CORRESPONDENCE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2123, 13 December 1880, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

a THE CABMEN AND THE TRAMWAY, j To the Editor of the Globe. , Bib, —I regret having to intrude upon your valuable space, but I am sure you will pardon the intrusion when I point out our grievances, Mit is only through the public Press we can . j hope to reach tho public sympathy. Your . readers will doubtless remember the case tried „ in the Magistrate’s Court in Christchurch, in reference to the cabstand on the South belt ® and what we considered an infringement of our rights by the Tramway Company, for ? which we pay a very heavy fee. For there is not a cab can rnn the streets of Christchurch . before the sum of £3 is paid for a license, and that even if it is near the end of the year. Comparing this with any part of the colonies, or even the world, it is as £ three or four to one. Then take the Tramway Company. They have been running now _ for nearly a year, and have never been asked , for a license fee. Now, in common fairness .. to us, they should have been compelled to _ pay a license, if only to comply with the ' Tramway Act, which, as you justly pointed out, provides for the same. Returning to the matter of the South belt cab stand. Our worthy city surveyor (save the mark !) in the District Court last Thursday, in the case of Craw v Pratt, turned the case on the legality of the said cab stand—a thing he evidently never thought of in the {j lowerJConrt, or else he kept it to himself. To 0 keep the cabmen and Tramway Company at war with each other, and to help himself out of the difficulty, he said he had nothing to do I with the laying out of the stand ; it was the c city ranger who had done it. I Now, Mr Wolkden should have a better ® memory. In the first place the city ranger a was not in existence, and in the second there „ is ample proof that he (Mr Walkden) j actually measured the ground himself. Per- j haps that is not laying off the stand in his j ideas, but if we are compelled to carry by- - laws on onr persons for the protection of fl ourselves and the public, and the first by-law I we have occasion to try (on the authority of the City Council), we are thrown on one side, the sooner the city has an officer it -can rely 3 upon the better for us, and I fancy the rate- ~ payers too, in the end. Hoping you will i pardon this long letter, 2 I am yonrs, &c., x SAMUEL THOMAS, Secretary, Christchurch Cabmens’ Protection | Society. C 1 1