TRAMWAYS FOR DUNEDIN.

Evening Star, Issue 4046, 14 February 1876, Page 2

TRAMWAYS FOR DUNEDIN.

To the Editor.

Sir,—Having carefully perused the speeches reported as having been delivered at the meeting held in the Caledonian Hotel on Frilly night, on the. subject of the introduct'on of tramways into this city, and as the matter is of much importance to the citizens generally, I take leave to pass a few comments on the subject.; The views expressed in Mr Reeves’s letter, as also in some of the speeches, appear to be based mainly on the assumption that the interests of the ratepayers would be seriously endangered should the City Council grant to a company or individual the license to construct and work tramways in the city. A little reflection should, I think, persuade those gentlemen that other enlightened municipal bodies having from t<me to time granted analogous concessions to hose now sought for,, it is only fair to assume they wer not blind or indifferent to ' he interests of those whom they represented, and their own as well; and whist it is the r ght of the ratepayers to dulv scrutinise the orooeedings of their representative* in »11 hatters public, yet in doing >o care i* to be ox-: erased le*t they, an it would appear in this Instance, should tend to retard or obstruct instead of encouraging - th?' d* velopment of the! resources at their corunwnd. i would ask is there any peculiarity in the : circumstances of Dunedin, whether municipal, or iki ptiht) dago that doeial mat

in some cities elsewhere bavin? tramways? I do no think so. nor do any of the speeches at the above referred to meeting refer to any •such impediments excepting the drainage matter; and |gianting|that owing to the great delay in the adoption of such works there is a difficulty placed in the way of tramway construction, yet this doesn’t appear' -.to be. a miuicieat reason for depriving the public—for perhaps years—of the advantages atfii lutury of tram communication, for even were the drainage works begun, it must be years before their completion, even in sorce of our principal thoroughfares." " v . ■' Opposition, as in the cose of railways at '■ first, has been off :red in almost every town it has been propose-! to introduce tounways. .Some oi the a.-aiust, them are of the most buiuili>.t.ing deso-ption, *nob. for instance, as the .i slo-ating jolts that iron rai s k placed Along the smooth.stmts would cause t© vehicles and passengers, or the dangers to traffic that would lesolu were such ponderous monster car running at such velocity, &c., p-rm toe - to u-rambdd the crowded th< roughfar, s.' Ex >efiebre has deprived all such argume ts of all force, and I could easi y cite c .ses of strong oppone ■ ts who are now qm e as strong, advocates for the use of tramways, becau e practice has .c n- : viuced them of their err-r. The w -rd ,** crowded ” cannot, I think, be used as yet in describing the usunl on.iition of ev,n the busiest thoroughfares of this City, or else we must shut our ere* to London, Glasgow, Dub lin, and a host of American, and Europ eh cities and towns where tramways hare become the order of the day, and are esteem d by the people as a perfect boon to them; and many of thes ■ tram line * pass through thoroughfares so densely packed by vehicles as to delay often for several minutes one’s passage from' one aide of the street to the ot -mr.

That so many towns and cities already possess - some of them for years—tne advantages of tramway communication, should be ih itself, I think, a strong reason why Dunedin should as soo ' sa. possicle possess itself of the same acquisition; alnd thkt this Gity, which fto-iseiiaes sub ah amount of go-ahead talent generally, should lag behindhand not follow at least In the wako o' progress in. this respect would ha matter for strong regret. i Dunedin re p e-eminently a city demanding tramwtiV’,because it is ‘‘a city of.long diatauc*s f* because our o imate during ?< great proportion of the year is a damp one, causing pur Attests tp present, in maay paces, im;?»ssable lagoons -of unsuppressibie mud and tilth, to the great disgust and. inconvenience of all pedestrians ; or, on the other, hand, if we sre not bespattered with mud, we frequently find ourselves enveloped to inv-sibili y in clouds of dust. Tramways save time by superior speed and punctuality; save our -clothes from injury by rain, mud, dust, Ac.; and list; but not least, save the ratepayers’ pockets for ceveral reasons—they maintain, at tneir earoense, a large strip of the streets along which th y p u-s, and bear along their iron roHd a vast amount of traffic that otherwise must' be born the macadam at the expen eof the ratepayers. ' , Itru t wa shall so«-n hive the .leisure of seei germded tram-cars, and many of then! plying our .busiest thoroughfe're< And unir.ing by theii mea>‘s some of Our widely-sepatated environs and suburbs.—l am, &a, ; - „ 1 D. E. Blacks. : Duntdm, February 14.