Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1911-01-17
ADDRESS or Gov WILSON REPEATS PLEDGES

lions seeking charters. They ought
also to be extended to corporations al
ready operating under the license and
authority of the State. Fol- the right
to undertake such regulation is sus-
ceptible of easy and obvious justifica-
ton. A modern corporation--that is,
a modern joint stock ~company--is in
no proper sense an intimate or private
concern. 1t is not set up on the risk
and adventure of "A few persons, the
persons who originated 1t, manage it,
carry ii to failure or success. On the
contrary, 1t is set up at what may be
called the common risk. 1t is a risk
and adventure in which the public are
invited to share, and the hundreds,
perhaps thousands, who subscribe to
the stock do in fact share in It,, often
times without sharing also, in any eff
~fectual manner. in the control and de-
velopment of he business in which
their risk is taken. Moreover, these
modern enterprises, with their ex-
chequers ~replenished out of the COM
mon store of the savings of the nation,
conduct business transactions whose
scope and influence are as wide as
whole regions of the Union, often as
wide as the nation itself. They al
feet sometimes the lives and fortunes
of whole communities. dominate prices,
determine land values, make and UNI
make markets, develop or check the
growth of city and of countryside. II
law is at liberty to adjust the general
conditions of society itself, 1t is at
liberty to control these great instru-
mentalities which nowadays, in SO
large part, determine the character OF
society. Wherever We can find what
the COMMON interest is In respect of
them we shall find a solid enough basis
for law, for reform
Public Utilities Discussed.
1.-THE matter is most obvious when
we turn to what we a come to
designate public service, or public util-
ity, corporations-those which supply
us with the means of transportation
and with those common n~ecessarles,
water, light, heat and power. Here
are corporations exercising peculiar
and extraordinary franchises, and bear
ing such a relation to society In re-
spect of the services they render that
1t may be said that they are the very
medium of its life. They render a
public and common service of which 1T
is necessary that practically everybody
should avail himself.
1--WE have a Public Utilities Com
mission in New Jersey, but It has hard
ly more than powers of inquiry n
advice. 1t could ven as it stands be
made q powerful instrument of pub
LEFTY and of opinion, but it may also
modestly wait until it is asked before
expressing a judgment, and In any case
1t will have the uncomfortable con-
seriousness that its opinion is gratuitous
and carries no weight Of effective au-
thority. This will not do. 1t is under
stood by everybody who knows any
thing Of the common interest that it
must have complete regulative pow
ers; the power to regulate rates, the
power to earn and make public every
thing tina should furnish a basis for
the public judgment with regard to tho
soundness, tho efficiency. the economy
of the business-the power. in brief, TO
adjust such service at every point and
in every respect, whether of equipment
or charges or methods of financing
or means of service, to the general
interest of the communities affected.
This can be done, as experience else
where has demonstrated, not only with
out destroying the profits of such
business, but also with the effect of
putting it upon u more satisfactory
footing for those who conduct 1t no
less than for those who make use of it
day by day.
Irregularities in system.
such regulation, based on thorough
inc authoritative inquiry, will go far
toward disclosing and establ. shing those
debatable Vaiues Upon which SO many,
questions of taxation turn. There is an
uneasy feeling throughout the State in
which, l dare say, we all share, that
there are glazing inequalities in our
system-or at any rate, in our prac-
ise-of taxation. The most general
complaint is that there is great in
equality as between individuals ana
corporations. l do not see how anyone
can determine whether. there are or
not, for we have absolutely no uniform
system of assessment. 1t would seem
that in every locality there is some
local variety of practise, in the rate,
the ratio of assessment value to market
value, and hat every assessor is a
law unto himself. our whole system
of taxation, which is no system at all,
needs o~verhauling from top to bottom
There can be no system, no safety, no
regulation in a multitude of boards. An
efficient public utilities commission will
be a beginning toward a system OF
taxation as well as toward a system or
corporate control. We cannot fairly
tax values until we have ascertained
and established them.
And the great matter OF conserva-
ton seems to me like 81 part OF the
same subject. The safeguarding of u
water supply, the publication or our
streams In order to maintain them as
sources Of life. and their protection
against those who would divert them or
diminish their volume for private
profit, the maintenance of such wood
lands as are left us and the reforesta-
ton of bare tracts more suited for for
est than for field, the sanitation or
great urban districts such as cover the
northern portions of u State, by thor
UNNATURAL THINNESS
-CBv W C0nDECTEn