POINTS FROM OTHER LETTERS

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24052, 14 September 1943, Page 6

POINTS FROM OTHER LETTERS

“Traveller” complains that the Tramway Board is “a law unto itself’ in the matter of overloading of the Springfield road bus, which is licensed to carry 49 passengers, and on a recent morning, he states, carried about 90. The writer suggests that the traffic department is frightened to take action. The chairman of the Metropolitan Licensing Authority (Mr E. H. Andrews) says the City Council’s traffic department is keeping a check on the matter. “The Tramway Board,” he says, “was advised by the authority that it should make provision for additional buses, and the board has met this to a certain extent by running additional trips.” The board had pointed out that shortage of staff was its biggest difficulty when considering increasing the service. The general manager of the Christchurch Tramways (Mr H. E. Jarman) said it was not possible to carry 90 passengers on a bus of this type. “Overloading may occur on the early trips on wet mornings, but no staff is available to assist trips without committing a breach of the tramway agreement.”

J. Stocker finds “somewhat ludicrous” the statement of a member of the South Canterbury Acclimatisation Society that “small birds are all right as long as the balance of nature is maintained.” The society apparently considers the use of poisoned grain consistent .with the maintenance of nature’s status quo, he says, and adds: “Wiser men assure us that our small birds have more than a little to do with the control of insect pests,” •