Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/592

556 HARVARD LAW REVIEW , regarded as an evil; and with necessities, articles the consumption of which is thought specially desirable. The interest of manufacturers, dealers, and employees fur- nishes an argument which parallels, in large part, that based on the interest of consumers. It is obviously to the interest of the people engaged in an industry that it survive. So far as anything tends to kill it, to them it is, in that proportion, an evil. And a prosperous business is obviously less likely to be ruined by in- creasing its costs than a depressed one. The case is less strong for making anything turn on a mere comparison of rates in different localities; yet there does appear to be a certain advantage, other things being equal, in uniformity. People in one locality tend to be placed at a disadvantage in com- petition with people in another if they have to pay higher rates to public utilities. Moreover, the general prevalence of a given rate, since it tends to show what costs are and rates should be in many places, is some evidence, though slight and indirect, of what they are and should be in a particular place. Though the fact that rates are higher or lower elsewhere is no reason for fixing them above or below cost anywhere, it is some reason for taking a broader or narrower view of cost. In summary: It is frequently said, by eminent courts, com- missions, and text-writers, that the value of a service is entitled to quite as much weight as the cost of the service in the fixing of public-service rates. The decisions do not bear out, but contra- dict, such statements. The decisions estabhsh that the value of the service — which means substantially public pohcy — is not a criterion either superior to or coordinate with the cost of the serv- ice. This is entirely sound and largely inevitable. But the un- certainties of cost (though narrower than the uncertainties of value) offer room for value to operate as a subordinate criterion, by fixing rates higher or lower within the range of cost; and some aspects of value do, and quite as many should, operate in that way. Henry White Edgerton. Boston, Mass.