entertain and dispose of controversies. And it is indispensable to this power that the commission should have the right to exercise its judgment and to form conclusions upon the facts. To enable it to do this, the statute provides that notice shall be given to interested parties, that a hearing shall be had and proofs taken. We think there is no valid constitutional objection to the law, in that legislative powers are improperly delegated." ... WILLIAMS, J., IN BRYMER v. BUTLER WATER CO. A provision in the third section of the act of June 2, 1887, relating to the jurisdiction of the courts over gas and water companies, is supplemental to the act of 1874, and defines somewhat more distinctly the duty of such companies to furnish the public with pure gas and water, but it contains no allusion to the subject of price. The power of the court to interfere between the seller and the buyer of water is conferred only by the provisions already quoted from the act of 1874, and that act authorizes the court to entertain the complaint of the buyer, to investigate the reasonableness of the price charged, and to "dismiss the complaint," or to order that the charges complained of, if found to be unreasonable and unjust, "shall be decreased." The water company prepares its schedule of prices in the first instance, and makes its own terms with its customers; but if these are oppressive, so that, in the exercise of the visitorial power of the state, the just protection of the citizen requires that they be reduced, then the court is authorized to say: "This charge is oppressive. You must decrease it. You are entitled to charge a price that will yield a 3 See Interstate Comm. Comm. v. Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co. (1910), 218 U. S. 88; Interstate Comm. Comm. v. Humboldt S. S. Co. (1912), 224 U. S. 474. As to the primary jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission in rate controversies and controversies involving discrimination, see Texas & Pac. Ry. Co. v. Abiline Cotton Oil Co. (1907), 204 U. S. 426; Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Co. v. United States (1910), 215 U. S. 481; Director General of Railroads v. The Viscose Co. (1921), 254 U. S. 498. As to the review of findings of the Interstate Commerce Commission, see Interstate Comm. Comm. v. Union Pac. Ry. Co. (1912), 222 U. S. 541; Interstate Comm. Comm, v. Louisville & N. R. R. Co. (1913), 227 U. S. 88: Florida East Coast Ry. Co. v. United States (1914), 234 U. S., 167; Manufacturers Ry. Co. v. United States (1918), 246 U. S. 457: Ernst Freund, "Commission Powers and Public Utilities," 9 American Bar Assoc. Jour. 285. 1 Only an extract from the opinion is here reprinted.-ED. fair compensation to you, but you must not be extortionate." This is not an authority to manage the affairs of the company, but to restrain illegal and oppressive conduct on its part in its dealings with the public. It may be that the power to order that any particular item of charge shall "be decreased" includes the power to fix the extent of the reduction that must be made, or to name the maximum charge for the particular service in controversy, which the court will approve; but the decree is that the item shall "be decreased" either generally or to a sum named. The schedule of charges must be revised accordingly by the company defendant, and such revision may be compelled in the same manner that the decree of the same court may be enforced in other cases. We do not think this supervisory power would justify the court in preparing a tariff of water rents, and commanding a corporation to furnish water to the public at the rates so fixed. This would involve a transfer of the management of the property and the business of a solvent corporation from its owners to a court of equity, for no other reason than that the court regarded some one or more of the charges made by the company as too high. The act of 1874 contemplates no such radical departure from established rules as this, but provides simply for the protection of the citizen from extortionate charges, specifically pointed out and complained of by petition.2 2 In Madison v. Madison G. & E. Co. (1906), 129 Wis. 249, the Court said, at page 268: "But it is insisted by respondents that, since the gas company is obligated to furnish gas to the city and its inhabitants at a reasonable price, the court has jurisdiction to determine what, under the existing facts and circumstances, is a reasonable charge, and to enforce it as the measure of future service under like conditions. No doubt the court can ascertain, within its judicial function and whenever the question is necessarily involved in any controversy to which the gas company is a party, what is a reasonable charge for gas furnished. This, however, as already shown, is the extent to which the court can go. Whatever might be determined to be a reasonable charge, under the facts and circumstances adduced in such an inquiry, cannot be enforced as a fixed charge for the service for any purpose other than to determine the particular controversy between the parties and their privies. If it were attempted to enforce it as a prescribed future charge, it would, in an indirect way, usurp the legislative prerogative of prescribing by rule the compensation for a future public service. This, as we have seen, the courts cannot do." Compare, In re Janvrin (1899), 174 Mass. 514. See Note, 68 Pennsylvania L. Rev. 287. Section 3. THE EXTENT OF THE STATE'S POWER OVER RATES. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE IN MUNN v. ILLINOIS. 94 U. S. 113. 1876.1 Done are notes It is insisted, however, that the owner of property is entitled to a reasonable compensation for its use, even though it be clothed with a public interest, and that what is reasonable is a judicial and not a legislative question. But law is + the the As has already been shown, the practice has been otherwise. In countries where the common law prevails, it has been customary from time immemorial for the legislature to declare what shall be a reasonable compensation under such circumstances, or, perhaps more properly speaking, to fix a maximum beyond which any charge made would be unreasonable. Undoubtedly, in mere private contracts, relating to matters in which the public has no interest, what is reasonable must be ascertained judicially. But this is because the legislature has no control over such a contract. So, too, in matters which do affect the public interest, and as to which legislative control may be exercised, if there are no statutory regulations upon the subject, the courts must determine what is reasonable. The controlling fact is the power to regulate at all. If that Power exists, the right