Disunity Dominates Transport Problem

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 419, 30 July 1928, Page 14

Disunity Dominates Transport Problem

COMMISSIONERS’ VIEWS

DISPUTE OF LOCAL BODIES

(From Our Resident Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Saturday. In advancing its recommendations upon city transport, the Auckland Transport Commission suggested that the disunity and distrust among the local authorities throughout the district was an important, if not the dominating element in the problems which had to be faced throughout the metropolitan area. The commissioners comment upon the exercise by the City Council of its power as a licensing authority, and say: “It seems to us that the discretion exercised by the Auckland City Council as licensing authority by the provisions set out may be fairly described as a judicial discretion. We do not propose to labour the point. We would adopt <he dictum of a learned English judge to the effect that in the administration of justice it is not sufficient that the fountain of jusice should be pure—it must be obviously pure.

“It was very strongly urged by the witnesses and by counsel for the suburban bodies that this salutary principle is violated by the provision with which We are now dealing, and with this criticism we agree. Mr. Johnstone, counsel for the City of Auckland, did not seriously combat the criticism. In his closing address he quite frankly and fairly stated that, in view of the necessity in such matters of refraining from even ihe appearance of evil, the anomaly referred to should not continue. UNWISE PROVISION “We, therefore, find that in the conditions peculiar to Auckland this provision has proved to be an unwise one. It has contributed appreciably to a spirit of distrust and disimity among the various local authorities, and this spirit is an important, if not the dominating element in the transport problems which the metropolis is facing. “In fairness to the Auckland City Council, we find that there is no evidence that it used its discretion as licensing authority in any improper way. That fact, however, does not touch the point at issue.

“The appointment of the City Council, in the peculiar circumstances of the case, contravenes the principle that no body of men should be judges in a matter that requires them to weigh their own plans and interests against those of their competitors.

“It is, in our opinion, no answer to that objection to point out that so far the judges seem to have endeavoured to make an honest use of the discretion vested in them.” “SUSPICION AND HOSTILITY”

In “commenting further upon the local body disunity, the commissioners said: “The present transport difficulties are approached and stated, not as one transport problem based on the requirements of a homogeneous transport area, but as a dispute between the Auckland City Council and the outside bodies. The matter has come before us largely in the form of a dispute between those parties and, as a separate part of this whole answer will show, it has taken the form of the series of indictments to be answered by the City Council. “The atmosphere in which these disputes have developed and proceeded has, at some points and places, and as to some parties, been one of suspicion and hostility.

“This spirit, in our considered opinion, is the most important and at the same time the most potent factor in the present position. It entered largely into the conduct of the hearing before us, and at times led witness and counsel to place what we believed to be an unnecessary importance and emphasis on unworthy and irrelevant issues.

“For the sam© reason the case for tho local bodies, as presented to us, .. showed strongly a tendency to treat developments and matters that are na-tion-wide or world-wide as if they were peculiar to Auckland. For example, the Motor Omnibus Traffic Act, 1926, with its principle of the penal fare of 2d. “A SAD SPIRIT” “The recognition of the expediency of giving a measure of traffic monopoly and the provision whereby local bodies are made the licensing authorities were all treated as “sinister devices of the Auckland City Council, sanctioned by a complaisant Legislature to enable that council to crush its motor-bus rivals. “It is, on the contrary, clear that in fact these provisions were enacted by the Legislature after a study of methods followed throughout the Empire and elsewhere to meet conditions similar to those that Auckland had experienced. If Auckland’s experience in these matters ha§ been more troublesome to adjust and the difficulties harder to remove, we are satisfied that these peculiarities are attributable, as to most of them at least, to the division of municipal control within the metropolis, and to the sad spirit of disunity of which that division is the outward sign. COUNCIL HELD BACK

“No body of men in the circumstances with this equipment and seeking to serve a public so tried by the conflict of econqmic forces that have fought for mastery in its district, could in the time have established an efficient omnibus service. The City Council has not done so. “We are satisfied that the Tramway Committee, and the administrative advisers and staff that have evol.yed such an efficient tramway service out of chaos, could and would, with the 60-operation of the people, have mastered the difficulties of the omnibus service.

“It has met, instead, the forces of municipal disunity and mistrust, allied with the natural discontent of the inevitable sufferers from the results of economic conflict. As matters now stand we find that an efficient and satisfactory, omnibus service has not yet been organised by the City Council.”