ABOLITION OF CONCESSIONS

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 42, 18 February 1921, Page 10

ABOLITION OF CONCESSIONS

WORKERS' TRAM TICKETS

WHAT GLASGOW HAS DONE,

Municipal tramway concerns in the Old Country are faced with the same difficulties in making both ends meet as prevail here, ■ and the tendency is to abolish class-concession fares. The Glasgow • Corporation' has already' taken the matter in hand, .and secured an order from the Ministry of Transport authorising the tramway department to charge "artisans, mechanics, and daily iabourers" (specially exempted, in the original .Act) fares not exceeding the fares charged by the corporation for "the conveyance of passengers on Ist June, 1920. The order is to remain in force until 1923, and the worker gets the advantage of fixed fares w4ien increased charges may be made to the rest of tlie travelling public.

. Commenting on the movement, the Electric' Eailway and Tramway Journal says: "At the tim© when workmen were granted exceptionally low fares they were receiving wages of about one-third or one-fourth of the now existing rates of remuneration, and there were also considerations, in many places, of their displacement by street improvement. Today there is no reason whatever why theso well-paid mechanics or any other class of workmen should have preferential treatment by any form oi transportation. .They have never had special fares on the London omnibuses or on 'buses in most other citiesi and towns, .and they are far better able to pay the ordinary fares than many of the grades of clerks, shopmen, shop-girls, and other of the ' black-coated' workers. If ever the Labour party comes into full power in this country,' tramway fares may be abolished and all transportation may be free—the resulting. fights for seats included—but we are not yet under Soviet domination, and until 'we. are, jf ever, workmen. should and must ' pay their whack' like all other, members of our various communities, who have been provided with tramway facilities by the foresight and enterprise of tho respective corporations or companies."