The Evening Star MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1935. THE “BUS TRIP.”

Evening Star, Issue 21945, 4 February 1935, Page 8

The Evening Star MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1935. THE “BUS TRIP.”

The judgment of Mr Justice Kennedy on Saturday finally disposes of any hopes the Dunedin City Corporation may have entertained for its ictention of the Eglinton Valley trip. The interval of time between the Supreme Court proceedings on December 19 and the delivery of His Honour’s considered judgment on Saturday last (due to the intervention of the lAW vacation) can hardly have been a period of suspense for the tramways manager or other corporation officials, for at the conclusion of argument in the mid-December hearing, after the city solicitor’s final plea that ft generous interpretation should be placed on a crucial adjective in the section of the Act on which the corporation’s right to operate this particular service hinged, Mr Justice Kennedy gave ah unmistakable indication of the construction he placed on the section. It may be recalled that some time prior to the November sittings of the licensing authority for road transport in this district the City Corporation, which at the inauguration of this service had to obtain a separate license for each individual trip, was officially notified that a seasonal license would be required thenceforth. This was applied for, and railway and other antagonism to the City Corporation’s venture (which had proved financially successful and exceptionally popular) had such weight with an authority charged with carrying into effect the “ co-ordination ” policy of our transport legislation and administration that the number of trips per season was pared down to a minimum far below the indicated public requirements. In November, however, the licensing authority relented to the extent of authorising about half the number of trips applied for by the City Corporation based on its estimate of public demand. With a full bus for each trip some 420 tourists would have been accommodated as against the 600 to 800 then anticipated.

The matter, however, did not end there. Besides the Railways and the Lurtisden Tourist Company, which jointly have for a leng time operated this route, the Wanaka Motors Limited were among the objectors to any license being granted to the Corporation. C'Ouittel on behalf of that objector quoted section 217 of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1933, as a bar to the issue of a license, and, incidentally, as proof that every previous corporation trip on that route had been in defiance of the law—or at least that the issue of licenses to run them had been ultra vires on the part of the licensing authority. The section in question, legislated ten or a dozen years before the consolidating Act of 1933, states (inter alia) that a municipal council “ may establish, maintain, and regulate a service for the conveyance of passengers and goods to and from any place within the borough, or, with the consent of any neighbouring local authority, between any place within the borough and any place within the district of that local authority.” Mr Wood, chairman of the No. 9 Licensing Authority, intimated that he and his two colleagues declined the responsibility of legally interpreting thA section and suggested recourse to the Supreme Court by the objectors. Accordingly without delay application was made that a .writ of

certiorari be issued against the chairman and members of the No. 9 Transport Licensing Authority concerning its November decision granting a seasonal license to the Dunedin City Corporation to operate a motor service to Eglinton Valley. The Corporation’s argument was unavailing. It could hardly be otherwise in the face of the wording of the section, for the Borough of Dunedin cannot have fifteen neighbouring local authorities involved, ranging as far afield as the Lakes County Council. Anticipating the effect of Saturday’s Supreme Court ruling, which is that the City Corporation has not, and cannot have, the statutory authority to operate the service so long as the law remains as at present, the tramways manager speedily came to terms with the Railways Department. The same corporation bus, piloted by the same corporation employee (whose zeal and acumen have contributed a great deal to the heavy public patronage accorded to the trip) has made further trips under the auspices of the Railways Department. But since this arrangement there has been a noticeable decline of public interest in the Eglinton Valley, if measured alone by the bookings and ignoring the owner-driver motorist. We are quite unable to justify any assumption that the Dunedin public resents high-handed, if legal, appropriation of a goodwill created by pioneering enterprise on the part of the City Corporation. At any rate the latter’s many sympathisers have the consolation of knowing that the corporation tramways department, from the financial aspect, is no loser under the present arrangement. Whether in future the New Zealand Railways will experience opposition on this route from privately-owned transport concerns remains to be seen. Public opinion will insist that on completion of the road to Milford Sound an adequate and reasonably cheap service shall be maintained, and in order to ensure this, some competitive basis seems desirable. By that time possibly the Tourist Department will have realised the desirability of modernising the sleeping accommodation at Te Anau Hotel so as to bring it into harmony with the other branches of a hostelry, which but for Government repression of the lessee’s enterprise, would already be in a position to face the heavy demands for public accommodation which seem inevitable in the near future.