"UNCALLED FOR."

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 286, 3 December 1929, Page 8

"UNCALLED FOR."

TRANSPORT CRITICISM.

REPLY BY MR. ALLUM.

Tlic following reply has been made by the chairman of the Auckland Transport Board (Mr. J. A. XJ. Allum) to the criticism on Auckland transport by Mr. G. C. Munns, M.P.:— "With reference to your letter of today, no challenge has been issued to you, and neither have you been appealed to for suggestions; you have simply been asked to support your own public utterances. Over three months ago you jsaid you had received many complaints, and so far you have not produced one ■of them. You have taken every opportunity to speak in disparaging terms of the board and its officers. Your latest reference to the staff is uncalled for and offensive, and a breach of good taste of which _no person, particularly one occupying the honourable position of a member of Parliament, should be guilty. "Your letter shows a remarkable disregard or ignorance of the board's policy. You have been asked to make good your claim that you have ideas which would settle the whole transport difficulty, and you take refuge in the statement that the board has experts to advise it. You restate many things which have been already settled to the satisfaction of all reasonable people. If you will do no more than peruse the Press reports of the board's work, you will realise the inaccuracies in your communication and the futility of your contentions. "The .board's policy provides the elimination of the greater part of the bus losses and proposals are under consideration to deal with the balance. I understand the Government of which you are a member operates bus services at a loss, and yot I hear no suggestions that those services shall be handed over to private operators. You are correct in stating that the success of the undertalcing is largely in the hands of the board, but it will find difficulty in succeeding if transport problems are to be used for electioneering purposes, and it is for this reason that objection is taken to tactics such as you adopt."