AUCKLAND LETTER

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 September 1924, Page 6

AUCKLAND LETTER

MOTOR ’BUS v. TRAMS.

(From Our Own Correspondent).

AUCKLAND, Sept. 12. The increasing popularity of 'the motor ’bus, not only in Auckland, bui> in other New Zealand centres, must be causing tramway authorities a good deal of concern. Our own City Council is fighting the opposition by running a motor ’bus service itself. Of course the motor ’bus has points of superiority as a public conveyance over the tram-car. It stops to take up and set down “fares” anywheie, just as the old horse-drawn ’buses used, to do. The tram-car won’t stop between “stops” for anyone. The motor ’bus is also a more comfortable vehicle than the tram-car, and travels faster. But is has one defect common to all petrol-driven vehicles—it is liable to burst into flames suddenly with disastrous results to the passengers. Witness the recent tragedy in England due to the sudden ignition of a motor ’bus, when seven persons were burned to death. On the whole, I think I prefer the trams, with all their drawbacks.

THE FOOD WE EAT. A judge of the Supreme Court jocularly observed last week during the hearing of a certain case, that bakers and confectioners were, he thought, legally compelled to adhere to the rule “one currant to one bun.” Certainly some of the buns retailed in Auckland ’ contain not many more than a single currant apiece, while “date scones” are often chiefly remarkable for their absence of “date.” Then again, “chicken, and ham sausage” generally contains neither chicken nor hajn. Whole-meal bread is usually only partly made of whole-meal, cider is sometimes not brewed from apples, gooseberry wine sometimes masquerades as champagne, and brewers’ beer is sometimes entirely different from home-brewed, as the people ol “dry” America are discovering, for their home-brewed (produced at a cost of 2d per quart), is reckoned far superior to th e beei- retailed in hotel bars at 6d per pint. HAWKERS. Auckland l suburban ladies complain that they are worried to death with hawkers. One lady states that she had eleven of these itinerant vendors (mostly of articles no one has any real use for) called at her abode within one hour recently, so that she was kept busily occupied all the time in answering the door and saying : “Nothing today, thank you”—a reply that was not always accepted, some men insisting on arguing the point. This sort of thing, day after day, is very ■annoying to the householders, yet many a hawker is compelled to take to the road because he cannot find employment ..such as he is capable of doing. Of course, if the hawker (he prefers to be called a “canvasser”) is a fraud and his goods are no (good, he deserves no sympathy, and the best way to test him is to insist on seeing his license. And he seldom has one. THE HEATHEN CHINEE. Now that the old-established fruit shop in Lower- Queen Street, and widely known as “Stacey’s” has been taken over by a Chinese firm, the entire fruit trade of the city is in the hands of the Celestials. John is also gradually monopolising the laundry trade of Auckland, and is beginning to turn his attention to the furniture manufacturing trade as well. There are also two or three Chinese shops in Auckland, devoted to the sale of silks and other soft goods. Where is it going to end ? To be quite fair, John is not a bad sort, in his way. He is civil and fobliging, and as a rule gives a straight deal. And, apart from his partiality for fan-tan and opium, he is usually well-behaved and law-abiding. But he sends all his money to the Flowery Land, or takes it there himself when he has amassed a modest competence. And he takes the. bread out of the mouth of the white trader. All this is perfectly well-known to the public. Yet thev continue to patronise Chinese shops liberally, at all events in Auckland, and thus encourage more and more Chinese to come here. Isn’t it about time that the Government re-consider-ed “the Chinese Question ”