Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/581

545 VALUE OF THE SERVICE AS A FACTOR IN RATE MAKING 545 tory. The favored consumers would be parasitic on other con- sumers; they could not long be upon the producer. The economics of such a course would be of a sort which has long been thoroughly discredited among economists, and is beginning to be among other people. If A wants a thing and is prepared to pay its cost, there is (at least if it is beneficial or harmless) no reasonable excuse for refusing to let him have it. It is perfectly inequitable to charge him more than its cost in order that a different thing may be fur- nished at less than cost to some one else.^^ If a particular industry is unable to pay the cost of the service it desires, it should do what most people do with respect to what they cannot pay for; it should go without. Traffic which will not bear the cost of carrying it ought not to be carried. Its owners have no vested right to live at other people's expense, and that is what happens if they pay only part of the cost of their service while the utility collects the rest from others. The situation is not altered if the article carried, or otherwise served, is of low value. That a thing is cheap no more gives it a right to be carried free, or without fully paying its way, than an individual's poverty en- titles him to be carried free.^^ If companies elsewhere are so fortunately situated that they can profitably furnish a given serv- ice at a lower rate than A, that is no reason for requiring A to furnish it at a loss. And as for public pohcy, the public has no such interest in this or that industry as to raise a policy in favor of putting its costs upon other industries; at least, it has no such obvious interest that commissions and courts may properly act on it. There are as serious objections to fixing rates above cost. So far as a given service is competitive, that also cannot be done; if it were attempted, competitors would simply get all the business. And some public utilities have actual or potential competition. 81 (Pub. Serv. Com. of Wash.); Re United Traction Co., P. U. R. 1916 E, 249 (N. Y. Pub. Serv. Com., Second Dist.); Hughes, J., in Northern Pacific Railway v. North Dakota, 236 U. S. 585, 598 (1915). ^ "It is urged by the State that the commodity in question is one of the lowest classes of freight. This may be assimied, and it may be a good reason for a lower rate than that charged for carrying articles of a different sort, but the mere grade of the commodity cannot be regarded as furnishing a sufficient ground for compelling the carrier to transport it for less than cost or without substantial reward." Northern Pacific Railway v. North Dakota, 236 U. S. 585, 597, 598 (1915).
 * ' Pub. Serv. Com. v. Puget Sound International Ry. & Power Co., P. U. R. 1916 B,