TRAMWAY MEN'S MANNERS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 91, 7 June 1911, Page 8

TRAMWAY MEN'S MANNERS.

JR. H PLY ’’l 0 hIYDNKY CHI TIC. AndT.r.ui Tune 1. In reference to the sla foment miuij by Air. T. IT. Nesbitt, tow a <! '!;: (; 1 Sydney, regardin'.',; the tramway t:\ stem in Auckland, Air. A:tln.r Rosser, secretary of tho Tramway Employees’ I'nion, ooinineuted ou the remarks to a “Star” reporter this morning He agreed that it was a very bad thing for Auckland that the tramways were in tho hands of a private company, but with regard to the criticism of conductors Air Nesbitt was veiy sweeping in his opinions. Other visitors to t.iio city, wnile they managed t > (hop across an occasional discourteous tramway man haul not hesitated to express an opinion favourable to the body of men as a w hole. Where there wove dot) to -100 men in the service ono must of necessity come across men w ho are not too courteous and obliging, lint to apply the terms Air Nesbitt had to tiie whole of them was critisiem of a man of bilious temperament. It must not he forgotten that Air Nesbitt is fresh from a city whose tramway men are under the heel of a despot like Air Knccshaw. This was shown by the comparatively recent tramway strike in Sydney, in which Mr Kneesliaw, backed up by the Government, managed to stamp out the organised resistance of the men by measures that, were despotic in the extreme. It was Tor the companies to deal with the construction and appearance of the cars. It must be remembered that Auckland was the pioneer in electric fraction in New Zealand, and tiie 7ft. (;i i cars constructed in the first place were found to ho too narrow for comfort, but tho rails having boon laid tlic.o could he no increase in the width of the cars. Regarding the luck of ventilation owing to the use of dosed up ears, the type that was in use in Wellington and tho southern cit its was objected to by tramway men on account of flic danger to them by having to clamber along tiie footboard to collect fares. In Wcdington four or five cases of serious and fatal accident had taken pbice through men being knocked off their cars by passing vehicles, and no sensible person would cai'o to sec such a type of car introduced into Auckland. “In conclusion,” said Air Rosser, “.Air Nesbitt did not seem to he able to find a single virtue in the Auckland sc.vice.”