Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/419

403 LEASE OF RAILROAD. 403 of the earnings, he must be content with a share of the reserved rental in a corporation possessed of the single faculty of maintain- ing its organization for the distribution of such rent, stripped of all the franchises for the exercise of which it was founded. With- out his consent, and against his protest, he would lose his share in the old thing, and be forced. . . into a new and wholly differ- ent venture. . . . For all substantial, practical purposes, a lease for 999 years is a conveyance in fee." ^ " From the conclusions thus far reached, does it result that one unwilling stockholder may obstruct the growth and development of every enterprise of this character in which he may have partici- pated, and thus hinder the union under one management of these important public highways which have been constructed at differ- ent periods and under separate 'charters, when the necessities of interstate commerce, and the convenience of public travel, may unite in urging it? Shall a railroad from Philadelphia to Trenton never be extended so as to connect the two great cities of our Union, while one obstinate associate stands in the way? ... In the exercise of the right of eminent domain, the Legislature may authorize shares in corporations, and corporate franchises, to be taken for public uses upon just compensation."^ In Mills V. Central R. R. Co.,^ under an alterable and repealable charter, and a subsequent statute authorizing all railway compa- nies to lease their roads, a lease of the Central was held void on the ground, stated in Black's Case, that the corporate business could not be 'radically changed by the majority, and the ground, stated in Zabriskie's Case,^ that the power of amendment and repeal was a power reserved by the State to modify and rescind the grant it had made, and not to authorize one part of the corporators to make radical changes in violation of the agreement of all. The extension of the Old Colony Railroad from Fall River, in Massachusetts, to Newport, in Rhode Island, authorized by the Legislature and a majority of the stockholders, was held to be legal because the business to be done in Rhode Island was of the same kind as that done in Massachusetts.^ The company would be a railway common carrier in both States. The court suggest 1 Van Syckel, J., in Black v. Delaware & R. Co., 24 N. J. Eq. 455, 464, 465. 2 Van Syckel, J., in Black v. Delaware & R. Co., 24 N. J. Eq. 455, 468. (See also 24 N. J. Eq. 463, 466, 467, 485.) « 41 N. J. Eq. I.
 * 18 N. J. Eq. 178, 185. 6 Durfee v. Old Colony R. R. Co., 5 Allen, 230.