The Press Monday, February 1, 1926. Trams and Buses.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18604, 1 February 1926, Page 8

The Press Monday, February 1, 1926. Trams and Buses.

It pleases Mr Machin to begin his long letter to us to-day behind what he hopes will prove the sufficient shelter of our " well-known antipathy to the Tram- " way Board." Of course we have no antipathy at all to the Tramway Board. We have antipathy to the proposal that the Tramway Board should be encouraged to be inefficient, and we are a little suxpi'ised that the president of the Chamber of Commerce thinks efficiency consistent with monopoly. What Mr Machin means by our " fond- " ness for debating points " we do not quite know; but we shall do liim the kindness to try to believe that he really means something, and that it is something a little nearer to the facts of the case than bis nest remark that the tramways have been financed, and "laid down, and regulated by Act of " Parliament as a public monopoly over " the routes they occupy." If the tramways had been established as a monopoly either by Act of Parliament or by general consent there would have been no regulations to argue about. Competition would have been forbidden both by law and by public opinion, and Mr Machin would not have had to waste any of his time protecting " the " whole team " from its predatory part. He would have been free to help with " the only solution " of the problem of those lines that do not pay, and we should like to think that the solution that would appeal to him as an "up- " to-date" commercial man would be to substitute services that would pay. It would be a very good thing if the Board would stop running trains over routes on which trams cannot be run profitably, and would use buses instead and give a more effective service. Then Mr Machin says that in our comment on the draft regulations we " put constructions upon the attitude "of his Chamber and the Canterbury "Employers' Association which are "not justified by what they have " said." We have cot been permitted to know what was said, but on Mr Machines own account of what was done, our " constructions " were a good deal nearer to the truth than what he hopes will be inferred from the addition to that account which he now adds to-day. For it is obvious that before they agreed to rely upon an impartial Board the bus proprietors must have felt that such a Board would scrap what Mr Machin calls " the balance of " the draft regulations," and it is a little less than candid to suggest that they were willing to accept this balance. To argue that there should be regulations for buses which do not "fall short of those for trams" is to forget that buses and trams are so different in nature that the regulations controlling them must differ also, and that >the only ones which can be insisted upon for both are those-which concern the public safety and the public convenience. And we hope it is not unnecessarily rude to remind Mr Machin in conclusion that modern newspapers and modern business men also have long ago taken the measure of those who come forward speaking as " commercial men " or as exponents of " up-to-date commercial methods." Such phrases and attitndes have quite ceased to impress, and are not now used. »