MUNICIPAL TRAMWAYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13839, 27 August 1908, Page 8

MUNICIPAL TRAMWAYS.

Discussing the question of municipal tramways, a writer in the Wellington Post says: Municipal management is subject to two serious drawbacks. The first is the public pressure for reduced fares or longer journeys for the standard fares —a. pressure for greater advantages than the tramway system can give while maintaining its proper profit. The second is the pressure to increase the number of employees, and the pressure of political influence affecting control, with the clanger of wasteful or inefficient service. The gist of the matter is this: Everybody's business is nobody's business: very few people will protect the municipal pocket as they would their own. Municipal management of tramways is profitable and successful in proportion as its conditions approximate to the conditions of private management, it is made profitable by capable and economical operation. It is made successful, not by starving or sweating its employees, but by insisting that their services yield he full value that they would yield to a just private employer according to the current wages and conditions of labour. The Wellington trams should be placed under the separate control of a responsible manager", instead of remaining in the charge of the city electrical engineer, and the wages and hours of employees should b. fixed by the Arbitration Court.