reserved for them. The location, size, shape and subdivision of the conduits, the material and manner of construction, must be satisfactory to the City Engineer, and the work of laying underground conduits is to be under the direction and to the satisfaction of the Superintendent of Fire Alarm and Police Telegraph. All these provisions are objected to as subjecting the appellant to an arbitrary discretion-in § 1, that of the City Engineer as to the poles; in § 4, that the Committee on Streets as to the use of the poles; in § 15, that of the Chief and Superintendent mentioned as to not only the safety of the poles and wires but the unsuitableness of the latter or their attachments, insulation, or appliances; in § 28, that of the Committee on Streets as to underground plans, that of the Superintendent of Fire Alarm as to laying the conduits, and that of the City Engineer as to the replacement of pavement in the streets, and the carrying out of the plans in all the details just stated. It is argued also that by § 26 the appellant is subjected to further requirements without limit from the officers named, but this argument may be dismissed, the requirements referred to being only those 'made under this chapter,' that is, specifically authorized in the other sections to which we have referred. Again the objections are not to be fortified by those decisions that turn on the power to delegate legislative functions. United States v. Grimaud, 220 U. S. 506. We have been shown no ground for supposing that the ordinance exceeded the power of the legislature to authorize or of the city to enact, unless it interferes with some special paramount right of the appellant. The bill is brought wholly on the ground that the appellant has such rights that no state legislation can touch. Unless it has them there is nothing in the Constitution of the United States to prevent the grant of these discretionary powers to the committees and officers named. Davis v. Massachusetts, 167 U. S. 43. Gundling Opinion of the Court. 224 U.S. v. Chicago, 177 U. S. 183. Fischer v. St. Louis, 194 U. S. 361, 371. Prentis v. Atlantic Coast Line Co., 211 U. S. 210, 225. The appellant says that it has the right to occupy the streets of Richmond under the act of Congress, and therefore, although subject to reasonable regulation, it cannot be subjected to a discretion guided by no rules. Neither branch of this proposition, as applied to this case, commands our assent. To begin with the end, while it is true that rules are not laid down in terms, they are implied so far as there need to be any. If the Committee and officers do their duty there is no room in the questions left to them for arbitrary whim. They are to exercise their judgment on the suitableness, safety, &c., of the places, poles and wires by the criteria that would be applied by all persons skilled in such affairs who should seek to reconcile the welfare of the public and the instalment of the plant. The objection that other motives may come in is merely that which may be made to all authority, that it may be dishonest, an objection that would make government impossible if it prevailed. It is said that the ordinance should confine the Committee and officers to finding whether required and specified facts exist. But not only is it impossible to set down beforehand every particular fact that may have to be taken into account, but in case of dishonesty it would do no good. We are of opinion that the ordinance is not unreasonable as a grant of arbitrary power. Regulations very like these were upheld, so far as they presented Federal questions, against a company assumed to have a right to use the streets, in Missouri, ex rel. Laclede Gaslight Co. v. Murphy, 170 U. S. 78, 99. See also Wilson v. Eureka City, 173 U. S. 32. In view of what we have said and the appellant's admission that it is subject to reasonable regulation it would be unnecessary to consider its rights under the act of 224 U.S. Opinion of the Court. Congress but for some further complaint that the appellant's property is taken without due process of law. That complaint opens the question what property the appellant has. The act of Congress of course conveyed no title and did not attempt to found one by delegating the power to take by eminent domain. Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 195 U. S. 540, 574. It made the erection of telegraph lines free to all submitting to its conditions, as against an attempt by a State to exclude them because they were foreign corporations, or because of its wish to erect a monopoly of its own. Pensacola Telegraph Co. v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 96 U. S. 1. It has been held to prevent a State from stopping the operation of lines within the act by injunction for failure to pay taxes. Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Attorney General of Massachusetts, 125 U. S. 530. But except in this negative sense the statute is only permissive, not a source of positive rights. The inability of the State to prohibit the appellant from getting a foothold within its territory, both because of the statute and of its carrying on of commerce among the States, gives the appellant no right to use the soil of the streets, even though postroads, as against private owners or as against the city or State where it owns the land. St. Louis v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 148 U. S. 92, 101. S. C., 149 U. S. 465. Richmond v. Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Co., 174 U. S. 761, 771. Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Co. v. Philadelphia, 190 U. S. 160, 163. Hudson County Water Co. v. McCarter, 209 U. S. 349, 357. The only ground of title disclosed by the appellant is the act of 1866, coupled perhaps with the fact that its lines are established. The rights of the city to the streets are left a little vague, but the bill assumes that they are such as to authorize the charge of a reasonable rental on the principle of St. Louis v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 148 U. S. 92. Any license that the city may have granted as owner or representative of the owner of the public easement or otherwise may be assumed to have been revoked, and so far as the city's title is infringed by the appellant nothing appears to limit the city's right to insist upon it, as fully as a private owner might. Leaving the question of title on one side, except so far as to note that the appellant does not show one, and that the city has power to admit it to the highways, the other regulations complained of do not violate the appellant's constitutional rights. When the appellant without the right to exercise the power of eminent domain desires to occupy land belonging to others, prima facie it must submit to their terms. We assume, as we have said, that the city has some interest in the streets that is affected by the presence or by the establishment of conduits or poles. If it demands, as a condition of its assent, as it does by § 6, that positions shall be reserved upon the poles for the city, and by § 28 that provision shall be made for thirty per cent increase and that the city's wires shall be carried free of charge, one duct being reserved for them, it is within its rights. Even assuming, as seems to be implied by some of the language in St. Louis v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 148 U. S. 92, 104, 105; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Attorney General of Massachusetts, 125 U. S. 530, that in consequence of the act of Congress, the city is restricted to reasonable demands, the foregoing requirements do not seem to us unreasonable in view of the position of the parties. The city must use these poles and conduits or others, and it is not unfair that it should avoid the expense and additional burden of a separate system and insist on getting the help it needs from the system already there. See Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. Chicopee, 207 Massachusetts, 341. It is no sufficient objection that from the point of view of rental the burden on certain poles may vary in a proportion different from the value 224 U.S. Opinion of the Court. of those poles. The notion of rental cannot be used thus to restrict the conditions that may be imposed. The conditions are reasonable with reference to the occupation of the streets considered as a whole, and are not made otherwise by the fact that there is also a specific money charge for each pole or underground mile of wire. The requirement that space be left in the conduits for wires of third parties, to be used upon permission by the city and compensation, §§ 4, 28, is merely another incident of the necessity for insisting upon a single system. It would seem not to be unreasonable for legislation, apart from any question of property rights, to require that a single conduit should contain all the wires under a street. When the legislature also is fixing the terms on which it will yield a property right the validity of the condition becomes doubly clear. So a provision in § 28 for moving or altering conduits at the appellant's expense upon notice from the city that the change is necessary for the construction or repair of gas, sewer, or water mains. These items seem to us as easily justified as the order to put the wires underground, the legality of which the appellant fully admits. The money charges of two dollars per pole and the same sum per mile of underground wire, are found fault with. §§ 10, 32. Many of the cases relied upon by the appellant are cases turning on the limitations to the powers of the municipality. But, as we have said, this bill is brought on the theory that any such legislation by the State would be bad under the Constitution and act of Congress-not upon the suggestion that the City of Richmond is acting ultra vires. If the city could be authorized to do what it has done, we must assume that it is acting within its powers. Taking up the question so limited, we agree with the court below that after the appellant, as is found, has paid the charges without complaint for many years it would require something more |