LONDON'S PROBLEMS

Waikato Times, Volume 93, Issue 14535, 6 December 1920, Page 6

LONDON'S PROBLEMS

WAIL OF THE SUBURBANITESINCREASED FARES. (From our London Correspondent.) LONDON, September HO. London city and the adjoinhjg areas practically emptied themselves of a residential population under the beguilement of cheap fares. People went far afield to live, the apprentice no longer slept under the shop-counter, and suburbs nourished like green bay trees. What is to happen now when train, '.ram and 'bus fares have all gone up? Nearly 70 per cent, is the increase in some instances, while T>o per cent, is quite usual. There is no longer a penny fare to anywhere, the minimum being an inconvenient three ha'pence, worries about which have already created a demand for the striking of a coin of the value. During the war, your boys here on leave from the front, soon learned the routes and routine of our train, 'bu,s and tram systems, and made their way about handsomely. They much appreciated what was still fairly cheap travelling, although a little dearer than it had been. Now the fare is something to talk about. One goes, for example, from Maida Vale, on the Bakerloo tube, to Charing Gross, and thence, by District Railway, to St. James' Park. The whole third-class fare was threepence, it is now flvepenee. So that on a day's return journey a poorly-paid clerk or shopman has to stump up 2s a week more than he did, on top of the legal income nowallowed to the landlord in rent, and the cost of living, according to ofllcial figures, 131 per cent, above the war figure. Yet there is no revolution, because here the railways and 'buses are in the hands of private monopolists, working in combines more or less close. Hardly a word of complaint about their management does one see in the newspapers, first necausc the newspapers are not necessarily on the side of the travelling public; secondly, because there is a risk of libel that 'oes not arise when a New Zealander criticises his own railway. No; but with the patience which is ever a wonder to those who know how spirited the British public can be, citizens simply shell-out the extra money. Of course, there are grumblers here and there, for driven cattle are not always dumb. Some complaints were audible enough in the trains on Monday morning, when the new taxation began. Despite the added charges, your boys will be interested to know, most of us still hang on to straps at busy periods of the day and the spatted or gaudyhosed swob is sternfast in his seat, while aged women are straphanging. For the additional accommodation we were to have had is still in the realm of things promised. •