942,[1014] prevent California from
prohibiting the sale or arrangement of any transportation over its
public highways if the transporting carrier has no permit from the
Interstate Commerce Commission.[1015] The opposed opinions line up most
of the cases on either side of the question.

RECENT CASES NULLIFYING STATE ACTION

On the other side of the ledger appear the following cases, decided
contemporaneously with those just reviewed: one in 1942 in which it was
held that a gas company en