The Sun WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29, 1928 A TACTLESS CONFERENCE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 445, 29 August 1928, Page 8

The Sun WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29, 1928 A TACTLESS CONFERENCE

NEITHER the right mood nor the best manner was provided last evening for the first heart-to-heart talk between representatives of the City Council and several local bodies on the extravagant problem of Greater Auckland transport. It was made clear in a spirit of surprised vexation tbat an unfortunate choice of words marred the Mayor’s welcome to the outside delegates, and virtually tongue-tied the two able representatives of the Electric-Power Board, whose presence at the meeting was, for some foolish and inexcusable reason, resented. They were made to feel as intruders. It is to be regretted that a lack of perfect courtesy and even of diplomatic cordiality should have revealed hostility and put an edge on temper. The meeting was in no sense a real conference with an honest desire to overcome difficulties, and, like competent men of business, reach an amicable and a profitable settlement of an expensive dispute over suburban transport services. Thus the so-called conference began in ill-will, was nourished with suspicion and a dash of temper, and ended in exasperating failure. In the warmth of protest against the attitude of the Mayor and some members of - his council toward the Power Board’s representatives, the feckless meeting was adjourned for a fortnight. “Business done—nothing.” It was, of course, a tactical error of judgment on the part of the Mayor of Mount Eden, Mr. E. H. Potter, to urge abruptly that the conference should affirm the principle of establishing a transport board. That was akin to hustling the owners and administrators of a great monopoly into a quick surrender of its possession. Moreover, the motion, which was thrown out incontinently by Mr. George Baildpn, as chairman, ignored the longestablished fact that the city’s municipal caravan is a slow coach. It likes to jog on, and dislikes being jolted. Mr. Potter would have made more ground had he been content with submitting his proposal as a conclusive recommendation by the outside local bodies for the consideration and approval of the City Council. As to the cross-talk and angry opinion about the right of the council to dictate to the other local bodies on the question of representation, it is a pity that time and temper were wasted on childish and churlish argument. It has become the plain duty of all the responsible parties concerned with the future of Auckland transport to recognise that the present unsatisfactorysystem 'of service and control cannot be allowed to go on indefinitely, and to devote all their energy and wisdom toward the construction of a practicable scheme of transport satisfactory to the whole of Greater Auckland. The existing system cannot go on, because its administrators are at their wits’ end to maintain it without grievous loss to the city ratepayers upon whom, so far, the full burden of financial loss on the acquisition of an unjust transport monopoly and muddle has been thrust. Bus services are being maintained in circumstances which business men in private enterprise would not tolerate for a week longer. The losses still run to close on jS 40,000 a year. Are the ratepayers within the city going to suffer that squandermania without a protest, without desire to knock some administrative heads together? The tramway services are now paying handsomely, but the splendid profit is being secured on conditions that soon must bring a day of reckoning. The trams are overworked, and, at rush hours, are disgracefully overcrowded. Repairs and reconditioning are being neglected to a degree that imperils their efficiency in the neay future. There are not enough cars to cope with the increased public demand for their form of transport. There is scope, there is staring need of profitable tramway extensions over areas outside the rating jurisdiction of the City Council. A loan of & 600,000 is required for such essential improvements, progressive enterprise, and the replacement of dilapidated and moneywasting buses. Does any councillor or anybody else outside a mind-healing hospital imagine that the city ratepayers would authorise such a colossal expenditure of borrowed money without a guarantee against further formidable loss? The time has' come for a better system of administrative control, and a more equitable distribution of financial responsibility for the expansion and maintenance of an adequate transport service for Greater Auckland. Experts were recently paid thousands of pounds to discover the best possible way out of a costly tangle. They found that the surest and shortest road out of a financial morass was to establish a transport board. The City Council should read the handwriting- on the wall and act upon it.

THE CUPBOARD WAS BARE

THE publicity work for the Dominion has improved amazingly in recent years, particularly in England. But visitors from the United States continually point out that New Zealand still remains an unknown quantity to vast numbers of Americans, who are convinced that it is either the capital city of Melbourne or a small island near the Equator where the natives, when they are not eating their brothers, pass the days away dancing sinuously on yellow sands. An opportunity of bringing the resources and scenic attractions of the Dominion before the Americans of the Pacific littoral was given at the Los Angeles Exhibition, and apparently arrangements were made for a representative display. A pavilion was built and labelled “New Zealand,” but a New Zealander who has just returned to the Dominion, and who went to see what his country was doing in the way of advertising, found that the cupboard was bare, and was informed by an official that the exhibit had gone forward to Toronto. “The space has been booked and the pavilion built,” he said, “but there is nothing to put in it.” It is but fitting that New Zealand should be represented at Toronto. Canada had an admirable court at the recent Dunedin and South Seas Exhibition, and reciprocity in these things is essential. But if the New Zealander has not overstated the position, a very serious blunder has been made, one calling for immediate investigation. Possibly the empty pavilion was a novel method of advertising that ours is a land of great open spaces. At all events the public will be interested to learn more Qf our non-representation at Bos Angeles.