The Evening Star. THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 1925. THE KAIKORAI TRAMWAY.

Evening Star, Issue 18852, 29 January 1925, Page 6

The Evening Star. THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 1925. THE KAIKORAI TRAMWAY.

The matter of the lease of the Dunedin and Kaikorai Tram Company, Ltd., cannot be left where the City Council is anxious to leave it. The report of the Finance Committee which was submitted last night was a curt and slovenly evasion of the real request of the company. That was not so much a request for the extension of its lease as for an assurance of fair treatment, its term expires, which will warrant the company in making expenditure which is desirable for the improvement of its line. The committee reported bluntly that, from a policy point of view, the lease should not be extended. W hat was left out of the report was supplied by the chairman of the committee, Cr Taverner, when he said that the committee was unanimous that the terms of the deed should not be varied. If this intention persists, therefore, there will bo no right of valuation for the company when its lease expires in the ordinary course. If a future council likes to stand by the letter of its bond it can tell the company, fourteen years from now, that it can taJ<o what the council chooses to offer for the plant it has installed, or it would be legally entitled, without offering anything, to tell the lessees to rip up their track and restore the to its original condition. Rather than be exposed to that expense the company might very well reply : “ Take the line for nothing.” No council, of course, would go so far as that. The public, apart from anything else, would not let it. But there are possibilities of lesser injustice in the present tease which should be eliminated, if the company is to be certain of fair treatment, and placed in a position in which it will bo justified, to the advantage of both the citizens and the council, in continuing the best upkeep of its line. The council insists, of course, that neither it nor any future council would ever do injustice. In that case, neither this council nor another can have any need of the tyrannical powers that have been given to the Town Hall by this particular contract —a bad contract for the company ever to have made, from the point of view of what might happen at its dissolution, but tho best that could be obtained by it when it was promoted. The company has more cause to fear the effect of those powers when the council is scon to cling to them so tenaciously. “ There was no intention of placing tho company at a disadvantage at any time,” said Or Taverner last night, “but the city would bo paramount in any negotiations that would take place at tho expiry of the lease.” The justice of the whip hand, which is promised, may leave nothing to bo desired to the power that exercises it; it may appear to Cr Clark, when lie is not its recipient, as a most generous deal.” But something more is due to a company which has served the public well for a long series of years, and, only asks now for guarantees for the future which will warrant it in continuing to serve it with the maximum efficiency until its lease expires. No verbal assurances of this council can bind its successors ; that can only be done by a variation of the preposterous deed, and the variation must be made.