P.P.A. AND RAILWAY CONCESSIONS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 11, 14 July 1928, Page 8

P.P.A. AND RAILWAY CONCESSIONS

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Surely the protest made by the P.P.A. at its conference on Wednesday, as recorded in the resolution you published the following day, was agreed to under a palpable misapprehension of the facts. What sense is there in objecting to the extension to "students or scholars who are in regular daily attendance at universities, colleges, technical colleges,. State or private schools, and who are not following any occupation" or employment, or in receipt of any salary or emolument therefrom," of a concession previously made to school boarders only, on "returning home for holidays within seven days after the end of the recognised school term only"? By substituting for this latter concession the regulation referring to "Vacation Tickets" (which are issued as under the regulation it supersedes "on production of a certificate" only), "students or scholars" are now allowed, "when travelling during the recognised school or college vacations" to obtain return tickets available for two months at holiday excursion rates—halfholiday excursion fare for scholars under twelve; full holiday excursion fare for scholars and students over twelve years of age. Under the "school boarders'" regulation, now superseded, three-fourths of the ordinary return fare was chargeable to the boys and girls travelling from and to school during their holidays. Why all this fuss about a regulation that hurts nobody, that is more general in its application, and that is without religious distinctions, sectarian bias, or "animosities prejudicial to the welfare of tho State and the people." The protest savours of the ridiculous.—l am, etc., ;— ERNEST A. JAMES. 13th July, ■■■;■ ,•- ■•-■;.