to establish the maximum of charge, as one of the . means of regulation, is implied. In fact, the common-law rule, which requires the charge to be reasonable, is itself a regulation as to price. Without it the owner could make his rates at will, and compel the public to yield to his terms, or forego the use. But a mere common-law regulation of trade or business may be changed by statute. A person has no property, no vested interest, in any rule of the common law. That is only one of the forms of municipal law, and is no more sacred than any other. Rights of property which have been created by the common law cannot be taken away without due process; but the law itself, as a rule of conduct, may be changed at the will, or even at the whim, of the legislature, unless prevented by constitutional limitations. Indeed, the great office of statutes is to remedy defects in the common law as they are developed, and to adapt it to the changes of time and 1 Only an extract from the opinion is here reprinted. ED. circumstances. To limit the rate of charge for services rendered in a public employment, or for the use of property in which the public has an interest, is only changing a regulation which existed before. It establishes no new principle in the law, but only gives a new effect to an old one. We know that this is a power which may be abused; but that is no argument against its existence. For protection against abuses by legislatures the people must resort to the polls, not to the courts.2 Done see Constitutional Lawd page 486 case Look, REAGAN v. FARMERS' LOAN AND TRUST CO. 154 U. S. 362. 1894.1 ... MR. JUSTICE BREWER delivered the opinion of the court. It appears from the bill that, in pursuance of the powers given to it by this act, the state commission has made a body of rates for 2 In Peik v. Chicago & N. W. Ry. Co. (1876), 94 U. S. 164, 178, the court said: "As to the claim that the court must decide what is reasonable, and not the legislature. This is not new to this case. It has been fully considered in Munn v. Illinois. Where property has been clothed with a public interest, the legislature may fix a limit to that which shall in law he rea sonable for its use. This limit binds the courts as well as the people. If it has been improperly fixed, the legislature, not the courts, must be ap pealed to for the change." In Stone v. Farmers' L. & T. Co. (1885), 116 U. S. 307, the following language is found on pages 330 and 331: "In Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, and Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co. v. Iowa [94 U. S. 155], above cited, this court decided that, as to natural persons and corporations subject to legislative control, the State could, in cases like this, fix a maximum beyond which any charge would be unreasonable, and that such maximum when fixed would be binding on the courts in their adjudications, as well as on the parties in their dealings. "From what has thus been said, it is not to be inferred that this power of limitation or regulation is itself without limit. This power to regulate is not a power to destroy, and limitation is not the equivalent of confisca tion. Under pretence of regulating fares and freights, the State cannot require a railroad corporation to carry persons or property without reward; neither can it do that which in law amounts to a taking of private property for public use without just compensation, or without due process of law. What would have this effect we need not now say, because no tariff has yet been fixed by the commission, and the statute of Mississippi expressly provides that in all trials of cases brought for a violation of any tariff of charges, as fixed by the commission, it may be shown in defence that such tariff so fixed is unjust.'" 1 The statement of facts, arguments of counsel and part of the opinion are omitted.- ED.' fares and freights. This body of rates, as a whole, is challenged by the plaintiff as unreasonable, unjust, and working a destruction of its rights of property. The defendant denies the power of the court to entertain an inquiry into that matter; insisting that the fixing of rates for carriage by a public carrier is a matter wholly within the power of the legislative department of the government, and beyond examination by the courts. It is doubtless true, as a general proposition, that the formation of a tariff of charges for the transportation by a common carrier of persons or property is a legislative or administrative, rather than a judicial, function. Yet it has always been recognized that, if a carrier attempted to charge a shipper an unreasonable sum, the courts had jurisdiction to inquire into that matter, and to award to the shipper any amount exacted from him in excess of a reasonable rate, and also, in a reverse case, to render judgment in favor of the carrier for the amount found to be a reasonable charge. The province of the courts is not changed, nor the limit of judicial inquiry altered, because the legislature, instead of the carrier, prescribes the rates. The courts are not authorized to revise or change the body of rates imposed by a legislature or a commission. They do not determine whether one rate is preferable to another, or what, under all circumstances, would be fair and reasonable, as between the carriers and the shippers. They do not engage in any mere administrative work. But still there can be no doubt of their power and duty to inquire whether a body of rates prescribed by a legislature or a commission is unjust and unreasonable, and such as to work a practical destruction to rights of property, and, if found so to be, to restrain its operation. In Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. Iowa, 94 U. S. 155, and Peik v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway, 94 U. S. 164, the question of legislative control over railroads was presented; and it was held that the fixing of rates was not a matter within the absolute discretion of the carriers, but was subject to legislative control. As stated by Mr. Justice Miller in Wabash, St. L. & P. Ry. Co. v. Illinois, 118 U. S. 557, 569, in respect to those cases: "The great question to be decided, and which was decided, and which was argued in all those cases, was the right of the State within which a railroad company did business to regulate or limit the amount of any of these traffic charges." There was in those cases no decision as to the extent of control, but only as to the right of control. This question came again before this court in Railroad Commission Cases, 116 U. S. 307, 331; and, while the right of control was reaffirmed, a limitation on that right was plainly intimated in the following words of the chief justice: |