The Tramway Trouble.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16360, 4 November 1918, Page 6

The Tramway Trouble.

Tllo public will be very glad to learn to-day that the tramway trouble is for the present at an end. The Board has consented to givo favourable consideration to the Union's claim that the men dismissed for breaches of the running regulations shall be reinstated, and the Union' agreed on Saturday night to return to normal conduct. A conference is to be held noxt week to discuss the question of wages. It would have been extremely inconvenient if the "go-slow" policy had „ been persisted in during tho holidays this week, but we believe that tho public would have preferred the discomforts of an inadequate service to any surrender by the Board. The [Board has not abandoned any part of its authority, for tho reinstatement of the dismissed men, as we have observed in earlier references to the dispute, would follow almost as a matter of course in any peaceful settlement, unless there are any special circumstances which places them outside the scopo of indemnity. As to the Union, wo do not desire to say anything to mar the temporarily-restored harmony, but we fed bound to a6k the men to reflect upon tho folly of their go-slow tactics. These tactics have really achieved nothing, and they were bound to fail; and we trust that they will not be resorted to again. The chief result of this unreasonable conduct has been the infliction of inconvenience on the public, and of injury on the Board's j finances, and it would appear that the Ur.ion has come to realise this. We are ready to believe that mingled with the eleventh-hour prudence of the Union in realising that the dislocation of the holiday traffic would anger the public was a genuine reluctance to interfere with the public's comfort this week. In any event, the Union deserves a word of praise for its return to rational methods, and we hope its recovery is permanent. Despite the sweeping and drastic nature of tho terms of the armistice with Turkey, it must be remembered that it is only an armistice—a temporary suspension of hostilities—that has been arranged. The conditions of a permanent peace have yet to be decided. It certainly does not seem that there is much loft for the Turks to concede, but among tho questions yet to be settled are tho probable rearrangement of frontiers, the future government of Palestine, Syria, and ' Mesopotamia, to which the Turk can- I not be allowed to return, provision for tho adequate protection of the remnant I of the Armenian people, possibly the payment of indemnities, and certainly '

the assurance of guarantees. In view of the completeness of the Turk's surrender. and his obvious willingness, not to sav anxiety, to get on the right side of the fence before the final collapse of Germany, these matters should not give much trouble. ♦ It -was mentioned by one of tho speakers at tho noon gathering in the • Square on Saturday that all the returned Anzacs had spoken of the Turk as a clean and fair fighter. That may He so—there is plenty of evidence that our mon regarded ''Johnny Turk" with far more kindly feelings than those who went subsequently to the Western front over entertained for the Germans. But, however chivalrous the Turk may have been in actual warfare with British soldiers, whom he had reason to respect, there is, unhappily, only too much evidence that as a gaoler he possesses all, or almost all, the faults of the Hun. One does not wish those who have to impose upon him the final conditions of peace to show vindictiveness, but those conditions will not bo regarded as satisfactory unless they provide for some suitable punishment for the Turkish authorities in charge of somo of tho prison camps. As stated baldly in a recent London paper, more than half tho prisoners, British and Indian, taken by tho Turks, have died in captivity, the mortality being heaviest among the garrison of Kilt, which surrendered in April, 1916, after enduring a siege of five months. The Turkish Commander-in-Chief, realising that in their debilitated state the prisoners were not fit to march to Asia Minor, telegraphed to Constantinople suggesting that they- should be exchanged on parole, as had been done with some 1200 of the sick and wounded in hospital. He was informed, however, that tho men were prisoners of war, "and must be treated as such." What that meant can be told in a fow words. The unfortunate men, lacking all means of transport, and having to carry on their backs thoir blankets and supplies of food and water — and wretch od food at that—wero set to march, at tho beginning of the hot weather, the 500 miles to the railhead at Ras-el-Ain, east of Aleppo. None of their officers, nor a doctor, was allowed to accompany them—the Turks treated these fairly well. Many hundreds must have perisliedi during that dreadful march, and many hundreds more in the prison-camps. Of 744 men of the Royal Artillery, thirteen have been repatriated, and in Juno last 150 others were believed to bo alive. Only fourteen out of 72 Hampshire Territorials, 77 out of 286 Oxfordshire Light Infantry, 89 out of 253 of the Norfolk Regiment, were surviving fivo months ago. The mortality among tho Indian troops is not so definitely known, but it was stated in the Hcuse of Commons as long ago as last April that oP 6238 Indians captured by the Turks, excluding those who had been repatriated, 354G had either died or had not been heard of. V The conditions in the various camps have been deplorable. Some of the men have been laying a light railway, some have been working at the Taurus tunnel, and many are in Upper Mesopotamia, omployed in constructing a section of the Bagdad railway. They have all been badly fed and inadequately clothed. Their rations have consisted mainly of inferior bread, and parcels from Home have rarely reached them at all, while those which have been delivered have often been over a year on the journey. At one camp the only sftirts supplied consist of two handkerchiefs sewn together, at another the men have no blankets, and have to wear sacking for foot-coverings. The officers have been supplied with no food, and have had to buy at their own cost everything they need —with bread at hnlf a crown to 4s per lb, butter 20s to 40s, sugar 20s to 30s, and tea £10. All have beoi\ compelled to draw large sums from Home at a ruinous rate of exchange, in order to keep themselves alive, for the allowances paid by the British Government have been utterly inadequate. Pc» far as is known the Turks have refrained from the brutal cruelty that the authorities of German, prison camps have displayed, but that is the only point on which their treatment of thoir prisoners compares favourably with that of the Germans. It is reported in to-day's cables that the Bavarian -Royal Family claims the German throne in the event of tho Kaiser's abdication. It is not quite clear whether the throne referred to is that of the German Umpire or of Prussia, of which the Kaiser is King, but presumably it is the former. It is still less clear on what grounds the claim is made. The election- of Wilhelm 1., King of Prussia, as German Emperor in IS7I was by vote of the Reichstag of tho North German Confederation, and' the Imperial dignity is horeditary in the House of Hohenzollern, following the law of primogeniture. The legal successor of the present Kaiser is, therefore, the Crown Prince, and, if he waived the dignity, his eldest eon. Ludwig 111., the reigning King of Btu varia, who became Regent and subsequently King in succession to his cousin, j the mad King Otto, is not a Hohen- I zollern, but a descendant of the ancient I Counts of Wittelsbach, of tho 12th century. Bavaria is the largest State in the Empiro next to Prussia, and but of the 61 members of the Bundeerat, or Federal Council, is represented by six, a number exceeded only by Prussia, which has seventeen. Possibly it is on this account that the claim has been made. It appears to be agreed by medical mon that the epidemic of influenza from which tho Dominion baa been suffering lately is not, though sufficiently eerious in some eases, what is known as Spanish influenza. The latter may, however, reach New Zealand in time; it is, indeed, almost too much to hope that we shall escape a visitation that is afflicting almost all parts of the world. It is expected in Australia, and as a measure of precaution the Commonwealth quarantine authorities have not only prepared vaccines from the organisms that caused the recent epidemic there, but have cabled to Capetown for cultures of the organism responsible for the plague of Spanish influenza that has been ravaging South Africa. When tbeso arrive—they are now on tho way—they will be compared with the cultures of the Australian organism. We trust that the New Zealand Health Department has shown equal enterprise in preparing for tho worst. There is admittedly some difference of opinion among experts as to the value of tho vaccine in mitigating tho diseaso, but the weight of evidence appears, according to a recent Sooth African cable, to be in favour of the treatment.