GIRL TRAM CONDUCTOR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19032, 9 June 1924, Page 7

GIRL TRAM CONDUCTOR

REFUSAL OF A LICENSE. BAN ON “FEMALE PERSONS.” The advent of Auckland’s first girl bus-conductor, although warmly -approved by a considerable section of the travelling public, has been greeted in very chilly manner by the civic authorities. They have not only withheld an official benediction, but have even refused to grant tnis young pioneer the necessary license to enable to continue her self-chosen career. The matter came before the Auckland City Council at its meeting last week in a brief report from the Finance and Legal Committee: “Miss . Applying for a conductor’s license. Inspector of police reporting favourably thereon, but referring to the point that the request is by a female person. Recommend be declined.” And declined it was, without argument or discussion. But the proprietor of the vehicle in question, the new French motor-bus now plying between Queen Street and Newmarket, is not disposed to allow the matter to remain where it is nor to lose the services of the best conductor he has yet been able to employ. merely on the ground that she is a “female person.” BETTER THAN BOYS. *1 went up to the Town Hall to-day to find why out the application for a license had been refused, and could gain no information whatever,” ho declared. “This young lady has been acting as conductor for the past fortnight, and she is far ahead of the boys I employed previously. She is a schoolteacher who has had to give up her employment on the advice of her doctor, which was that she must remain in the outdoor air as much as possible. Well, she heard I wanted a conductor, and came and asked for the job. I gave it to her, and she has been a great success—far and away ahead of the boys, one of whom insisted on smoking cigarettes while collecting fares while the other used to call out to friends in the street. . .

All my passengers like the girl-con-ductor, and she likes her work ofTisJly well. When she the doctor what she was doing, he said it was ‘the very thing.* Now the City i Council has refused to grant her a license, and I can see no sense or justice in their refusal. For several! years past, women have been granted licenses, and surely if they are permitted to ply for public hirje in our streets, a girl can be allotted to act as a conductor, particularly as the taxi-drivers’ license enthe holder to collect fares. All that is required when a man seeks a conductor’s license is a favourable policm report, and this has been procured \n the present case, so that there cAn be no valid reason, so far as I can sec, for the council’s refusal.”

ANTIQUATED REGULATIONS. The speaker, who has just returned from a visit to- .Australia, emphasised the fact that if 'there were anything in Auckland’s by-haws prohibiting the employment of a conductor, merely on the ground that she was a "female person,’ them it was quite time such an antiquated regulation was abolished. Fully) 25 per cent, of the motor-bus conductors In Melbourne were women, and they had proved highly popular and efficient to this vapacity. In Sydney, the proprietor of a leading.bus company had stated that he muclf preferred women conductors to men; he had had three of them in his employ for six years, whereas the male conductor only lasted about three moitths.

"Anyway, I do npt feel inclined to let matters rest where they are,” continued the speaker. 1 "I am paying the girl the same wagl, as I would the boy: she is under Scover all the time, and protected froms'all risk of accident so there can be nd objection on that score. I shall take legal advice, and if I find that the by-laws do not prohibit her employment, then I shall carry on. If they do, then it is quite time they were altered, unless . Auckland is to be considered hopelessly out-of-date and behind other modern cities.”

As the proprietor in question has already received applications for emnlovment from sev n other young ladies, several of diom held bus-con-ductor’s positions ’ n London during the war, further developments in the matter will be aw,.itcd with interest.