CALIFORNIA THE LAW RELATING TO PUBLIC SERVICE UNDERTAKINGS. CHAPTER I. A PRELIMINARY VIEW. Public Service Undertakings Described.—I am afraid the expression "public service " is not one capable of very precise definition, nor can the boundary line be very clearly laid down between the undertakings or businesses which should, and those which should not, be classed as public service undertakings. A broad idea of what we mean by a public service undertaking can however be conveyed in general terms sufficiently accurate for practical purposes. It involves an undertaking or business, which may or may not have the motive of private gain associated with the conduct of it, but which in any case makes provision, in the interests of either the whole or a considerable section of a community of people for meeting some special need or affording some special convenience. It involves also this further characteristic: that the undertaking has such a degree of importance or involves such difficulties in execution as to justify the placing of those who undertake it in a position of special privilege within the community or the conferring of special powers upon them. Among the most important undertakings that come clearly within this description are those dealing with railways, canals, tramways and tramroads, water supply, gas supply, electricity supply, harbours, docks, and markets. Of these, railways, canals, tramways, tramroads, harbours, and docks are concerned with transport, which can be conveniently studied as a separate subject, and accordingly I am not dealing with them here, except for purposes of illustration. The Post Office and the telegraphic, telephonic and wireless systems must clearly be classed as public service undertakings, but, as each is dealt with as a single undertaking for the whole country under the control or licence of the national government, I propose to leave them also untouched. There are certain undertakings, such as those dealing with the provision of a general service of hydraulic power, which require mention, but at present exist only in very small numbers. Some undertakings occupy a sort of betwixt and between position. Thus an omnibus undertaking (which is, of course, a matter of transport) if carried on as a private venture would hardly be looked upon as a public service undertaking, any more than a cab business or a goods cartage business. If however a tramway authority runs a system of omnibuses it would ordinarily be regarded as a public service undertaking of a subsidiary kind. The position is similar in the case of abattoirs or slaughter-houses when carried on by a market authority instead of being merely an adjunct to the business of a private butcher. Services such as roads and sewers provided by a local authority for the public benefit are outside the purview of our subject, since they do not answer sufficiently to the description of business undertakings. They come rather into the class of local government administration. The work of a river conservancy board comes nearer to being a public service undertaking but I think should be classed rather as administrative in character. The carrying on of public works for land drainage or for the irrigation of land, although for some reasons appearing more suitable for classification, along with sewerage work, as a matter of local administration, partakes to some extent of the character of a public service undertaking and may therefore be referred to. A cemetery should, strictly speaking, be classed as a public service undertaking, particularly when it is carried on by a company for profit, but I have not thought it of sufficient interest to the living to be dealt with here. There are various concerns of a comparatively simple and unimportant character, which are sometimes carried on by local authorities for the welfare of their towns on the security of the general rates, such as assembly rooms, baths, sewage farms, cold storage, and sterilised milk depôts. To these I propose to make merely a passing reference. It is questionable whether, strictly speaking, they ought to be regarded as public service undertakings at all, according to the description I have given. The "Undertakers."-Having thus a broad view of the public service undertakings with which we propose to deal, the next thing is to get a general idea of the sort of parties by whom they are carried on-the "undertakers " as they are commonly called. These may be divided into three classes: public authorities, companies, and private individuals. The cases in which private individuals act as such undertakers are comparatively few, and rarer now than they were in earlier times. The other two classes require some subdivision. As regards public authorities these are generally the local authorities formed for general local government and sanitary purposes throughout the country; that is to say the municipal corporations in county boroughs and noncounty boroughs, the urban district councils in urban districts, and the rural district councils in rural districts. In a few cases county councils act as the undertakers for public service undertakings. There are many undertakings for the conduct of which bodies are specially formed, and they may be formed either under the direction of laws enacted for the particular case or in pursuance of procedure laid down by general law for application to cases of a defined class. Important among such bodies are joint boards representative of two or more local authorities. The joint board is a separate body having a corporate existence distinct from that of the authorities whom it represents. There are general powers |