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THE GREEN BAG

public outcry that the individual could not compete against them with any hope of success. Even if in the face of the tempta tion to prefer themselves an upright rail road management should treat its business department upon the same basis as its competitors, the fact would remain that all in all the railroad could afford to conduct its own transportation of its own goods at a lower margin of profit than it could handle others. If a railroad could not get two profits, one from trading and one from transporting, it would inevitably turn out that it would content itself with one from the whole transaction. The present tendency therefore places the

public service companies definitely in the posi tion of conditions of commerce, free to all to use in their competition with one another. But from that competition the public ser vice companies themselves ought to stand aloof, lest their entrance into the field disturb that equality which all may demand as of right. It would be too much to assert that this is established law as yet. However, it is not impossible to demonstrate that this ultimate rule is the logical consequence of the law establishing that public duty which requires of all who undertake any public employment the utmost public ser vice. CAMBRIDGE, MASS., April, 1906.