“ We cannot see, from the whole evidence, that the price fixed for gas supplied to the city by wholesale, so to speak, would so reduce the profits from the total of the gas supplied as to thereby render such total profits insufficient as a return upon the property used by the complainant. So long as the total is enough to furnish such return, it is not important that, with relation to some customers, the price is not enough. ”

“ We do not say there may not possibly be an exception to it where the property may have increased so enormously in value as to render a rate permitting a reasonable return upon such increased value unjust to the public. ”

“ We see no discrimination which is illegal or for which good reasons could not be given. But neither the city nor the consumers are finding any fault with it, and the only interest of the complainant in the question is to find out whether, by the reduced price to the city, the complainant is, upon the whole, unable to realize a return sufficient to comply with what it has the right to demand. ”

“ It is a corporation which, in fact, as the court below remarks, monopolizes the gas service of the largest city in America, and is secure against competition under the circumstances in which it is placed, because it is a proposition almost unthinkable that the city of New York would, for purposes of making competition, permit the streets of the city to be again torn up in order to allow the mains of another company to be laid all through them to supply gas which the present company can adequately supply. ”

“ And, so far as it is given us to look into the future, it seems as certain as anything of such a nature can be, that the demand for gas will increase, and, at the reduced price, increase to a considerable extent. An interest in such a business is as near a safe and secure investment as can be imagined with regard to any private manufacturing business, although it is recognized at the same time that there is a possible element of risk, even in such a business. ”

“ A short history of the complainant, as to its incorporation and its capital, and the method by which the value of its franchises was arrived at, will render the further examination of the case more intelligible.
Prior to 1884 there were seven gaslight companies in New York city, each operated under separate charters, granted at different times between the years 1823 and 1865 or 1871. They each had the right to use the streets of certain portions of the city for the purpose of laying their mains and service pipes in order to furnish gas to the city and the citizens. ”

“ Such compensation must depend greatly upon circumstances and locality; among other things, the amount of risk in the business is a most important factor, as well as the locality where the business is conducted, and the rate expected and usually realized there upon investments of a somewhat similar nature with regard to the risk attending them. There may be other matters which, in some cases, might also be properly taken into account in determining the rate which an investor might properly expect or hope to receive and which he would be entitled to without legislative interference. ”

“ That the case may be one of local interest only is entirely immaterial, so long as the parties are citizens of different states or a question is involved which, by law, brings the case within the jurisdiction of a Federal court. The right of a party plaintiff to choose a Federal court where there is a choice cannot be properly denied. ”

“ The case before us is not like that. It involves the constitutionality, with reference to the Federal Constitution, of two acts of the legislature of New York, and it is one over which the circuit court undoubtedly had jurisdiction under the act of Congress, and its action in taking and hearing the case cannot be the subject of proper criticism. ”

“ But there may be other cases where the evidence as to the probable result of the rates in controversy would show they were so nearly adequate that nothing but a practical test could satisfy the doubt as to their sufficiency. ”

“ The important question is always one of value. Taking their value in this case as arrived at by agreement of their owners, at the time of the consolidation, that value has been increased by the finding of the court below to the sum of $12,000,000 at the time of the commencement of this suit. ”

“ The committee also said in the same report that these 'franchises were in force November 10, 1884, the time of the consolidation, and the money invested in them was earning the same enormous dividends. So far as the evidence shows, there was nothing in the condition of affairs on the 10th of November to indicate that these franchises would not be as valuable for the next twenty years as they had been in the past. There were gas companies enough in the city with a capacity capable of supplying the demands for the next twenty years. ”