SELLING THE BUSES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 146, 20 May 1930, Page 2

SELLING THE BUSES.

(To the Editor). Sir, —I read with a great deal of amused interest the discussion that took place at the last meeting of the Palmerston North Borough Council on the,, proposal to “sell the buses” because some of the runs were not showing a “profit.” What a blessed word that word “profit” isl It is like the word “wealth.” It is misunderstood and misinterpreted by those who ought to know better. “Profit” to these people is the money gain made in any transaction; while “wealth” is regarded as money. Both definitions, in the broadest sense, are quite wrong. Let me give vou the broader definition of • “profit. ’ “Any advantage, benefit, or accession of good resulting from labour or exertion; valuable results, useful consequences,- benefit, gain; comprehending the acquisition of anything valuable or advantageous, corporeal, or intellectual, temporal or spiritual.” The real meaning of “wealth” is well-being. Keeping these definitions in mind, the suggestion to “sell the buses” at once appears foolish and absurd. The real science of business is not the science of making money, but the science of rendering a service. If it is logical to sell the buses because they are not making a profit, then you might find that you have a good many other services that will have to be sold or discontinued. I might ask, does the library, the parks, the swimming baths or the sanitation system show a profit? If not, then, according to the mercenary-minded members of the council, these services should be sold or discontinued. Surely these men cannot escape tho logic of their own position. All this talk about conducting the services of the council on “business” lines is pure piffle. Such men take only the money aspect of “profit,” and after all it is tho least important aspect of the lot. The only way you can make a community effort “pay” is to make the members of tho community pay in hard cash. Foolish people talk about making the railways “pay” 1 What the railways “lose” the people who use the railways must gain. Then where is the loss? Yes, you say, but no private firm would run anything at a lo6s: why should the council? Because if the former makes a loss, they have to bear the loss themselves, but in the latter case, the “loss” i 6 borne by the whole community, and, in the last analysis, is no loss at all. What you lose on the swings you make up on the roundabouts. Again, I suppose 99 per cent, of the people who use the buses are engaged in private enterprise of one sort and another, so that if the council loses £IOOO a year on the buses, then private enterprise has gained £IOOO. As a matter of plain fact, community undertakings are rendering a very fine service to private enterprise. Does the Agricultural Department, for instance, show a profit? No, but it enables the farmers to do so, and by doing so the whole Dominion is the richer. "Would any sano man deny this ? The value of city and town land is increased or determined by two factors —location and transportation. The latter factor must eventually increase the value of the outlying portions of the borough, and, ipso facto, increase the rateable value of those districts. So again, I say, that what is lost in one direction will be more than made up in the other. Besides, should not tlie people living in the outlying portions of the borough have the same consideration as those living nearer at hand? Surely the services of the borough are for the whole of the people and not only for a favoured few. If not, then the whole idea of social life ought to be revised and let every man make his own arrangements. Civic progress and business progress go hand in hand, and the more progretssive a town is, the more it is prepared to make the town attractive, even at a “loss” (!) the better it will be for all concerned. “What is lost on the swings, will be more than made up on the roundabouts.”—l am, etc., “SHELDON.” May 17, 1930.