The Tramway Board.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19157, 14 November 1927, Page 8

The Tramway Board.

It has happened as we said it would in the matter of the Tramway Board nominations. Contests will take place in all the sub-districts except one, and in every single case they will be contests between Labour and the rest of the .community. So far as tramway administration is concerned Labour has no policy but cheap rides for the people and good wages and hours for the em-

ployees, whether these two are compatible one with the other or not. If they are not, there are the ratepayers, who can and will be raided if and when necessary; and if Labour has any administrative ideas beyond these, they are of no importance by comparison with the political idea of a piecemeal capture of the general administrative machinery of the country. Yet it does not follow that this so obviously evil plan is doomed in advance to failure. It cannot possibly succeed if those whose responsibility it is to decide the matter next week accept their responsibility, and go to the polls, and vote intelligently. But many of them will not do so—do not even now intend to do so—so that the problem for the ! Citizens' Association and for those who generally approve of its aims is to get this mass of indifference reduced by vigorous and intelligent campaigning. It is of no use at all to go into elaborate statistical explanations on the public platform of methods of making the tramways pay. The man of most importance this week is the one who does not care much whether trams pay or do not, and has not thought much why Labour wants to control them. If he can be aroused to the true state of affairs there is nothing else to worry about till the election is over.