New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-12-15

or bailee; neither shall take advantage
of a stress to impose ransom upon the
public. All this is comprehended in the
term regulate" as employed by Of
Whether the corporation law can
give a right to tax shipping for the
use of wharves or not, the law
has given the municipal govern
ment of New Orleans the right to adopt
all such ordinances as may be necessary
to prescribe and ''collect rates of levee
dues and wharfage, as also to fix and de-
termine the place or places for anchor
ing and mooring ships, steamboats, and
all other vessels or water craft that may
arrive or remain within the limits of the
city of New Orleans, and of all docks for
ships, steamboats, or other vessels.
We maintain, then, that unless this
power to regulate wharf rates were con-
fered upon the vendees along with the fee
simple, as part of the contract, the
vendee would have no power, under the
city charter, to impose wharf rates, and
that if the power to regulate these rates
were possible of conveyance as a part of
the consideration to be paid, it would be
limited to the naked compensation for re-
pair and replacement, which could satisfy
no wharf owner. 1t is obvious that this
power to regulate" could neither be
bound up nor exhausted by conveyance,
since the power to regulate implies con
tinuing discretion applicable at all states
and stages of any agency. The city can
not delegate this right to regulate to an
individual because it is duty imposed
for the benefit of the public. The
city is appointed an umpire be-
tween the mariners and those who
demand from the mariner compensation
for a natural and necessary service or
easement for the enjoyment of what We
have shown to be the free right of transit
Such is the principle which separates the
rental use of fee simple from the mu-
nicipal duty to regulate the rate proper
for the use of an inalienable franchise of
way. The power to regulate being incapa-
BILE of delegation, it would, for reasons
heretofore assigned, be unwise for the CITY
to tie itself by q contract that no other
rate of wharfage than that charged at the
date of agreement should ever be i'm
posed. A wharf slip, with the present
rate, might twenty-five years hence be of
great injury to the city. 1t might be the
policy to take off the rates on shipping
altogether. To this the wharf owner
might not assent, and having this obstruc-
tion to the corporate policy in his hands,
be might have more profitable property
in the obstruction than in the use.
The confidence of "F. " in the effect of
competition among the wharf owners
shows guileless and unsophisticated ma
ture. Now, while competition is good
thing in itself, there is such thing known
as combination, in which competition has
no show at all. Suppose the wharf owners
do as the tugboat owners have done-pool
their wharves:
We confne ourselves, however, to the
impolicy and illegality of comforting a
power which We persist in calling power
of taxation upon individuals
We still hold the municipal government
as an invaluable institution. We believe
that the system of ward nominations is
not calculated to place at the head of each
department men of the highest compe-
tence, but since their lease of office is re-
Movable every two years we prefer them
to contractors, in whom may be reposed
power without responsibility. We likened
our city to King Lear, whose daughters
thought he was too old to conduct his
kingdom, and did not need more than one
servant to wait on him. We do not be-
lieve our city admins ration SO imbecile,
and would prefer keeping all franchises of
government in the hands of the peoples
government.
We can not see anything except "the
old dog in new doublet" in the proposal
to devolve this property and right of
taxation upon individuals. The very
proposition of 'F." has been applied in
the sale of wharves, payable in city OBJ
legations. We did not approve the prin-
ciple of that sale, nor has the operation
of the principle tended to establish the
fact that the private is any better than
the ublic administration.