"A judicial inquiry investigates, declares, and enforces liabilities as they stand on present or past facts and under laws supposed already to exist. That is its purpose and end. Legislation, on the other hand, looks to the future and changes existing conditions by making a new rule to be applied thereafter to all or some parts of those subject to its power. The establishment of a rate is the making of a rule for the future, and therefore is an act legislative, not judicial, in kind. * * * "Proceedings legislative in nature are not proceedings in a court within the meaning of the Revised Statutes, section 720, no matter what may be the general or dominant character of the body in which they may take place. * * * That question depends not upon the character of the body, but upon the character of the proceedings. (Ex parte Va., 100; U. S., 339-348.) They are not a suit in which a writ of error would lie under Revised Statutes, section 709, and act of February 18, 1875. (C. 80 Stat., 318.) * * * Litigation can not arise until the moment of legislation is passed. * * * We may add that when the rate is fixed a bill against the commission to restrain the members from enforcing it will not be bad as an attempt to enjoin legislation or as a suit against a State, and will be the proper form of remedy." The recent decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Public Service Commission _v._ Consolidated Gas Co. of New York, in which the opinion was delivered by Mr. Justice Peckham, in deciding what is known as the Eighty-Cent Gas Case from the southern district of New York, is instructive upon the question discussed in this objection. In that case, the parties had gone to issue upon the question as to whether the rate of 80 cents enjoined by the court from taking effect was confiscatory. After deciding the case upon the merits in favor of the commission, the court was unwilling, upon the supposed effect of a rate which had never been in operation, to bar the parties of their right when the same became effective from asking the protection of the court against its practical results. The memorandum announcing the position of the court upon that question is as follows: "As it may possibly be that a practical experience of the effect of the acts by actual operation under them might prevent the complainant from obtaining a fair and just return upon its property used in its business of supplying gas, the complainant, in that event, ought to have the opportunity of again presenting its case to the court. Therefore, the decree is reversed, with direction to dismiss the bill without prejudice."