145 Pa. 105 | Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Dauphin County | 1891
Opinion,
This case presents a new and an interesting question, viz.: Is a company that produces electricity, and sells it to customers for the generation of light, heat, or power, a manufacturing company within the meaning of the act of 1885, exempting the capital stock of manufacturing companies from taxation ?
This case was tried without a jurjq and the facts upon which the judgment was based appear in the findings of the court below. One of these, which was based upon the opinion and largely expressed in the words of an expert electrician, who was called as a witness, asserts that the electricity sold by the company was created by the process adopted by the company. The learned judge says : “ The electricity which furnishes the light does not exist until the armature revolves. The revolution of the armature brings into being something that did not exist before; that is, this electric energy, or energy in this electric form.” In the same finding, he describes the process by which this product is evolved or created as follows: Coal is burned under the boilers, producing heat. The heat generates steam in the boilers, which moves the engine. The engine supplies the power by which the armature is made to revolve. The revolution of the armature produces electric currents where they did not exist before. The electricity thus generated is carried over wires provided' by the company, and delivered to its customers, where it is used to produce light. The process by which electricity is made to furnish light is found to consist of the movement of an electric current from one carbon point to another which are made part of its circuit. In leaping from one point to another great heat is developed by the energy of the current. This heat liberates or evolves from the carbons a gas which it burns. The light is thus found to
The mere appropriation of an article which is furnished by nature is not a manufacture. Thus the liberation of natural gas or oil from the earth, and its transportation to consumers, is not a manufacture, but the production of illuminating gas is: Nassau Gas Light Co. v. Brooklyn, 89 N. Y. 409; also, Emerson v. Commonwealth, 108 Pa. 111. The collection, storage, preparation for market, and transportation of ice is not a manufacture, but the production of ice by artificial means is: People v. Ice Co., 99 N. Y. 181. A telegraph company produces electricity by artificial means, but it uses it in its own business as a carrier of messages for the public; so does a telephone company. Both receive messages for carriage, and deliver them at the point of destination. They transport for their customers. This company whose character we are considering sells the electricity it makes, or “brings into being,” as a commodity. It provides the lamps or appliances for the use of its customers, by means of which the light is produced; it sells them the
But we think the controlling question in this case is that of the sense in which the words “ manufacturing companies ” are used in the statute under consideration. It provides that the taxes laid on corporations by the revenue laws of the commonwealth, are repealed or abolished as to manufacturing corporations. Now, if there were a class of corporations existing at that date known by the name of manufacturing companies or corporations, we must assume that the legislature intended that class, when it used the name by which the class had been known in previous legislation; and we need go no farther than the statute book to determine the legislative intent in the act of 1885.
The act of 1879 imposed a capital-stock tax on all corporations alike, so that we get no help from it. Looking back to the laws under which corporations have been created, we find that in 1836
We think the learned judge reached a correct conclusion in this case. The appellant is not within the exemption or immunity provided by the act of 1885, but we prefer*to rest our judgment on the definition of “ manufacturing corporations ” which the legislature has adopted and adhered to for more than
The judgment is affirmed.
Act of June 16, 1836, P. L. 799.
Act of April 7, 1849, P. L. 563.
Act of April 29, 1874, P. L. 73.