574
THE GREEN BAG
very clearly what may happen when a com mon carrier is permitted to foster a mo nopoly in a dependent service. The truth is that a wide gap exists between the maximum charge beyond which the courts will not allow those who are serving the pub lic to go, and the minimum rate which com petition between rival services will produce. Whether this be good economics or not, the firm belief of the Anglo-Saxon race, as ex pressed in its common law, is that the ad vantages of free competition to the public where competition is possible outweigh, in the long run, any temporary conveniences from monopolistic arrangements that may be urged.1 V An analogous question is raised when a railroad having terminus upon a wharf in a navigable stream, enters into some ar rangement with one steamboat line whereby it may have exclusive access to the wharf. In Indian River Steamboat Co. v. East Coast Transportation Co. (28 Fla. 387), the scheme employed was this: The Indian River Steamboat Company leased from the Jacksonville, Tampa & Key West Railway Company, 390 feet of the east end of its dock on the Indian River, at Titusville, on which dock was located the railroad track and terminal facility of the railroad com pany; and the railroad company coven anted, and agreed in the lease, to maintain the railroad track on said dock and bulk head and to furnish exclusive facilities for transfer of local freight to and from the bulk-head. The bill asked for an injunc tion to restrain respondents, a rival steam ship line, from using this dock at Titusville. Mr. Justice Mabry wrote the opinion of the court. He said in one place: "The real question presented here is, can complainant corporation, engaged in carrying freight and 1 What may be done by a progressive court in dealing with a situation like the one under dis cussion in this section, is shown by the decision about the private tank-car lines, State v. Cincin nati, etc. R. R., 47 Oh. St. 130.
passengers on the Indian River by means of steam-boats, rent from a railroad common carrier its dock on said river, on which its track and terminal facilities are located, and exclude others from landing at said terminal point for the purpose of receiving and delivering freight and passengers to and from said common carrier? This question, we think, must be answered in the negative. If it be competent to sustain such a con tract, the common carrier can select one connecting line of boats, and exclude all others from doing business with it. Such a doctrine would lead to the legalizing of a monopoly, and the sanction of an unfair and unjust preference between connecting and competing lines of transportation. We do not understand that a common carrier ever had such power as this." * The principal case seems sound in every particular if one accepts the progressive view in dealing with this problem; but if one adopts the conservative view it is diffi cult to see why the decision must not be the other way. And it seems that any other result would be unfortunate; since, by force of such an exclusive arrangement, the rail road might turn its patrons over to the favored company and demand what price it pleased for fostering this monopoly. And again, if this were legal, there would seem to be no way to prevent the Steamboat Company from charging this terminal ex pense against the shipping public. In some instances, perhaps, this exclusive arrange ment might stand, as if it were all one line operated by one system, competing steam boats might be excluded from the interme diate wharf; and, although this is more doubtful, if the wharf were no public sta tion of the railroad at all, but private prem1 West Coast Co. v. Louisville & N. R. R., tai Fed. 645, is squarely accord; so is Macon D. & S. R. Co. v. Graham & Ward, 117 Ga. 555; so it seems is Alexandria Bay Steamboat Co. v. New York C. & H. R. R. R., 45 N. Y. Supp. 1091; and perhaps Ilwaco Ry. & Nav. Co. v. Oregon S. L. & U. N. R. R., 57 Fed. 673, is not opposed.
