The Press Thursday, November 27, 1924. The Tramway Board Election.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18241, 27 November 1924, Page 8

The Press Thursday, November 27, 1924. The Tramway Board Election.

Although an eleventh hour liveliness provoked by the unfair and uncandid propaganda of the Labour Party w.H probably lead some people to vote in the Tramway Board Election to-day who otherwise might not have done so. we are afraid that the polling will again reveal that deplorable apathy with which the public. Tegard local elections. This apathy i 3 deplorable on the general ground that the guarantee of good local government is a keen public interest in local atrairs and in the choice of those who are to administer them. In the present case there is a special reason for hoping that the electors will remember their dutv of voting. Every year the Labour Party improves its organisation, and the danger that it may snatch control of the tramwaj' system is greater than it has been in past years. And what Labour control of the system would mean has been made clear enough by the Labour Party itself. It would reduce fares to an unprofitable level, and would increase the expenditure. In order to make ends meet it would neglect to make any provision for the future by maintaining the reserves, and it would call upon the ratepayers to provide the balance of loss caused by Labour mismanagement. Why, it has been asked on behalf of the Labour candidates, should any pro\"ision be made for "posterity"! It is implicit that- "posterity" deserves nothing better than to inherit a load of debt and an obsolete transit system. We are dealing with this point in a separate article, however, and need not difcuss it further here. As for the ratepayers, it is so seriously an article of faith with the Labour-Socialist that the pillaging of tlieso peats is little ghoft of a duty, that one of the Labour candidates who will ask for the publie's support to-day felt obliged not long ago to reduce his gospel to a brief and easily Temembered formula: "Damn "the ratepayers!" The ratepayers will have only themselves to blame if by neglecting to vote they allow the control of the system to pass into the hands of Labour-Socialists who have no qualifications for the management of large public enterprise, and wlio in any cftse would feel that they were furthering the cause of. Labour if they threw the tramways ou the rate.?. Labour is not contesting this election in tho Interest# of sound tramway management. It is acting merely in purauance of its policy of converting whatever it can to the uses of that section of tho community whicft it represents. The supporters of militant Labour are a minority of the public, but this minority may succeed if the rational and moderate electors who make up tho majority do not go to the ballot-box and moet tho Socialist challenge in the ono effective way.