Untitled

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 18141, 5 July 1919, Page 6

We are pleased to see evidences of a departure by th» Postal Department from the complete policy of laissez faire which it seemed to meditate at the commencement of the railway dislocation. The Secretary of the Post Office has announced that the Department is willing to subsidise newspaper motor delivery services carrying first class mails, a concession which means,that the Canterbury Progress League will bo relieved of all anxiety concern-

ing tho financial responsibilities it has undertaken on behalf of the province. The next best thing to a Department that will help itself, we suppose, is one that will permit itself to be helped, and it would appear that the second category is the only one a New Zealand State Department can he expected to climb into under present circumstances. It is a time to be thankful for small mercies, and the action of the Post and Telegraph Department will bo marked up to its credit.

There is a good deal to be said in favour of tho system of a uniform tram fare, as advocated by Mr E. W. Simmons in a letter which wo print this morning. The idea is not new, ot course. In some of the larger cities in America tho uniform fare is in operation. In New York five-cent and ten-cent fares are charged, the latter covering exceedingly long journeys. The general purpose is to spread the population over a wide area by making transit between city and suburbs as inexpensive as possible. There are substantial arguments in support of the principle. It is true that tho city users of tho trams have to subsidise tho suburban users, but tho answer to that is that the town-dweller receives indirect but substantial benefit through the relief from congestion in tho town. We confess, however, that there are many more suitable places than Christchurch for applying tho principle of the uniform fare. Here, very fortunately, the population is already distributed over a wide area, and suburban residents are catered for by tho Tramway Board with a particularly generous scalo of concessions.

At that dark period during the great war when the ravages of the German U-boats among the mercantile shipping of the Allies seemed likely to exceed all efforts at new construction, the Australian Commonwealth Government, then embarking in tho shipping business for the first time on its own account, was seized with tho practical idea of helping tho situation by building cargo ships in Australia- There was already the nucleus of a shipbuilding industry in New South Wales, and tho industry .was one which Australians regarded with honest pride, and which the Government was anxious to fosterTherefore all circumstances —local patriotism, Imperial patriotism, expediency and economy—favoured the scheme. Six ships were laid down, and tho latest advices are to the effect that two of these, the Delungra and Dromana, have been launched. Two ships were laid down at Williamstown, one at Cockatoo Island, the birthplace of Australian shipbuilding, and three at Walsh Island. Tho Dromana was expected to be ready for sea early this month, but the industrial disturbances on the eastern coast have doubtless delayed tho event. All tho ships, however, are reported to be making good progress, and the results of tho venture will be watched with considerable interest.

The resolution of the Wellington Synod, reported yesterday, affirming the principle of "free and open churches throughout the diocese," is the reflex of a practically world-wide-Anglican movement against tho rented pew. The feeling at the back of the movement, to put it bluntly, is that the church ought not to be snobbish and that within her walls thero should be a true democracy. In America, where, despite the existence of a nominal democracy in the State, the extremes between rich and poor « • between high birth and low birth aro more sharply accentuated than anywhere else, the reform has even invaded the sacred precincts of .Old Trinity Church, New York- This historic church, whose tall and graceful spire is dwarfed by the titanic skyscrapers that hem it round about, stands on Broadway, at the head of Wall Street, in the very heart of tho business life of the great metropolis. Founded in 1G97, it was burned down in 1776, and rebuilt. The second structure was pulled down seventy years later to give way to the present building. It is a church which has been richly endowed, and has an income from endowments of £155,000 per annum. Many of its pews wero heirlooms of great families; others wero vested in trustees as the property of estates or even of corporations. It required tho consent of the courts to free some of the pews, but led by tho present incumbent, Dr W. T. Manning, the congregation abolished pew rents as a thanksgiving for the armistice and the vested interests in the pews/ were gracefully relinquished- With such an example from the wealthiest church in the wealthiest country of tho world it is not surprising that the movement is making headway elsewhere-