SERVICES TO HANMER.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20905, 12 July 1933, Page 7

SERVICES TO HANMER.

PROTEST AGAINST ALTERATION.

I COMMENTS BY MR H. H. j STERLING. A resolution of protest against the proposed new time-table for the passenger service between Hanmer and Christchurch waa carried at a meeting of the Hanmer Progress League on Monday evening, the ground of the protest being that the new schedule of services would be inconvenient both to residents and to tourists. The meeting decided to ask the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce and the Canterbury Progress League to support the protest The meeting, which was presided over by the president of the Hanmer Progress League, Mr J. Mans on, passed the following resolution: "That this meeting enters an emphatic protest against the discontinuance of part of the passenger service; that the president, Mr Manson, place the matter before the Commissioner of Transport, and that a petition suppo tlng the motion be drawn up and forwarded to the Commissioner." . t . Commenting on this resolution, Mr H. H. Sterling, chairman of Railways Board, said it was correct that the Railway Department, in co-opera-tion with the motor operators who were working motor services in tne district between Christchurch, Hanmer, and Waiau, had formed a scheme for the co-ordination of their services so as to avoid the waste through overlapping that was going on under the present arrangement.

Details of Proposals. Mr Sterling said that he could not then give full particulars of the proposals, but, roughly, they provided lor passenger traffic being worked by rail between Waipara and Christchurch, the motor services ceasing to run south of Waipara, while the Railway Department would cease to operate passenger services north of that station. The services would be much the same in number as at present, but there would be some adjustment in the time-table. One of these adjustments would involve a slightly earlier departure time from Hanmer for the morning service to Christchurch, and Mr Sterling understood that it was this alteration that was being made the foundation of the protest from Hanm "The whole question," said Mr Sterling, "has, of course, to be looked at in a spirit of reasonableness. He had no hesitation in saying that any disadvantages that mighc be associated by those protesting with the new services would, when it came to practical working, be found on a reasonable view to be very slight, if indeed really existent at all, while the national saving in transport costs would be very great. The whole scheme would of course come before me transport authorities, and it was v>"t ikeiy that the Railway Department and the motor operators would attempt to propound anytning before those authorities that would be unreasonable. They did feel, however, that such a question uad to be viewed, not from ary narrow parochial point of view, but from a broad, national standpoint, and it was in this spirit that the Railway Department and the motor operators had come together and correlated their ideas. Mr Sterling said that he hoped the people of Hanmer and also those bodies in Christchurch to whom the people of

I Hanmer were making their appeal ! would appreciate the significance of the national aspect, and would not, by taking an unduly narrow view, raise difficulties which in practice he felt sure would be found not to have any substantial existence, but could serve only to delay or obstruct a very substantial piece of national economy., Mr Manson, to whom Mr Sterling's continents were referred, said that it had been understood in Hanmer there was going to be no opportunity of lodging an official protest against the proposals. Now, however, it was clear that the whole matter would have to go before the licensing authority, and he preferred to say nothing further about the protest until t«K, hearing of the case by the authority.