THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE.

Observer, Volume XVI, Issue 922, 12 September 1896, Page 2

THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE.

It Swallows the Parrish. Proposals.— A

Lease in Perpetuity,

We mentioned last week that the letter from Stewart and Parrish, demanding a lease for forty years and other concessions, had been cunningly referred to a Special Committee of the City Council, to the exclusion of the Legal Committee, which previously had had this tramway matter in hand. The Committee met last Thursday, when all the members were present with the exception of Councillor Julian, who took the view that having just been reelected he was not legally a member of the Council until he had been sworn in. Councillor Kidd was in the same position, but was not troubled with any similar qualms of conscience. Then there was enacted a very solemn farce

Mayor Holland moved a series of resolu. tions practically giviDg the Parrish people a leaße in perpetuity, or everlasting mono-

poly, of the trams. Councillor Kidd seconded the proposal. Most people within the inner circle guessed that Mayor Holland would move and Councillor Eidd second the proposal, or vice versa. The voices, were taken, when Councillor Stichbury voted with Messrs Holland and Kidd, and Coun" cillor Hewson against them. Councillor Hesketh didn't vote at all. Now, the Council is to be advised to give Stewart and Parrish a thirty years' lease of the tramways, with a further ten years if the Council doesn't wish to purchase at the actual value of the tramways, and then, so far as the resolution says to the contrary, the tramway rights shall belong to the syndicate ever afterwards if the Council doesn't choose to take them o\er at onehalf their value.

I It is a nice arrangement altogether for those who are to participate in the advantages accruing from these concessions. But, from a ratepayers' point of view, it is a different matter altogether. The whole of this thing is being, and has been, done in~an irregular and hole-and-corner manner. No endeavour has been made to conserve the interests and privileges of the ratepayers. The negotiations in dealing with a great public estate have been confined to one syndicate in particular, to the exclusion of all others. In Wellington, they have two offers in hand, and the City Council of that place is not satisfied with either. Here, we open our mouths widely and swallow the first overture that is made to us, without any atteinpt'to enter the market and make the beßt terms available for the people of the city. Also, we ignore altogether the duty, we owe to ourselves to build these tramways at once, and leave them as a valuable revenue - producing estate to our posterity.

The Star points to the failure of the Auckland tramways in the past as a reason why we should not toach these. But the Star knows, as everyone else knows, that notwithstanding a costly horse traction, the Auckland trams paid well from the outset until a crowd of land-boodlers unloaded their bad land bargains at St. Helier's and elsewhere upon the unfortunate Tramway Company, and drove it into insolvency. The Star also knows that certain men who were prominent in that business are equally to the fore now in endeavouring to nobble our tramway estate so that they may sell it to foreigners for their own profit. Auckland seems to be the natural home of boodlers.

The issues involved in this tramwaymatter are so momentous to ourselves and posterity that we trust the Council will pause and reflect before it conveys away this valuable estate from the people. At all events, the ratepayers are entitled to be heard 'yea' and 'nay' on the question, and we trust, in the interests of common honesty, that the voice of the burgesses will be taken. But if the tramway rights are to be nobbled and given away to this foreign syndicate, don't let us have any mistake about what we are getting in return. These syndicators are not philanthropists. They don't propose to build tramways that won't pay. And for a wretched £5000 per annum we could set them aside altogether, build the tramways ourselves, and secure to the city and suburbs a valuable estate, with great earning powers, which would recoup its original cost half-a-dozen times over in the next thirty or forty years.