SYDNEY'S BARROW-MEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 185, 6 August 1932, Page 7

SYDNEY'S BARROW-MEN.

IN CENTRE OF CITY. AGITATION FOR REMOVAL. COMPROMISE SUGGESTED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, July 29. In recent years the practice of selling fruit and vegetables from handcarts ranged along • the side-walks in the principal streets has developed in Sydney on an amazing scale. No doubt these casual vendors supply a definite want or tliey would not be so well supported. Representatives of the Fruitgrowers' Federation say that the barrowinen handle year by year more than 1,000,000 cases of fruit that otherwise would not' be disposed of at all, and the Housewives' Association supports the system because it brings extremely clicap fruit and vegetables within reach of thir poorer classes. This last was the argument that was supposed to justify the famous "minute" from the Minister of Transport (Mr. McGirr) under the Lang regime, which instructed the Chief Commissioner of Police to refrain from prosecuting or interfering with vendors of fruit and vegetables in the streets so long as the barrows were 20 feet apart. This "minute" has never been rescinded, but now the traffic has grown to such dimensions that the police and the City Council officials agree in demanding its suppression. It is not suggested that the barrowmen should be turned off the streets, but that they should be limited to certain districts, outside the central shopping area, where they would still be easily accessible to the general public. But Mr. Bruxner, who is Minister of Transport, having held a conference and taken ' evidence from the parties chiefly concerned, does not see his way to follow the recommendation, and it is understood that in spite of the Lord Mayor and the police, he is prepared to allow Lihe barrowmen to hold their ground, m

the centre of the city—along George, Pitt, Castlereagh, Hunter and Market long as they keep 100 feet apart, instead of 20 feet. The mere rumour of this decision has caused a great outburst of civic wrath. The shopkeepers, with whom the barrowmen compete, and the shopowners whose trade is obstructed by these long lines of stalls, have joined hands with the Lord Mayor and the champions of civic dignity to denounce the whole system, and to appeal vehemently to Government for help to abolish it. Chaotic Conditions. Nobody who has not wandered up and down the streets of Sydney in the crowded hours of the day and evening can have the least idea of the chaotic state of affairs produced by these barrows and the open-air buying and selling that goes 011 continuously. The "Sydney Morning Herald" has expended much eloquence on this topic, and there is very little exaggeration about its rhetoric. "A spectacle is afforded in some of outmost crowded thoroughfares to which no parallel exists in other cities of firstgrade size and importance. ' The contemptuous term 'Paddy's Market,' which has been so inevitably applied, is none too severe for a scene which rather suggests the dingiest byways of some old city like Naples than the main streets of Australia's chief metropolis." Those who wish to enter shops along these routes are blocked on all sides by lines of handcarts and crowds of sellers and buyers, and deafened by the vendors' raucous cries. The Lord Mayor, Alderman Walder, said plaintively the other day that the barrowmen are converting our main streets into gigantic peanut stalls. The shopowners who pay heavy I rentals for their holdings naturally complain of a system which gives the barrowmen the street frontage for nothing, and allows them to block wheeled transport ! at their will. The "Sydney Morning I Herald" estimated that "in a single block of Pitt Street alone these untidy and ramshackle stalls are occupying grbund which must be worth considerably over a million of money." 4part from'the economic and aesthetic aspects of the problem, there is the question of public health, and from the I standpoint of cleanliaess and sanitation J alone, the barrow system is open to A ery j serious objection. The police protest 1 against it, bccause it is a constant j menace to traffic—for it must be 1

remembered that most of Sydney's main streets are very narrow, and the municipal officials object on the ground of public health as well as the general safety. All Poor Men? The arguments in favour of the barrowmen are largely based upon the assumption that they aire poor men struggling for a subsistence otherwise denied them. But while the City Council controls 50 handcarts, apparently owned by individuals, there are at least 150 more which are said to be "syndicated" by fruit and vegetable combines. More than a suspicion of "graft" has been associated in the past with these ventures, and the whole situation certainly wants clearing up. But the complete ostracism of the barrowmen would bo so unpopular . a move that Mr. Bruxner, though he is by no means lacking in self-assertiveness or courage, has thought *t better to leave the matter to Cabinet rather than take the responsibility of settling it himself. ) The result of these negotiations is that I Cabinet lias now recommended "as a I temporary measure" the reduction of the ] number of barrows from 200 to about ! 90, "the City Council and police to have control of the arrangements." But the scheme has still to be endorsed by the City Coi>'il, and it is well known that many of the aldermen agree with the police authorities that there is no middle course, but, that the barrows should bo removed entirely from the main streets. It is suggested that, in allocating sites and licenses for the barrows, preference should be given first to members of the Limbless Soldiers' Association, and then to other returned soldiers, and then to "existing barrowmen with dependents.'' The scheme appeals to Mr. Bruxner as "a reasonable compromise," but it does not seem likely to satisfy any of the parties more immediately concerned.