The Christchurch Star FRIDAY, MAY 4, 1934. A TRAMWAY RATE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20296, 4 May 1934, Page 6

The Christchurch Star

FRIDAY, MAY 4, 1934. A TRAMWAY RATE.

PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. Gloucester Street and Cathedral Square CHRISTCHURCH SEW ZEALAND,

'T'HE TRAMWAY BOARD is not doing tilings by halves, but it is questionable whether this is a virtue in the circumstances relating to rating. It has a legacy of debt for which it is obliged to levy a rate, but it is not at all clear that it is justified in rating for an estimated deficit in the coming year. This was not the policy on which the board was elected. Three or four members, in fact, pledged themselves to avoid a rate, but they have made no serious contribution since taking office to the problem of making the system self-supporting. It is drawing a red herring across the trail to say that members may incur a personal liability by budgeting for a deficit. The majority pledged themselves to run the trams without loss, and no tribunal in the world would find that they were deliberately budgeting for a deficit if they stated clearly that thenpolicy was to institute economies and innovations calculated to make the trams pay. Unfortunately, that is not the keynote of the present policy. The chairman, indeed, seems to take the irresponsible position of saying, “If you know of a better hole go to it,’’ for he leaves it to “ patriotic citizens,” of whom he says there are plenty outside the board, to offer any practical suggestions for the avoidance of a special rate. However patriotic the citizens may be, they have no access fo the records on which the case for economy would be based. They do not know, for the board has never told them in the past, how the losses are incurred; that is to say. bow- much money is lost or gained on the various lines, and how harshly or favourably a rate would fall on given localities. The board may have it in mind to study these figures, or institute economies generally, but it has given no indication that that is its policy.

THE LEGION IN POLITICS. '"T'HE NEW ZEALAND LEGION is to take an active part in the next general election, but the president does not put forward one practical proposal for which the Legion stands, except preferential voting. He says “ there is no intention of opposing certain valued members of the three present parties, but others would he nominated in such a way as to secure a majority in the House determined to carry out essential political and administrative reconstruction.” Wo are not told whose valuation is to be the qualification for nomination —the present valuation of the electors, or some new valuation arrived at by a Legionary caucus. If preferential voting is to be tlie test of a man’s value, no Labour candidate will pass the test, for he or she would be pledged unequivocallv to vote against it. As for the Legion’s goal of “ the least possible interference with individual activitv compatible with the interests of the country,” it would he easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for Mr Coates, let us sav, to make the grade. The president has a large job on his bands, too, if as he suggests the Legion is opposed to the attitude of all parties in the present Government in regard fo the control of currency and trade. And he is getting into deep water when he savs that the country is “ rotten ripe for a group which will lead boldlv to political and economic reconstruction with full knowledge of the world trends to which we must conform.” You could put these words into the mouth of any candidate at the next general election and they would he just as meaningless as they are in this connection. In fact, they would be less meaningless in most cases, because they would at leas! indicate the form of political and economic reconstruction advocated by the party under whose aegis the candidate was standing.