DISABLED SOLDIERS ON TRAMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18211, 3 October 1922, Page 10

DISABLED SOLDIERS ON TRAMS.

Sir,—The City Council baa recently granted free passes on the fjams to disabled soldiers who have lost one or both legs, or who are blind. The fact of the passes being restricted to such a small section of the disabled men leads one to believe that the privilege was granted unwillingly, and simply as a means of disposing of an irritating matter which cropped up too frequently and had to be got rid of with the least amount, of loss to the revenue. While acknowledging that thoee men who have lost one or both legs or are blind thoroughly deserve the privilege, it seems that the range of vision of city councillors is not very wide when j they imagine that only the blind and those who have lost one or both legs are handicapped in getting about the streets. There are numbers of men t»ho have not lost a leg, bat the injury to it is such that walking is a real effort and a painful one, too, at times. And there are quite a number of men with two -wholcarms and two whole legs and not A scratch jserhaps on their bodies—men who have bsen gassed and others suffering! from heart afflictions, consumption, and i such like, to whom climbing about Auckland is a very great strain. Let me illustrate my point in a manner which the city councillors will probably under-., stand better. Take one of the councillor's motor-cars and equip it with a brand new set of tyres and tubes, then damage the mapneto or other vital part in such a way that it resembles the effect on a D lager's lnngs who has been gassed or is sufferina; from consumption. Then craJik the car over and see how muoh use the brand new tyres are. Would it not hsive been more Broad-minded and go to prove that our city councillors are men of brains and understanding if the resolution they passed re free tram passes had read : *Any returned soldier who, in the opinion of a competent medical man to be appointed by the council, is seriously" handicapped in his movements as a result of his war service." PATJat'tAf.