TO BE OR NOT TO BE?

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 247, 18 October 1926, Page 8

TO BE OR NOT TO BE?

0 TAKAPUNA TRAM ARGUMENT. THE FORUM Oi THE FERRY BOAT. NORTH SHORE'S ONLY TOPIC. The Imperial Conference will open in London to-morrow; Wuchang has been captured by Chinese Reds, and Shanghai and its large foreign population are in danger; the British coal strike has taken a violent turn: there may be bloodshed in Germany over the decision of the Prussian Diet to hand over £5.000,000 worth of property to the ex-Kaiser. But these things matter nothing to the residents round Lake Pupuke. There is a question of greater moment agitating the Takapuna public mind, and all other questions are passing drops of spray on the stormy ocean of their present politics. Will the ratepayers of Takapuna take over the Takapuna Tram and Ferry Company as a going concern, or will they refuse to become the proud owners of a public utility and assume the responsibility for profit or loss? That is the question. You cant-get away from it. Once a Vale of Rest. Once upon a time people went over the lovely Takapuna and beautiful Milford (the adjectives are supplied by local residents), to escape from the worries and excitements of the strenuous city—to find calm, rest and perfect peace by the shores of the placid lake, or where the blue sea comes stealing gently on to the silver sands, murmuring its narcotic lullaby. Now- if they want surcease, they steal on rubber heels, in the deep sht.dows, around the partisan meetings at each corner, leap quickly and unobtrusively into a 'bus, or one of those Batavian dragons which at present masquerade as trams, and make a fugitive exit from the fiercely tumefying tumult of local politics. They sneak back to the comparative quietude of the city, where all to be heard is the roar and rattle of the ships discharging and loading cargo and the mild-mannered and soft-voiced Communists on soap boxes in Quay Street; where the on*- distractions by night are the clanging of the tram bells, the crowds of people rushing to nowhere in particular in a hurry, the tooting of the Juggernauts, and the occasional scream of anguish as another motorist get his prey. Perchance they will visit a boxing match, or listen in some snug interior to the denunciations of a Labour politician trouncing the vile works of an utterly indescribable Government. There they will find a sedative for their shattered nerves, and duly catch the last boat, burying themselves in its darkest recesses, thinking sadly of their return to that place which they once called home. Some Cruel Aspects. Tt is all very pathetic, but people with nerves, who can't stand talk on the one subject for eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, and who have notions that rest and retirement are sometimes needed, shouldn't live anywhere around Takapuna when this matter of the tram and ferry purchase has tigerised the genial current of Takapuna talk—they should get themselves ordered away by their doctors to some comparatively calm atmosphere, such as Moscow or Peking, where they don't talk you to an agonised death, but kill you outright. One with any humanity m his composition must sympathise with the milkman, the baker, the butcher and the gas collector of Takapuna these days. Despite lives of perpetual legal extortion, they are somewhat human after all, and they have their work to do. Yet they are detained at the door of every customer, and they must hear all the arguments of each and every one, for and against, with tbe iron searing their souls because of the fact that they must not express opinions, much as they yearn to, and bitter as are their opinions—just as keen as those of ordinary human beings, perchance—for fear that another name may vanish from their books. And one may also pity the grocer, as he stands trembling behind the counter, wondering whether the incomer is going to ask for a pound of butter, or sternly demand to know his attitude on the world-question of the day. The Sugar and the Flies. Formerly at Takapuna they used sometimes to play the ancient joke of standing at a corner and pretending to see something wonderful in the eter-nally-calling skies, so that a crowd might gather and strain its individual eyes and stretch its individual necks— whereon the joker would unobstrusively edge away, leaving the others asking! each other, "What is it?" There is :.o need to raise a crowd in this manner to-day. Let one man do as much as pause at any corner or outside any shop in Takapuna, and he becomes a piece of sugar to a swarm of flies, for partisans of both sides are upon him in the batting of an eyelid, seeking his opinions and then proceeding to batter them to pieces. If Takapuna argument grows any more vigorous, it will be more than mere opinions that will be battered before they take the poll on inday. By Dragon and Boat. There is strenuous discussion in the Dragon trains of Takapuna, with rock with added ferociousness and smoke with increased viciousness from the combustible verbal energy in their interiors. The stranger may well thank heaven that only the Takapunans can hear each other in the noise of the Dragon. It takes the newcomer at least six months to learn to hear and be heard when travelling on this monster. But they have you in the. Bayswater boat. You can't escape them there, unless you dive overboard or hide yourself in the coal-bunkers. The Bayswater boat is the forum of the people of Takapuna. On the foredeck, where the bows cleave the peaceful waters, the largest, hardiest and strongest Takapunans argue with warlike gesticulations; in the covered deck cabins, they sound their views in fierce staccatos, so that a battery of machine-guns is something soft and gentle in contrast; in the smoking saloons of the lower deck, the ferry siren is as a child's penny whistle; and the humanity-lined bulwarks are as a Babel on a new, enlarged and hitherto unprecedented scale. You can't get away from it! The skipper of the Bayswater boat is a wonderful man. lie has steered his craft from his tiny house for'ard directly over the loud-speakers in the bow ever since the tram and ferry acquisition argument started has not yet scuttled his ship or run her ashore, and he is still sane! Eats off to the skipper I