TRAMS AND BUSES.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18604, 1 February 1926, Page 10

TRAMS AND BUSES.

LETTER FROM PRESIDENT OF CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. TO THE EDITOE OF "THE FBESS." Sir, —It is usually a futile and thankleas task to argue with Ific editor of a newspaper, but I am venturing to reply to your t'.vu recent leaders which mention my ...uie; hoping that when you turn to rend me, you will stick to the argument and not :r' <<mr wellknown antipathy to the Tramway Board, nor your loudness lor debating points, to lead you to beg the (j notion with scornful references, as you have done in the two leaders referred to.

It is common knowledge that our city tramway undertaking is a public service owned by ns all—that every family m Christeliurch has i'4o or on the average, invested in it—and by general consent it has been financed, and laid down, and regulated by Act of Parliament, as a public monopoly over the routes it occupies. Upon this ifnderstanding it has In ill down and run services over unprofitable routes during unprofitable hours for the genera! benefit, because a public service must perform profitable and unprofitable tasks alike, and cannot ignore the latter because they happen to be unprofitable. Our City tramway system in its administration has been economical, in its fares reasonable, and in its reserves policy prudent, and it surely deserves some commendation, which you seem reluctant to give. (There is one aspect of its services I have criticised for some years, but at the rpoment it neeeds friends—not merely critics). No mere business concern would run trams under the same conditions. A purelv commercial venture would either scrap unprofitable lines, and neglect unprofitable hours—or else demand a monopoly and the right to make commensurate charges, as one or two public monopolies in private hands that we all know are doing to-day, to the disadvantage of general consumers. Thereore, now the omnibuses havo come into competition, it is reasonable for tramway concerns to require either that both shall be put under similar conditions, or that the trams shall be relieved of these conditions and responsibilities.

It is surely unreasonable to encourage privately-owned 'buses to pirate the cream of the traffic in busy thoroughfares, while'compelling the publicly owned trams to attempt to live 011 the skim milk of routes and hours nobody wants.

The only solution in that case would be for the trams to abandon such lines as, say, to North Reach, Brighton, to Dallington, and a few other extensions which the ratepayers have insisted upon, and which are notoriously unpayable, and bring their rollingstock 011 to the more profitable routes nad accelerate these services.

If this were done I think the City tramways could cheerfully meet the bus competition. Possibly, however, the ratepayers in the neglected areas would began to howl about the "duty" of the Tramway Board to them. Would they, however, get a bus service to run for them as a matter of duty? With regard to the draft regulations, you have put constructions upon the attitude of my Chamber and the Canterbury Employers' Association which are not justified by what we have said. When the deputation of bus proprietors met us, they finally agreed that if the regulations would provide for an impartial licensing body, they would have little or no objection to the balance of the draft regulations, but upon consideration we said we thought some modifications of the draft regulations were necessary, and this was the resolution we sent You are aware that private interests -11 over New Zealand are strenuously trying to whittle down tlie proposed regulations to the single consideration of public safety and to th© exclusion of other matters of great importance. Some of the propaganda I luwo received as president of the Chamber or Commerce against any regulation wnatevery would interest you r readers immensely. , , - We are probably less up to date m commercial methods than you, Sir, as you state: but at least we have the oulfashioned belief that new arrangements should take account of antecedent obligations; and that it is not usual for part of a team to expect to get awav with benefits at the expense of the whole team. To return to your frequent charges of incompetence on the part 01" qui tramways, and your .charming way or trying to associate us with this teim, just over two years ago a few of us spent some time in investigating our Christchurch tramway system, and we found that in fares per mile, m administration and in running expenses Christchurch compared favourably with any New Zealand system and with most systems in Australia. Since then fares have been increased in several cities and the figures have been brought up to date for. me. They show an average cash fare per mile over all sections in Cliristclmrch to be cheaper than in Melbourne and in Wellington, and within a second place of decimals of Auckland. On concession and on all classes of fares per mile, we are cheaper than four other largo systems. Our cost of administration per mile is .774 d, against 1.!504d and 1.168(1 on tho two other biggest systems in New Zealand. Our operating costs per mile are lower than those of any other system in the Dominion. This is' not at all bad considering we have a longer mileage of tramways with a more sparse population over them than any other system in the country. And now to summarise the views of those who think with me 011 this question in .order to prevent you again misunderstanding us. We are not trying "to regulate buses out of existence," but welcome them where they are a real convenience, as they are to-day 011 at least one route in Christchurch.

We are not defending incompetence. You have only alleged incompetence and not proved it, and are trying to show that defcncelessness against piracy merits this term. We consider there should be regulations for buses which do not fall short of those for trams. That the whole question of the public service of the trams must bo reconsidered if they are not to have a monopoly over their own routes, but are to be subject to virtually unrestricted competition. Finally,

We consider the advent of these buses without proper restriction might prove a real convenience to a small section of the community, and a certain convenience to more, but that the price of this, which would fall on all ratepayers, might easily be much more than the convenience would be worth, especially if the City trams compulsorily retained their responsibilities and lost some of their privileges.—Yours, etc., WM. MACHIN, President, Canterbury Chamber of Commerce.