The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 1911. CRUSHING MUNICIPAL INDEPENDENCE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1177, 12 July 1911, Page 6

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 1911. CRUSHING MUNICIPAL INDEPENDENCE.

The Government has not lost much time in proceeding to the exercise of the powers over the municipalities that it acquired under the Tramways Amendment Act of last year—a measure that was unanimously opposed by the municipalities and that would never have been passed were the Government not able to command in the House a sufficient number of fc'lowers ready to agree to anything whatever that their masters the Ministry choose to propose. In the second reading debate, and in Committee, a very sturdy fight against the threatened extension of the Ministry's control of city management was made by the Wellington members, with, tha exception of Mr. D. M'Lakes, who justified his halfhearted mixture of approval and disapproval by urging that the. Minister would not exercise his powers oppressively. Their efforts, however, were all in vain, although they put with the utmost clearness the case for resisting that centralising tendency on the part of the present Ministry which is a serious menace to wholcEomencss and efficiency in city government. We give to-day some account of the Ministry's opening attack upon the cities' tramway systems. This, consists of a series of regulations, copies of which have been sent to the various City Councils marked "confidential," the idea apparently being that the public should be kept in the dark until after the gazetting of the new restrictive rules., The Acting-Mayor has informed us,'however, that the Tramways Committee has asked the Minister to withdraw the stipulation of secrecy, and that letters have been forwarded to the other city authorities asking-them to co-operate in making a protest. The public can see for themselves the nature of the restrictions that the Minister for Public Worke seeks to impose on the cities by way of a first.instalment of the - Government's, undoubted policy of ultimately forcing the cities to hand over the tramways altogether. The regulations are in the main vexatious, absurd, and unnecessary on the face of tlum, and, so far as Wellington is concerned, will lead, not only to great inconvenience to the tramway management and to the public, but also to financial loss to the city. It is thoroughly in keeping with the methods of public Departments that tho regulations should display such a want of ordinary common-sense. This is not the first occasion by any means upon which the public has received evidence of the tendency of a State Department to issue rules and regulations, upon matters affecting the. common life of the people, without much regard to the actual conditions to be regulated. That is the way of central bureaucracies everywhere. And it is just because it is so, just because bureaucratic management ; s largely a mixture of ignorance, rule-of-thumb, "vicwiness ' and tradition, that in Britain, the parent of modern governmental s-.ystems, and in most progressive civilisations all the best opinion asks for as much local devolution as possible. The exact terms of the new regulations are not available, but their character is plain enough, and tin Wellington pul-iic will readily realise, how harassing and unnecessary are the provisions respecting the displaying of vacant seats and the provision of a portable step. Consider a tramcar crowded nearly to the limit, on a wet winter " evening at 6.10 o'clock, with passengers getting on and off at each stop- , ping place. How is any conductor to count the passengers and do the sum ,in subtraction necessary to_ secure,

at every point, that the city shall not be fined £20 a trip 1 But the point to be emphasised above all is that which is stressed by the Acting-Mayor. "It has just turned out as we anticipated when the Tramways Act was passed," he says. "The Government are bent on taking away from the people the. right of controlling their own tramways." In common with most of our metropolitan contemporaries we have for over three years urged that the Government's object has boon to oltain an initial grip of the cities' largest enterprises. In every direction the Government has exhibited its fundamental antagonism to local government and its set intention of resisting and defying local rights. Only yesterday we reported the latest case of the Ministry's icadincss to defy local sentiment and act in a manner directly opposed to the spirit of the law as laid down by Parliament. This case concerns the building of a new post office in Sydenham on lines opposed to the spirit of the anti-shnrt building legislation on the statute book, and H led the Christchureli City Council to pass a resolution of protest after a discussion upon "the unconstitutional attitude of the Government towards municipalities and local authorities generally/ . The object of the Ministry in all this is quite plain. It aches to add to the area of its patronage; it cannot bear to sec all this fine votc-furraiug avoa out o£ its

possession. The first batch of regulations respecting the tramways is only tho first stop towards further drastic invasions of municipal independence, and since each position wun renders easier the occupation of successive positions, the safety of local autonomy depends almost entirely upon evading the first strangling grip, or, if that is impossible, upon the destruction of the Government.