TOPICS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Issue 140, 10 December 1912, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

An inadequate tramway service f6t Christmas Day, as For the Public specified by the City or the Council, seems to be Tramway Men? excessive in the opinion oi the employees. A suggestion has been made that the arrangement for 25th December, which falls far short of public requirements, is a bleach of the agreement •with tho tramway men. The clause in question is i—"Good Friday and Christma* Day—Double time, if working. On Christmas Day cars shall be run Fo meet trains and steamers and to provide as far as practicable an hourly service on all routes." If an hourly service imposes inconvenience and irritation on large numbers of citizens, is it "practicable" ? According to the agreement, 19 "practicable" to imply that the counfcil should go as far as it dare in denying the public a reasonable use of tho cars on a holiday? "The tramway service was instituted for tramway pur« poses" is a" truism which the City Council and the employees seem to forget in relation to Christmas . The service was not established to enable motormen and conductors to dictate a timetable for any particular day. The public comfort and convenience must take precedence always, and, of course, the men are fairly' paid for their work on the tramway owners' behalf. If it is logical to force tho people to do without one public utility, such as means of transport, on Christmas" Day, is it not logical to make them go short of Another public utility such as electric light or gas ? We agree readily that the employee^ at convenient times, should have a holiday' in lieu of Christmas Day, but it is absurd that they should expect to be allowed to hold up the cars or grotesquely reduce the service on an afterndon when people will be eager to use the cars. When the men were on strike last summer they admitted the importance of having public opinioh on their side. If they are still of that belief, they should offer to modify 'their agreement by assisting the council, at the t scheduled double 1 pay, to give the citizens a fair service for Christmas Day. When the agreement expires a year hence the council should not, again put. itself in the ridiculous position of signihg away the tramway owners' rights to a fair use of the cars on any particular day. We are accused by the Dominion of having misrepresent' National ed its criticism or Denominational, upon the National Schools Defence League by taking "an isolated sentence" and entirely ignoring the context. Our contemporary unfortunately does not. quote a single other sentence or' passage' from its article that puts another construction ur-on the sentence quoted by us, and for the very good reason that there is nohe to be found. The gist of the passage from which we took our quotation was that the Defence League was guilty of inconsistency in appealing to public opinion in support of its contention that the Biblcin'schools question is not a fit subject" for a plebiscite. The sentence that We quoted was in exact accord with the drift of this argument, and the inability of the Dominion to cite a single word from the article to qualify the quotation may be accepted as concjusive proof that it w&b. Sophistry, evasion, and abuse make a poor substitute for the citation that would lf&ve clenched the matter if we had been guilty of the misrepresentation so meanly ascribed to us. The attack upon the State schools from the opposite side to that adopted by the Bible-in'Schools League was continued by Dr. Kennedy and Bishop Grimes at the St. Patrick's Collfege prize-giving yesterday. Being firmly convinced that the public funds should not be employed ,for the en« dowmentj direct or indirect, of denomi' national teaching, We are quite satisfied that Parliament should hever have made it possible that Education Board scholarships should be held at a denominational school, and that the Educational Board*, with which the discretion now rests, should be no parties to such a policy. The formidable attacks that are now being directed against the Undenominational principle and the wobbling complaisance with which they are treated by certain Ministerial organs should inspire the champions of the national system to greater activity than ever. Some day the robinia acacia -will nod a white flowery crown Trees that .to the wind that comes Call for Care, from the sea to ( Mount Victoria., In the black winter of 1909, when sadness a.id sorrbw were in hundreds of this country's homes, citizen of Wellington subscribed liberally for relief works, which included Mine tree-plantilig on the north-Western slopes of Mount Victoria. A Hawkcs Bay nurseryman had generously given 10,000 young robinia plants, of which a largo numbei* had a poor statfc in life on the hills here. Some of the men em* ployed were not txpeft. They thought a tender tree had no more feeling than a post, antl il was thrust unskilfully ihto an ill-made bed. Witnesses of some of this perfunctory planting had no hope o* blospom in a summer- remote. They can have the pleasant surprise that the majority of the plants have clung to life. It lias been a hard struggle far them, but they are winning admirably. A Tepresenlative of Tho Post saw a krge number trying to lift their foliage through a rank growth of grass. Ob« viously the fighting trees had been either forgotten or a tush of work had diverted all • available men tv other' tack&. In view of tho council 1 * decision n few months ago to change extra skilled labour for the cave of trees in the reperves, those struggling robiniafe are entitled to some aid against the silffneatihg gra«s. The' caked ground around the stocks wilt aleo- need some loosening. This supervision should be continuous, systematic. Al' the authorities on tree-planting are emphatic about the need of this careful watching of youhg tree*. It may be easily a waste of time and energy to set thorn, and then leave them to tak? their chance against their various natural nnd unnatural enemies.