BUS AND TRAIN FARES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 51, 24 November 1930, Page 6

BUS AND TRAIN FARES

Protest Meeting and Petition Train and bub fares were criticised at a meeting of the Moera Ratepayers’ League. It was stated by the chairman, Mr. Sullivan, that there were a large number of wharf labourers’ living in Sloera, and they had to pay 3/6 for their train ticket now, instead of 2/6. There were times When these men had to get the first train back if there was no ..work offering on the wharf., Some were having a very hard time. his certain knowledge there were a number of meh in receipt of charitable aid. The increased fare was another hit against the' worker. When the workers- were enticed out to Moera it was to enter into a paradise compared with conditions in Wellington. They were going to have. every facility and cheap travelling. They are taking the position very seriously, out here, and the league enters a strong objection to the increases, especially in the train fares. It was mentioned that already people were leaving Moera., One of the grievances aired was that a wharf labourer, when lie got to Wellington and found no work offering, was forced to wait until .night for a train on which his ticket could be used. Members, wanted to know why it could not be arranged, that on showing their workers’ ticket to . the bus driver, they could get badk home on payment of 9d. Something like a stir was caused when a speaker said that he had been informed by a bus driver that the 1/6 return to had been cut out, and a shilling each way was to be charged. One. member left the meeting to interview a bus driver, and returned with the statement that there had been no alteration in the biis return fares. Attention was drawn to the fact that when the people left 'Wellington to go to Moera they wei’e told that their rates, etc., would not be more than £9 a year, and their weekly train fares woul be 2/6. The position, they held, had been altogether misrepresented. ■ “Moera is the biggest’ socialistic scheme iu the country,” said one speaker, “but the Government and the council are going the right way to break it down.” Mr. Walter Nash, M.P., member for the dis’rict. drew attention to the fact that more, than a quarter of the workers’ tickets for the whole of the Dominion were issued in the Hutt Valley. There were 127.000 workers’ tickets issued on the Hutt Valiev lust year He had already expressed the Labour Party’s views on the increased fares, and he was surprised the increases had been taken so lightly. It was decided to hold a me6thi.it protesting against the increased fares, and also to present n petition to the Government. The petition will. be taken on to the trains and also about the settlement for signatures.