Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/569

533 VALUE OF THE SERVICE AS A FACTOR IN RATE MAKING 533 that each service which can conveniently be treated as distinct must pay its own costs. Almost any service which is treated for rate- making purposes as a single division of a utihty company's busi- ness might conceivably be subdivided into different services differing more or less in the cost of performing them. For example, it costs more to carry a passenger who weighs 180 pounds than one who weighs 130 pounds, yet both pay the same fare. In the interest of simphcity and practicability, the subdivision of serv- ices must, as it does, stop somewhere; and its stopping some- where hardly derogates from the principle that each service must pay its own costs. This would seem to be the true explanation of the cases in which the Supreme Court has held that carriage over a secti9n of road where costs are high, because of expensive construction^^ or light trafl&c,^^ entitles the carrier to no extra com- pensation, but only to the normal rate which when applied to its whole road gives a fair return. It seems also measurably to reconcile the case of Atlantic Coast Line v. North Carolina Corporation Commission, ^^ in which the court held that a railroad might be compelled to operate a particular connecting train on which it lost money. Since a utility company is entitled wherever possible, and re- "8 St. Louis & San Francisco Ry. Co. v. Gill, 156 U. S. 649, 665 (1895). Cf. State ex rel. Missouri Pacific Ry. Co. v. Atkinson, 269 Mo. 634, 192 S. W. 86 (1917)- ^o 206 U. S. I (1907). The Supreme Court (White, J.) in this case adopts, and in Northern Pacific Railway v. North Dakota, 236 U. S. 585 (1915), repeats a distinction which is far from convincing; viz., that to rim a train is "to furnish a facility which it is a part of" the railroad's "general duty to furnish for the pubhc convenience. The distinction between an order relating to such a subject and an order fixing rates" is that "as the primal duty of a carrier is to furnish adequate facilities to the public, that duty may well be compelled, although by doing so as an incident some pecuniary loss from rendering such service may result." 206 U. S. 26. Doubtless one primal duty of a carrier is to furnish adequate facilities to the public; but the duty of actually carrying passengers and commodities would seem to be quite as primal as the duty of furnishing adequate faciUties for their carriage. If a road may be compelled to furnish means at a loss, why may it not be compelled to permit their use at a loss ? Of course the court would not require a road to furnish passenger facilities in general at a loss; in Norfolk & Western Railway Co. v. Conley, 236 U. S. 60s (1915)) it held, what comes to the same thing, that a road could not be compelled to carry at a loss its passenger trafi&c as a whole. But the carriage of passengers on the less patronized and on the more patronized trains may well be lumped together and treated as a single service. Cf. Jones V. K. C, C. C.,etc. Ry. Co., P. U. R. 1918 D, 586 (Mo. Pub. Serv. Com.).
 * ' Puget Sound Traction Co. v. Rejoiolds, 244 U. S. 574 (191 7).