the furnishing of a public supply. Now, it is true that most of the instances are cases of service, the railroad and the tram, for example; but other of the cases are of sup ply, the water-works and gas-works, for ex ample. Indeed, as Mr. Chaplin points out, there is nothing in that distinction either in economics or in law (advance sheets of his second edition). Neither will any broader idea than virtual monopoly do for a test, as the claim put forward in this pamphlet that whenever there is a public need the business becomes affected with a public interest (supra). In truth the application of such a test would take in almost all private busi nesses, for almost all industries in a sense supply to the public some necessity or other. The inquiry therefore should be confined to an examination into monopoly. Munn v. Il linois, we see, is thus limited to public callings. And whether virtual monopoly or virtual com petition be found should determine whether public At this calling stage or private of the argument calling is established. it is well to examine into the present case more closely, (pp. 1-9). The material facts as commonly understood are as follows : The mines within the anthracite coal region are owned by a comparatively limited number of corporations and individuals; more than that, there exists a present concert amongst the great corpora tions, owners in the district, which are united by leases, by voting pools, and by other de vices to preserve community of interest; it is even current belief that this combination is centred in a holding company which meets a certain day each week, and certainly it has been apparent during the last year that this confederacy has a present control of the market. If all this be granted, does not this make out the case against the coal operators, for is not this showing of virtual monopolization conclusive demonstration that the coal mines are devoted to a public use?
It would seem so on the face of things; and yet objections to that consequence present themselves at once. We are so used to see a corner made one day and the market break the next, to witness a pool formed in one month disappear in the next, to find a close combination in control in one year and a fierce competition in the next, that we do not attach much importance to such ephemeral monopolies; rather we look upon them as a natural course of things in all industries, this integration and disintegra tion. We cannot think, therefore, of trad ing in wheat as public business one day and private the next, of the sale of rubber as private calling in one month, public business the next, of the supply of whiskey as private business one year, public calling the next; the law of the public services as we know it is not subject to such flux and reflux. You have a hotel in a city of ten thousand public houses, still it is public calling, despite the competition — Lamond v. Gordon Hotels, 1897, 1 Q. B. 541. So if you find a single grocery store in a town, that does not make that store in public calling, despite its mo nopoly — Brewster ^.Miller, 101 Ky. 275. In truth, that is not a legal state of things, to have a business shifted into public calling upon a temporary crisis, and shifted out again, the stringency being over. The law deals rather with conditions wherein the con trol is established in the nature of things, so that unless the law unlocks the supply it will be withheld forever to the permanent detri ment of the public, when you may say : It is settled now — we are convinced that there can never be effective competition in this business. Of that nature every calling that has been held public will be found upon ex amination into the real facts of the matter. It is at this point at last that the elabo rate case against the coal operators seems to break down. By long experience it is known
