cannot be doubted that the Congress was well aware of the long-established legislation in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and the more recent legislation in Georgia, prescribing maximum charges for the services of warehousemen. We deem it to be highly significant that, in the light of existing practices and statutory regulations, the Congress carefully restricted its own requirements and did not attempt to interfere with the operation of state laws as to the amounts which warehousemen might charge. The purpose and terms of the federal statute negative any such intention. It is inconceivable that the Congress in endeavoring to aid the tobacco growers in sorting or "grading," and thus to facilitate the marketing of their tobacco, intended to deprive them of the protection they already had against extortionate charges of the warehousemen upon whom they depended in making their sales. Instead of frustrating the operation of such state laws, the provisions of the Act expressly afforded and emphasized the opportunity for coöperation with the States in protecting the farmers' interests. In this view we find no ground for the contention that Congress has taken possession of the field of regulation to the exclusion of state laws which do not conflict with its own requirements.

The case calls for the application of the well-established principle that Congress may circumscribe its regulation and occupy a limited field, and that the intent to supersede the exercise by the State of its police power as to matters not covered by the federal legislation is not to be implied unless the latter fairly interpreted is in actual conflict with the state law. Savage v. Jones, 225 U. S. 501, 533; Atlantic Coast Line v. Georgia, 234 U. S. 280, 293, 294; Illinois Central R. Co. v. Public Utilities Comm'n, 245 U. S. 493, 510; Carey v. South Dakota, 250 U. S. 118, 122; Lehigh Valley R. Co. v. Public Utilities Comm'n, 278 U. S. 24, 35; Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co. v.

Railroad Comm'rs, 283 U. S. 380, 392, 393; Hartford Indemnity Co. v. Illinois, 298 U. S. 155, 158.

Laying on one side the federal statute, as in no way inconsistent, we find no ground for concluding that the state requirements lay any actual burden upon interstate or foreign commerce. The Georgia Act does not attempt to fix the prices at the auction sales or to regulate the activities of the purchasers. The fixing of reasonable maximum charges for the services of the warehousemen in aid of the tobacco growers does not militate against any interest of those who buy. They pay the bid price, as accepted, and the warehouseman pays the seller, deducting from the purchase price the warehouse charges.

We are thus brought to the final contention of appellants that the state law, although not in conflict with any exertion of federal authority, must fall as being repugnant to the existence of an exclusive federal power although unexercised. The contention ignores the principle that this ground of invalidity is to be found only with respect to such matters as demand a general system or uniformity of regulation; that in other matters, admitting of diversity of treatment according to the special requirements of local conditions, the States may act within their respective jurisdictions until Congress sees fit to act. Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 12 How. 299, 319; Minnesota Rate Cases, 230 U. S. 352, 399, 400; Hendrick v. Maryland, 235 U. S. 610, 622; Morris v. Duby, 274 U. S. 135, 143; Sproles v. Binford, 286 U. S. 374, 390.

In the instant case, the Georgia statute deals with a local need, exercising the State's protective power with respect to its own industry. A similar contention to that now advanced was held untenable in Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, where state regulation of charges by the proprietors of grain elevators was sustained despite the fact that the elevators were used as instrumentalities by those

who engaged in interstate commerce. Id., p. 135. The point was again raised and overruled in Budd v. New York, 143 U. S. 517, in upholding the New York statute regulating charges for "elevating, trimming, receiving, weighing and discharging grain by means of floating and stationary elevators and warehouses." It was recognized that, in the actual state of the business, the passage of the grain to the City of New York and other places on the seaboard without the use of elevators would be practically impossible. The elevator at Buffalo was a link in the chain of transportation of the grain from the places where it was grown to the seaboard, but the Court said: "So far as the statute in question is a regulation of commerce, it is a regulation of commerce only on the waters of the State of New York. It operates only within the limits of that State, and is no more obnoxious as a regulation of interstate commerce than was the statute of Illinois in respect to warehouses, in Munn v. Illinois. It is of the same character with navigation laws in respect to navigation within the State, and laws regulating wharfage rates within the State, and other kindred laws." Id., pp. 544, 545. Again, in Brass v. North Dakota, 153 U. S. 391, the statute of that State "regulating grain warehouses and weighing and handling of grain" was held not to amount to a regulation of commerce between the States in the absence of a conflict with federal legislation, upon the authority of the Munn and Budd cases.

