TRAMWAY TROUBLES.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 57, 30 November 1907, Page 15

TRAMWAY TROUBLES.

~—■ . -.v.. r , —— . JBy .Conductor.)

Tii ? practice of writing to thn. pross. upon the vexed question of tramway management has vbecome. so common,"'and •is still apparently a sourco. of amusment.to many, that v the present scribe !(loea not. feel, called upon to ioffer , any ' apology,. for', ; .tlie ; lucubrations hereby : sot. down.Besides; the people own tW' : 'cars. 'Any 'Stnto ecjxicfitcfj yqiith .will telji/jiou that; nli'isf aiifacfcfithbjrt tfrb/driving into • the h&ids .of:the cohductors'Vovery day, ■ so 'why should we not derive a little innocent amusement from_.so handsome a property.? ' It is'matter for deep contemplation-that, although there are hundreds of people who know,exactly how the system ought 1 to be run (to suit,their own convenience),,this city haj failed to ; produce a really efficient■ traffic' manager. The presenkinepmbent of that sopiewhat". unenviablo jobsitibn: i^,.certainly doing ;his . best to please everybody, but whether, he will'be able to accomplish that feat is'open to question. Quite a'number of people are of opinion that such a man has not.yet been .born. ■;;. ■.

7 !£ln. New Zealand, too, and'.especially in , Wellington, one has to be so careful lest ho | offend those in. high places.:; The well-to-do class;- the class which corresponds' to .the • middle -class' in Britain, a]l' belong ■to - one • s ?,? la \ circle;, and,it is a; dangerous thing to .offend the big guns" of'one's own particular clique, especially if , you i are a young man, and want to got on. ivl Therefore when somebody or other, who .is something or ■ other,- wl-ites , to . the traffic. department expressing his own particular'-wishes, thoy are at-; once complied with. For instance: It was suggested--, thai a.,oar should run from the Botanical' Gardens to Cuba Street at a certain hour in the' evening, because it so happened that .this arrangement would just suit , the convenience of a certain councillor and.'his frieiids. Two cars aro accordingly run at the hour desired, and it would be interesting to know how many passengers*aro carried. '

I, have been told that this sort of thing - will continue so long as the system is in tho nands\of the corporation; and while every Tom, Dick, and Harry (if I may be permitted to use such familiar language) 'is allowed to interfere we 'certainly shall have, tho same deplorable stato. of affairs. But. the London Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and many other of the great .centres in the-Old Country are in liko case with regard to owneri? p tnoy llavo absolutely 110 trouble at all. Why? For the simplo reason that the management is placcd in reliable hands and left there. If the Council of any'of the above-mentioned cities interfered with the the Systems of which they are tho titular heads, the manager, to save his own self-respect, would resign. Mr. Ferguson' of Harbour Board fame, is a local case' in point. And just as you cannot go into the street and pick up a Ferguson, so would the Council find it hard to fill the place of a similar man. in the traffic line. And yet there-are heaps of Fergusons in the Old Country. What on earth does Mayor Hislop or any of his follow magnates know about traffic and its management? Well, a member of the Tramway Committee, a hardheaded gentleman and a shining light of his own profession, mark' you, recently told a conductor that at their precious - meetincs they aid/nothing- but -''Stalk, talk, talkand at, the finish they, did not know what they had been talking about." . •:- : Therp is a strong opinion among tramway employees, who are sick of many griefs under the . present management, that some day r iere iA anse ' a managor with tho mind of :a Kitchener the skin of a rhinoceros, who , will run things as thoy ought to be run, and consign to the wicker receptacle provided all irresponsible effusions by people who have only the haziest ideas of what they aro talking about; who will issue orders and expect them to be obeyed, and who will peimit, no outsido interference whatsoeverwho will support his men and oxpect them to support him; who will do what is right and-proper because lie; knows it is right and proper, and not because it is the wish of someone who, by virtiio of his position, considers that the system is run to suit his own convenience. In thoso days the conductor of a car will be supreme, and passengers will have to comply with the regulations: When tTlis man arrives on-the scene the majority of the public will bo Satisfied with their tramway system, and the small minority will soon find that they cannot run a car to suit their own' convenience. When the groat manager oom'es?-1 Will he ever como? It is weary work waiting for him. —"M.A.P."