THE COUNCIL AND THE TRAMWAYS.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2248, 12 May 1881, Page 3

THE COUNCIL AND THE TRAMWAYS.

To the jLditor of the Globe.

SlB, —As a constant reader of your paper, 1 have sometimes been surprised at the character of the leading articles about the City Council and tramway disputes, but never more so than when reading your leader of yesterday afternoon. Ton seem to thick it would be rather infra dig. for the Council to consult the Tramway Company before making by-laws for its management, and state that the By-law Committee or Council would never think it necessary to consult the cabmen. Why, Sir, you must surely have forgotten the foot that the Council did not only consult, but received no loss than three deputations from, the cabmen about the reductions of the license-fees, and that the chairman of the By-law Committee, Mr Bishop, moved, and the Council actually passed, a resolution reducing the fees. But, Sir, you further forget that the Tramway Company cannot be classed id the same category as the cabmen. Here we have a company, consisting of nearly two hundred ratepayers, and supported by the nineteenth part of the ratepayers in the city and suburbs, saving the Council hundreds of pounds a year in the maintenance of streets and in affording facilities for the travelling public at less than one-fourth of the cost of cabs, and controlling a tramway admittedly better managed than any other in the colonies. Our tramway is at once the pride of, and a source of profit to, the public; and yet you, as one of the leaders of public opinion, are rendering assistance to a certain section of the Council in imposing every absurd restriction on the Company. If what I hear be true about the nature of the by-laws proposed by the By - law Committee of the Council, I trust the Tramway Company will resist their enactment to the utmost; and, failing in that, that the Company will cease to rnn their oars for, say, a week or a month, thereby bringing the ratepayers (ace to face with the hostile members of the Council. There can be no question as to what the verdict of the public will be. If the Council escape the historical pump, it will be because the river is more convenient. Before concluding, may I ask if the Council is at any expense in making paved standing places for the tramways, as it is for the cabmen ; or does the Council incur any expense in maintaining the centre of the streets; and, lastly, in what way does the tramway cost the ratepayers anything ? Yours, <to., RATEPAYER.