In Cargill Co. v. Minnesota, 180 U. S. 452, 470, the requirement of a state license for grain warehouses on railroad rights of way was found to be not inconsistent with the power of the Congress, although the warehouse company purchased the grain, handled in or shipped from its warehouse, for the purpose of transporting it as its property to its terminal elevators in Wisconsin and Illinois and thence to other points in the eastern States. Id., p.

462. The Court thus stated the reasons for this conclusion: "The statute puts no obstacle in the way of the purchase by the defendant company of grain in the State or the shipment out of the State of such grain as it purchased. The license has reference only to the business of the defendant at its elevator and warehouse. The statute only requires a license in respect of business conducted at an established warehouse in the State between the defendant and the sellers of grain. . . . In no real or substantial sense is such commerce obstructed by the requirement of a license." See, also, Merchants Exchange v. Missouri, 248 U. S. 365, 368.

Even where the Federal Government has intervened, as in the United States Warehousing Act of August 11, 1916, 7 U. S. C., c. 10, in providing for licenses for warehouses where agricultural products are "stored for interstate or foreign commerce," we held that the license did not convert the warehouseman into an instrumentality of the Federal Government and, while by means of the licensing provisions a measure of control over those engaged in the business was secured to the national government, still the license did not confer upon the warehouseman immunity from state taxation. Federal Compress Co. v. McLean, 291 U. S. 17, 22, 23. That case was followed by our decision in Chassaniol v. Greenwood, 291 U. S. 584, to the effect that the business of buying and selling cotton locally produced, processed and warehoused, was local in character, and that a local occupation tax upon the buyer did not contravene the commerce clause although the course of the business was such that all the cotton so bought was ultimately shipped by the buyer in interstate or foreign commerce. On similar grounds we held in Minnesota v. Blasius, 290 U. S. 1, 8, that because there was "a flow of interstate commerce" which was subject to the regulating power of the Congress, it did not necessarily follow that, in the absence of a con

flict with the exercise of that power, a State might not lay a non-discriminatory tax upon property which “although connected with that flow as a general course of business" had come to rest and acquired a situs within the State.

All these decisions but illustrate the principle that the mere existence of the congressional power, no conflict with its exercise being shown, does not deprive the States of their authority to safeguard their local interests by legislation which does not directly burden transactions in interstate or foreign commerce.

The cases upon which appellants rely are distinguishable. In Dahnke-Walker Co. v. Bondurant, 257 U. S. 282, the statute held to be invalid imposed burdensome conditions upon the enforcement of rights arising from transactions in interstate commerce. In Lemke v. Farmers Grain Co., 258 U. S. 50, the North Dakota statute of 1919 disclosed a comprehensive scheme to regulate the buying of grain in the course of interstate commerce. Such purchases could be made only by those who held licenses from the State, paid state charges for the same, and acted under a system of grading, inspecting and weighing fully defined in the Act. The grain could only be purchased subject to the power of the state grain inspector to determine the margin of profit which the buyer could realize upon his purchase. That margin of profit was defined to be the difference between the price paid at the North Dakota elevator and the market price, with an allowance for freight, at the Minnesota points to which the grain was shipped and sold. The state officer was thus authorized to "fix and determine the price" to be paid for grain which was "bought, shipped, and sold in interstate commerce." That the provision was a regulation of interstate commerce was said to be "obvious from its mere statement." Id., Id., pp. 56-58. The later North Dakota statute of 1923 fell under a like condemnation in