NOTES 75 the exercise of this power may be delegated to a municipality, commission or other administrative body.^ Thus the courts hold that all contracts or grants relating to public service entered into between the private person or corporation operat- ing a pubUc utility and the municipality or the private consumer con- tain from the very nature of their subject matter an implied reservation of the right of the state to lawfully exercise its police power for the general welfare, and that there is no impairment of obligations of con- tract within the guarantees of the state or federal constitution even though said contract is thereby rendered partially or wholly invalid.^ This development has wrought a fundamental change in view-point in the law of public utilities, and to-day the primary consideration is not whether the exercise of the state's regulatory power impairs the obligation of the public service contract, but whether that contract tends to abridge this power of the state. ^ To return to our problem, the public utility proprietor must needs know when this long-tenA contract, which the courts agree was binding at the time made, ceases to be so, and what then become his rights or duties in the premises. In the instant case the court held the point of cleavage to have been on the day the public service act took effect, — yet the facts showed that on two different occasions thereafter the defendant utility company filed with the commission a tariff for that class of service at the same rate provided for under said contract and charged and collected said rate until April, 191 7. As pointed out by a recent writer,^ this fact may Commission, 229 U. S. 397 (1913); City of Woodbum v. Public Service Commission of Oregon, 82 Ore. 114, 161 Pac. 391 (1916); Onondaga Golf & Country Club v. Syracuse & S. R. Co., 96 Misc. 499, 160 N. Y. Supp. 693 (1916); Mississippi R. R. Commission V. Mobile & Ohio R. R. Co., 244 U. S. 388 (1917); Winfield :;. Public Service Com- mission, 118N. E. 531 (Ind.) (1918); State ex rel. City of Sedalia v. Public Service Com- mission, 204 S. W. 497 (Mo.) (1918). ^ Reagan v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 154 U. S. 362, 14 Sup. Ct. 1047 (1894). See Atlantic Coast Electric Ry. Co. v. Board of Public Utility Commissioners, 104 Atl. 218 (N. J.) (1918); Trustees of- Saratoga Springs y. Saratoga Gas, Electric Light & Power Co., 191 N. Y. 123, 146, 83 N. E. 693 (1908). ^ Kansas City Bolt & Nut Co. v. Kansas City Light & Power Co., 204 S. W. 1074 (Mo.) (1918); City of Fulton v. Public Service Commission, 204 S. W. 386 (Mo.) (1918); Collingswood Sewerage Co. v. Borough of Collingswood, 102 Atl. 901 (N. J.) (1918); Raymond Lumber Co. v. Raymond Light & Water Co., 92 Wash. 330, 159 Pac. 133, P. U. R. 1916 F, 437 (1916); McCook Irrigation & Water Power Co. v. Burt- less, 99 Neb. 250, 152 N. W. 334 (1915); Union Dry Goods Co. v. Georgia Pubhc Service Corporation, 142 Ga. 841, 83 S. E. 946, 947 (1914); Minneapolis, St. [Paul, etc. Ry. Co. v. Menasha Wooden Ware Co., 159 Wis. 130, 150 N. W. 411, 413 (1914); Idaho Power & Light Co. v. Blomquist, 26 Idaho, 222, 141 Pac. 1083 (1914); Re Rates of the Bridge Operating Co., 3 P. S. C. R. (ist Dist. N. Y.) 226 (1912); aff'd 153 App. Div. (N. Y.) 129, 138 N. Y. Supp. 434 (1912); Portland Ry. Light & Power Co. V. City of Portland, 200 Fed. 890 (191 2). A fortiori the same principles govern contracts between two private companies which function successively in furnishing a public service — the one producing and the other distributing the product supplied. Oklahoma Natural Gas Co. v. Corpora- tion Commission, P. U. R. 1918 D, 515 (1918). ^ See Kansas City Bolt & Nut Co. v. Kansas City Light & Power Co., 204 S. W. 1074 (Mo.) (1918); City of Chicago v. O'Connell, 278 111. 591, 116 N. E. 210, P. U. R. 191 7 E, 730; President & Trustees of Village of Kilbourn City v. Southern Wisconsin Power Co., 149 Wis. 168, 135 N. '^. 499 (191 2).
- See Ralph J. Baker, "The Bmding Force of Term Contracts as Applied to Pub-
