NON-PAYING SERVICE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19659, 10 June 1927, Page 13

NON-PAYING SERVICE.

ELLERSLIE-REMUERA BUSES. WITHDRAWAL DECIDED UPON. COMMITTEE'S DETERMINATION. "I tell you quite plainly it is useless the council sending this recommendation back to the committee for further consideration," said Mr. J. A. C. Allum, chairman of the Tramways Committee, at the meeting of the Auckland City Council last evening. "The recommendation has to stand and that is the end of it. Send it back and it will come before tho council again in exactly the same form as it is in now." The committee's recommendation was that the council should withdraw its bus service between the Harp of Erin and Meadowbank Road, concerning which Mr. L. J. Keys and the Passenger Transport Company had appealed to the Transport Appeal Board. The board had adjourned tho appeals and had asked the council, as No. 1 Licensing Authority, to give further and special consideration to the question of imposition of penal fares on the route. Objection to withdrawal of the council's service was made by Mr. J. B. Paterson. He asked why residents in that district should be penalised when it was known that none of the bus services was paying. He moved that the recommendation be referred back to the committee. Miss E. Melville asked whether it was not a fact that money had been borrowed for extending the tram lines in the locality. The Mayor, Mr. G. Baildon: I think it was. Mr. Paterson: Tho money was raised three years ago, but it was stolen for other purposes. Mr. Allum: This bus service is the worst paying of the lot. The committee would have preferred to postpone making tho recommendation until it was prepared to report on all bus services, but we had to do something now in justice to Mr. Keys. When opponents of the recommendation still continued the discussion, Mr. Allum rose again. " If you want a plain statement, here you are," he said. "If we keep the buses running on this route, we shall have to ask the council not to inflict the penal fare. We cannot run with the penal fare and we do not want to prejudice ourselves, by having to ask for exemption." The amendment was defeated on the voices, tho recommendation being adopted.