BUSES AND TRAMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19390, 27 July 1926, Page 12

BUSES AND TRAMS.

POSITION IN SYDNEY.

AN UNPOPULAR PROPOSAL.

[from our own correspondent.] SYDNEY. July 15.

The Government appears to be looking for trouble in all directions. As to the Workers' Compensation Act the public have been somewhat phlegmatic. They have regarded that as a fight purely between the Government and the employers and underwriters, and have shown little inclination to enter the contest,: but if the Government carries out the proposals of one of its Ministers to prevent the buses from picking up passengers along the tram routes, except during the peak periods of traffic, there will inevitably be an outcry on the part of the public. The Government is not, as was feared in some quarters, going to create a .monopoly for itself in the bus traffic, but the trams are a losing proposition, and as the incursion of the buses is held to be largely responsible for it, the Government is going to cut out the buses in the slack periods along tram routes and compel the public to squeeze into trams already overcrowded. If the public desire buses -—and they do desire them, judging from the way' they patronise them—then they will insist upon., the use of . them at all hours, and not merely during the peak periods. People are already packed like sardines on Sydney's trams at almost any hour of the day on almost any of the busy services. To crowd more people into them by cutting out buses, simply in order that the Government can pull up its deficit on the trams,' willbe for the Government to invite trouble. This is something that will touch the public immediately, like the income tax.