The increase in the cost of living in the last five years has been reflected in many increases in the wages of the great majority of the 1,500,000 employees; but the returns to the security-holders, who also must meet in their daily life the increased cost of living, not only are not increased, but in many cases have been decreased. Many of these security-holders are persons of moderate means to whom any loss of income is important.
Judge Sanborn, in his very exhaustive opinion in the Minnesota Rate Case, says about the return on railroad property: “Complaint is made that the master finds that the companies are entitled to a net return of 7 per cent per annum upon the respective values of their properties devoted to this public use. The character of the business in which an investment is made, the locality in which it is placed, the returns secured in that locality from other investments of a similar nature, the uniformity and certainty of the return, and the risks to which the principal and the income from it are subjected, condition the measure of a fair
