550 HARVARD LAW REVIEW for earning dividends, we could not say that the act was unconstitu- tional merely because the company (as was alleged and as the demurrer admitted) could not earn more than four per cent on its capital stock. It cannot be said that a corporation is entitled, as of right, and without reference to the interests of the public, to realize a given per cent upon its capital stock. When the question arises whether the legislatiire has exceeded its constitutional power in prescribing rates to be charged by a corporation controlling a public highway stockholders are not the only persons whose rights or interests are to be considered. The rights of the public are not to be ignored." ^ But the statement of variability is most commonly made, as one would expect, with reference to the return on particular serv- ices. In Northern Pacific Railway v. North Dakota, the very case in which it was laid down that the value of a service could not be made an excuse for fixing rates below cost, the United States Supreme Court said : "The legislature, imdoubtedly, has a wide range of discretion in the exercise of the power to prescribe reasonable charges, and it is not bound to fix uniform rates for all commodities or to secure the same percentage of profit on every sort of business. There are many factors to be con- sidered — differences in the articles transported, the care required, the risk assimied, the value of the service, and it is obviously important that there should be reasonable adjustments and classifications. . . . The court ... is not called upon to concern itself with mere details of a schedule; or to review a particular tariff . . , which jdelds sub- stantial compensation for the services it embraces, when the profitable- ness of the intrastate business as a whole is not involved." ®' And the actual effect of the value of the service on rates is, natur- ally, most evident in cases dealing, with classification, or other- " Covington Turnpike Co. v. Sandford, 164 U. S. 578, 596 (1896). Cf. Southern Indiana Ry. Co. v. R. R. Com., 172 Ind. 113, 128, 87 N. E. 966, 971 (1909). "What that profit shall be — whether ten, six, two, or any other per cent — must be deter- mined from the facts of each particular case, taking into account, as against the cost and earning capacity of the railroad, the value of the service to the shipper, and the amount he can reasonably afford to pay. In short, as the charge approaches oppres- sion to the shipper, it should in the same degree approach the point of minimiun profit to the carrier." " 236 U. S. 585, 598, 599 (1915). Similarly, in Norfolk & Western Railway v. West Virginia, 236 U. S. 605, 609 (1915), the court said: "The state is imder no obligation to secure the same rate of return from each of the two principal departments of business, passenger and freight." Cf. Bogart v. Wis. Tel. Co., P. U. R. 1916 C, 1020, 1053, 1054 (Wis. R. R. Com.).
