The Dominion. THURSDAY, JULY 13, 1911. THE GOVERNMENT AND THE CITIES.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1178, 13 July 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. THURSDAY, JULY 13, 1911. THE GOVERNMENT AND THE CITIES.

Inquiries made yesterday show that the new tramway regulations devised by the Public Works Department as a first step towards making tramways management an intolerable burden to the municipalities have already aroused widespread indignation here and elsewhere. There arc some points to be remembered that we had to leave untouched in our article of yesterday. That the Government will be alarmed at the outburst of protest goes without saying, of course; and we expect that we shall shortly find an attempt being made to defend the regulations and discount the criticism to which they have already been subjected by the Acting-Mayor and others. We may expect to find it urged that the regulations submitted to the municipalities arc only a first draft, a basis for discussion, and that it is accordingly unfair' to, condemn them. Now as submitted the regulations, which we print today, are not typewritten, but are printed in the type in which they will appear (if they are not withdrawn) in the Gazette. But the public knows well enough what is a Department's idea of consultation and adjustment, and especially how little readiness to listen to reason can be hoped for from a Department of which the head is the most obstinate member of the Ministry. Even were there wanting such facts as the traditional rigidity of State Departments generally and the extreme stubbornness of Mr. R. M'Kenzie in particular, we have, for evidence of the Department's conccption of amicable discussion and amendment, the fact that the Tramways Act itself is a monument to the tyrannical and unreasoning hostility of Mr. M'lvenzie to the joint protests of the municipalities.

The pcndoncy of a general election will bo taken by many people as the best hope for success in the movement of protest. The Government has certainly given overwhelming proof during the past few years of its willingness to withdraw or reverse its proposals should there, appear to be a danger of losing votes in the policy of sticking to its guns. We should not care to affirm that there is any single general principle which the Government, after subscribing to it would not be prepared to repudiate if a great enough outcry were raised. But although vacillation and pusillanimity arc so conspicuous in the Government's treatment of genjral principles, it must not bo assumed that it will exhibit these qualities when an outcry is directed againsi a policy that is part of the Ministry's unsleeping vigilanco to enlarge its powers of patronage. Even should the regulations bo withdrawn, or so drastically modified as to become acccptable to the municipalities, it would be the height of folly to assume that the danger is past. In that case, nobody can doubt who has watched the methods of the Ministry, the obnoxious regulations will bo brought forward again in some form after the general election. Prior to the 190S elections the Ministry fiercely denied that there was the slightest need for retrenchment. The elections were hardly over before the axe began to be plied. So it has been with regard to a hundred other matters. We cannot conceive that in this case, so great are the interests threatened by the Government's hunger for the control of the tramways and the resultant extension of its power of patronage and of wasting the public's money, the municipalities will think that the withdrawal of the regulations is all that is required. Of the ultimate intention of the Government most people have been aware ever since the Tramways Bill was first brought down. But many of those who opposed the Bill failed to realise exactly what the Government could and would do with its power. There can be no further doubt now as to the character of the action that the Government intends to take now or later unless it is deprived of the power of taking any action at all. Mr. M'Kenzie has shown his hand too soon. He has made it clear beyond all Question that the Government is a deadly enemy of municipal autonomy and always will be. It is plainly the duty of every citizen who cares for good local government and for the preservation of the rights and property of his city to regard as an enemy every supporter of such a Government as that.