The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1929 A BID FOR POPULARITY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 812, 5 November 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1929 A BID FOR POPULARITY

ANOTHER test of no confidence in the United Government was fought yesterday in the House of Representatives without any casualties. It might seem unkind to suggest that the clash of patties on the Labour Leader’s motion for an immediate increase in the salaries of Civil Servants in the lower-paid grade was merely a sham fight, but it may at least be noted that several members, themselves interpreted the challenge as a political pretence no more substantial than a spider’s web in a gale. Moreover, there was talk of party cunning and collusion between the Government and Labour. Sinee there was so much suspicion in the House about the gage of battle, the politicians need not be surprised or peeved at the extent and nature of a similar, but deeper and perhaps more contemptuous, belief in the country. It cannot be disputed validly that all the circumstances of the “surprise” attack upon the weak Government were such as to arouse suspicion within and without the House. The movement against the Administration was initiated by the leader of the Government’s best allies throughout the past seventeen weeks of a pretentious session. Usually, a violent break in political party friendship provokes temper and causes anxiety among the party which appears to have been betrayed abruptly, but in this broken alliance between friends, the Acting-Leader of the Government and his supporters in the House were neither dismayed nor afraid. Almost with smiling confidence they accepted Mr. Holland’s hostile motion as a no-confidence test, and placidly enjoyed the mock warfare that followed. The Government’s confidence in the ultimate result was justified and confirmed with numerical emphasis: the . so-called no-confidence motion was thrown out by 49 votes to 20. And the great majority of the Reform Opposition marched with the Government against Labour. This, in the vernacular of the lobbies of Parliament and street-corners, was “putting Reform in the cart.” If the motion were nothing more than a tit-for-tat Labour manoeuvre against the Opposition, it can be said fairly that Reform went into the cart without having surrendered its principles. It did not imitate Labour in that party’s tactics on the Government’s doubling of the primage duty. The plain lerson of the latest sham battle in the House is the obvious fact that party politicians, in bidding for popularity and the grateful votes popularity brings to the highest bidder, frequently must turn many somersaults. Possibly, if such acrobatics be performed cleverly, the onlookers may enjoy the skill, but why pretend that the skilful gyrations are an exercise of humanitarian duty in behalf of low-paid workers for the State? Though the Labour Party was most agile in the entertaining movements, it did not have a monopoly of cleverness or even of desire to show best in desire to improve the position of Civil Servants. Each of the two other parties was no less keen in expressing sympathy with State employees who have sustained lor seven years a cut in their salaries, but neither the Government nor the Reform Opposition could see whence the money required for restoration would spring. Though the House as a whole was in the dark concerning financial details, the Labour Party had no doubt at all as to the source of supply of ways and means. Precisely in the same manner as the party agreed to impose an inequitable tax on agricultural production and an obnoxious increase in the primage duty, which affects workers as well as wealthy people, it proposed that the State taxation brigands should increase the loot now taken from those earning £I,OOO a year and over. Is it to be assumed that Labour does not believe that men in receipt of £I,OOO a year or more have to work hard for their income and, if unable through adversity, to earn it, are not taken by the hand by a paternal Government and led to relief work? Politicians themselves cry aloud about the burden of their cost of living, but forget that thousands of harder workers are in no better plight, and certainly not in a position to suffer the imposition of more and still more taxation. The most amusing feature of the party warfare yesterday was the fact that, after all the manoeuvring and cunning tactics had been performed to the delight of Labour and the Government, the Reform Opposition succeeded in passing an amendment promising a quick reclassification and adjustment of Civil Servants’ salaries. The party “in the cart” had the last laugh. TRANSPORT BOARD IN DISFAVOUR 11’ is very improbable that the Auckland Transport Board is under any illusions about the degree of public confidence it enjoys, so the adverse motions recorded concerning its policy at both Onehunga and Remuera last evening should not cause it any painful surprise. Until the board adopted the unreasonable expedient of trying to bolster up untimely losses by increasing the fares paid by its best customers, people were prepared to credit it with a conscientious desire to overhaul the whole system with the fullest possible regard for the different interests affected; but the board has now estranged whatever support it had. Instead of adopting the courageous policy of reducing expenses or curtailing non-paying services, it has increased the cost of consistent travel on the trams, and has thus subscribed to the principle of penalising the great body of citizens who are compelled to travel in the trams. If their primary purpose was to save the trams and protect the interests of the people who travel by tram, all the regulations and legislation which the Auckland Transport Administration has engineered for the purpose of governing bus competition have failed in their object. When the competition of buses was most intense it was claimed that, unless their influence was restricted, the tram revenue would suffer so much that fares would have to be raised. A paternal Parliament accordingly granted the transport administration the protection sought. And now, in spite of all the protection and assistance affordecfby legislation, the tram fares have been raised after all. It is a sad anti-climax, particularly when it is remembered that, even with competition eliminated, the Transport Board is not only unable to make the trams pay at the old scale of fares, but also has a losing proposition on its hands in the bus services which it is now compelled to operate. There is an element of mystery about the recent tenor of the tramway revenue. No statement has been made to show where the period of profit ended and that of loss began. Yet it is only a few months since the tramway revenue was the subject of the most confident and optimistic forecasts. It is difficult to reconcile this optimism of a few months ago with the situation as it is revealed today. The Transport Board might perhaps ameliorate public concern if it showed by official figures the extent of the losses on both buses and trams, and the routes on which those losses occurred. The bus services that do not pay should be curtailed or eliminated forthwith, and private enterprise given a chance to demonstrate whether the board’s methods of operation are sound.