The Press THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1933. The Tramways Election

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21026, 30 November 1933, Page 8

The Press THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1933. The Tramways Election

Every citizen on the roll to-day owes it to himself to vote, and to vote with the single, serious purpose of promoting the soundest possible administration of the tramway system. Nobody who has the right to vote and fails to exercise it can have any proper cause for complaint, whatever happens, because he has said that he does not care; nor, if tramway management becomes unsound, may any voter reasonably protest who has looked beyond efficiency and economy and security to some other object. Fortunately, the animation of the campaign has left nothing obscure, except the reasons why the Labour party's promises should be trusted. The Labour candidates themselves have done almost everything possible to expose their own weakness. They have used the intemperate language of alarmists, they have tried to raise a partisan issue from the strike, and where plain statements are required they have made equivocal ones. On the other hand, they have promised better services and cheaper services, without even a serious attempt to show how such promises could be fulfilled without the striking of a rate. In the first place, administration of the business undertaking of the tramways by a political party, bound to sectional politics, ought to be resolutely avoided. In the second place, any group which promises much and accounts for nothing ought to be refused all confidence. Both these objections hold against the Labour party and its candidates. But the Christchurch Citizens' Association offers the electors a history of careful administration, the visible facts of good and cheap services, and a definite promise that they will be maintained without rating. Electors in the Central Sub-district, where the association candidates are standing, have therefore a simpler task than those in the other sub-districts, where Labour is opposed by independents; and the central electors, also, are bound to see the rating issue in the clearest, warning light, because, if a rate is struck, they will pay the lion's share, though the inner area services are the most profitable ones. But even in the outer sub-districts the task is not difficult. Labour's claims dismissed, the question is simply, which of the independents most explicitly pledges himself to the maintenance of a cheap, efficient, self-supporting tramway system.