Ford

This is an application for a writ of mandate to compel the defendant to allow and pay to plaintiff the sum of thirty dollars as and for the balance due him on account of his salary as collector for the month ending July 24, 1889.

The real purpose of the action is to determine the question of the power of the board of state harbor commissioners to discharge a collector before the expiration of his term of office, for no cause except that his services are no longer needed. The case is submitted upon an agreed statement of facts, from which it appears:—

That on the 9th of June, 1887, the board appointed the plaintiff to the office of collector, in accordance with the provisions of section 2521 of the Political Code; that the plaintiff duly qualified as iprescribed by law, and entered upon the discharge of his duties as such officer, and continued to discharge them until the sixteenth day of July, 1889; that subsequent to such appointment and qualification, and prior to said last-named date, the board adjusted and classified the rates of wharfage on *21 merchandise and other articles, and determined and directed that such charges should be collected upon that portion thereof…

We concur. The defendant is an executive board, created by law, and charged with the care and improvement of the water-front of San Francisco. It has control of certain wharves, docks, slips, etc., and collects wharfage, tolls, and other charges for the use thereof. It was first organized under the act to “provide for the improvement and protection of the wharves, docks, and water-front of *32 the city and county of San Francisco,” approved April 24, 1863. (Stats. 1863, p. 406.)

. From time to time this act has been amended and supplemented. It was carried into the Political. Code upon its adoption in 1872, and has since been remodeled at different sessions of the legislature.

From the establishment of the board down to the year 1883 the commissioners were authorized to appoint wharfingers and toll collectors; the provision concerning these employees in the last amendment of the Polihical Code previous to 1883 being as follows: “Said commissioners shall also appoint a sufficient number of persons wharfingers to collect the revenue arising from, dockage, cranage, rents, and tolls by authority of this article, and may also appoint a sufficient number of persons toll collectors to…