另一个重要的水12月工作ision
It has become the fashion to oppose the requests for an increase in rates by water companies without considering whether there is any justice in or reason for such a request. The assumption apparently is that the utility in asking for an increase is bent solely upon gouging the consumers, and the possibility that the raise in rates may be necessary to the very life of the company is never to be considered. A prospective increase in rates is an act of profiteering pure and simple and can be nothing else according to this idea.
A decision involving this question of the adequacy of rates for a water company has just been rendered by a Federal judge of the southern district of Illinois. The case is that of the Alton Water Company, which sued to restrain the commerce commission of Illinois from enforcing the penalities provided in the Illinois commerce commission act for collecting water rates in excess of those allowed by the commission. The facts in the case are that in November, 1920, the water company filed its schedule of increased rates with the commission. Prior to a hearing, the city council of Alton and the company came to an agreement on a compromise schedule of lower rates, and these were submitted at the hearing which followed. However, at this hearing objections were filed to both the original and the compromise schedules and the commission sustained the objections. The water company then filed its bill for an injunction in the Federal court at Springfield, Ill., to restrain the commission from interfering with it in the collection of the increased rates provided for in the original schedule. Judge Fitzhenry granted the permanent injunction.
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