THE TAKAPUNA DECISION.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 276, 20 November 1926, Page 8

THE TAKAPUNA DECISION.

Accidents will happen in the bestregulated Legislatures, but it is reasonable to say that if Parliament had not scamped its work the decision that Mr. W. R. McKean, S.M., delivered yesterdaywould not have been necessary. Parliament was so indifferent to its duties, and in such a hurry to get home, that it did not consider the complications that would certainly arise from the setting up of two licensing districts one within the other. Mr. McKean said that the constitution of Takapuna as a licensing district may have been an afterthought. Whether fore or after, a good deal of thought went to the inclusion—in some quarters, though perhaps not in those from which the public had the best right to expect it. At any rate, the muddle was made; Auckland and Takapuna were both constituted without any provision for over-lapping interests, and it is now held that a carrying concern is entitled to apply to one authority only, and cannot be compelled to apply to both. In thi3 case it is applying to one authority for permission to ply in that authority's area and in the district of the other as well. That the situation is complicated and that the only ultimate solution of such difficulties is an independent traffic board should need no emphasis. In the meantime there is the possibility of almost endless litigation. As we remarked before, the only certainty is that the lawyers will benefit. It is rather a pity that Parliament is yot in session to clear up the muddle for which it is solely responsible.