tion between these corporations, and substan tially all the independent mine owners and operators in the region " a uniform price for different kinds of coal was " fixed monthly for coal delivered free on board vessels at tide water; " and "that the present -members of the coal combination (including, as it does, the coal carrying roads and the owners of mines) and their predecessors in title and in business, have, during fifty years or more, invited the public to build and plan their business and domestic affairs upon the expectation of a constant supply of enormous quantities of anthracite coal from this region and the delivery of it out of the mining region, at proper shipping points, all at a price affording a proper compensation for the coal, the mining of it, and the transportation of it to these shipping points, but a price also consist ent with the practical continuance of use of it by the public for business and domestic purposes;" and that " upon this reasonable expectation and reliance on the part of the public — an expecta tion and a reliance invited and encouraged by the mine owners and the coal-carrying companies — is founded the whole industrial and domestic economy—one might almost say, theexistingform of civilization — of the population of the eastern part of the United States." Mr. Chaplin then considers, first, " The Rights and Remedies of the Public," and secondly, the " Procedure " for enforcing these remedies. His argument is based on two main proposi tions : that " all real estate, of whatever charac ter, is subject to the right of the public in many respects to restrict the use of it, or to require affirmative action in respect to it on the part of the owner," and that "every man, by inviting others to deal with his property, creates himself, to that extent, a trustee of his property towards such persons, and puts himself and his property under a limitation, and — where affirmative ac tion is required by good faith — under obliga tions of affirmative action." The common example of this rule of invitation is, of course, the liability of inn-keepers and common carriers; but its principles are " not limited in modern life to the specific forms or application of them which were made by the early law, but exist and are capable of being applied, up to the fullest re quirements of their spirit, to new conditions aris ing in modern society." As an example of this
doctrine in its modern form, Munn, v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, — the grain elevator case, — is cited, as illustrating "the principle that whoever so conducts his property or his business as to enter into relations with the public, and leads them to depend upon his services and the use of his property, thenceforth holds his property and his services no longer as private property, but subject to a superior and dominating interest in the public, — that is to say, holds them in trust for the public, and subject to public control." There is, of course, another feature which enters into the matter, — " the feature of virtual monopoly." " If," says Mr. Chaplin, " the ' vir tual ' monopoly feature for the time being of ex isting elevators in Chicago presented such an element of monopoly as to subject the elevators of Chicago to public rights in them, far more does the monopoly feature of the Pennsylvania coal mining region operate, in and of itself, and apart from other considerations, to subject the property to rights of the public, when the public have once been led by the original owners of the mining lands and their successors down to and including the present owners, to base their busi ness and domestic conditions on a reliance upon this source of supply." The relations between the public and the cor porations controlling the mining and carrying of coal is summed up in the following words : "From the principles and authorities above stated and cited, and in particular from the de cision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Chicago grain elevator case, it seems to follow without question that the anthracite coal mines in Pennsylvania, legal title to which as parcels of real estate is in various corporations and individuals referred to at the beginning of this pamphlet, are held by them subject to the right of the coal consuming public of the United States to have a continuous supply of coal from them at reasonable prices; and that the railroad corporations above-mentioned, in their aspect and capacity of common carriers, are bound to take out of the anthracite region all the coal thus mined, and to deliver it at the proper and cus tomary general shipping points from which con sumers may get it, and that — there being no particular statute of Pennsylvania upon the subject — the right is one which may be enforced through the ordinary tribunals of justice."
