PUBLIC UTILITIES, REGULATION OF, in which the government, national, state or municipal, on behalf of the pub lic, asserts its right to interfere in the management of certain corporations for the protection of the public interest. It was, at one time, a generally accepted theory that the right of private individ uals and corporations to manage their own business was sacred. Governments, however, are more and more regulating private business in the social interest. The right of the government to regulate the control of public utilities is no longer questioned, even by the most conserva tive. Public utilities are those enter prises which, though privately owned and controlled, have as their object the ren dering of service to the general public, chief of which are railways, lighting plants, telephone and telegraph lines, water supply, etc. Foremost among these are such enterprises as street rail ways, waterworks, gas companies, etc., which exercise what is practically a monopoly in their own domain. Obvi ously, in granting such rights of mon opoly, the public must reserve the right of regulation.
Regulation was at first attempted through legislation, but this method proved not only too slow, but inadapta ble to special conditions which might arise. Regulation is, therefore, almost always carried on by commissioners, or commissions, which exercise the right of interference as the conditions may arise. The first official body of this sort created the United States was the Gas and Electric Light Commission, of Massa chusetts, in 1885. Then came the Fed eral Interstate Commerce Commission, appointed in 1887, with the power to en force the laws passed by Congress regu lating trade between the various States.
This body has gradually been given more and more jurisdiction, with the growing sentiment in favor of regula tion. Having found her gas and electric light commission a success, Massachu setts later created a Railroad Commis sion, a Highways Commission, to regulate telephone and telegraph companies, and granted to the State Board of Health the authority to regulate the water sup ply companies. In 1907 Governor La Follette, in Wisconsin, was authorized by the legislature to appoint a railroad and a public service commission, and Gover nor Hughes, in the same year, appointed two public service commissions in New York. One of the New York commis sions regulated all the public utilities in the city of New York, while the other's jurisdiction covered the rest of the State. In 1919 the commission for the city was abolished, and two created in its place; one to regulate public utilities in gen eral, the other to regulate only rapid transit corporations, this latter com mission being paid by the city, the for mer by the State. The work of these public service commissions, especially in the case of street railways, has become very difficult during the past few years, on account of the rising cost of labor and materials. On the one hand justice de mands that fare increases be allowed, but on the other hand commissioners granting such rises are compelled to face the disapproval of the public.