The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. MONDAY, MAY 2, 1927. A PUSSYFOOT POLICY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 33, 2 May 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. MONDAY, MAY 2, 1927. A PUSSYFOOT POLICY

THOLGH it may be true that the city tramways department has lightly broken the law by raising its omnibus fares without haring first obtained permission from the Xo. 1 Licensing Authority, ,it ought to be placed to the department’s credit that it remembered the Sabbath Day. The increase in tram and bus fares was technically operative yesterday, but the department generously held its hand. Yet even in that good deed there may hare been a mundane reason for a beautiful generosity. Were the concession tickets ready for sale? When the higher fares actually came into operation this morning, the only concession cards available under the new scale of charges were those for the fourth section ride at three shillings and ninepenc-e instead of three shillings and threepence. These and other reasons prove clearly that the department should not have been so impulsive in its quest for a higher profit. The fact that the Xo. 1 Licensing Authority happens to be the Auckland City Council is not so much a good excuse for its own tramway department’s pussyfoot policy of slipping in stockinged feet through the law, as it is a good reason for the department strictly conforming to all the provisions of the harsh enactment that was designed to smother motor-bus competition with municipal transport. The tramway authorities were quick enough to stand by the letter of the law when its provisions were wholly to their advantage. Of course, the department has not been taken in a serious offence, but a public body that makes laws should set an example in complete obedience of statutory law. This has not been done in respect of increasing municipal bus fares The small band of new councillors should impress upon the old gang the necessity for doing everything in the right way. It is interesting to recall the criticism of the Auckland City Council when it was appointed the licensing authority for bus transport on the Xorth Shore. On .that occasion the “Xew Zealand Herald” made strong objection and incidentally observed: “But the fundamental weakness is that the City Council cannot be regarded as competent to discharge the task; its inevitable ignor ance of local conditions is alone a grievous handicap. 1 ’ Apparently that “inevitable ignorance of local conditions” has not been confined to the far-distant Xorth Shore. It appears to be applicable to the terms of the Act the City Council, as the Xo. 1 Licensing Authority, has to administer under its own nose. Apart frofti the habit of the municipal authorities to do things in a haphazard way, depending with much confidence on the chronic apathy of the ratepayers, the most serious feature of the increase in tram and bus fares is the lack of information as to whether the increases are justified at all. The department has estimated an increase in revenue to the extent of £31,000 this year. So far, the department’s revenue position for the past financial year has not been disclosed. Such great concerns as the Imperial Government and even the Xew Zealand Government have issued a summary of their balance sheets, but the Auckland City Council’s financial record is still a secret. It is a slack way of doing business. SAFETY IN THE AIR THERE is something very much more important than speed and altitude successes in aviation. That need is safety. It is probable, therefore, that the Guggenheim fund for the promotion of aeronautics has done nothing better to advance and popularise flying than by its latest allocation, whereby it provides £30,000 for an airplane contest designed purely to promote safety in aviation. “Safety in the air” is the slogan of some of the commercial airplane companies in other parts of the world. They issue a mass of propaganda purporting to show how safe airplane travelling really is, and to prove that there is a less percentage of their yiassengers killed or injured than is the ease with passengers by rail and road. Meanwhile these comforting assurances are largely discounted by daily reports of “crashes,” collisions and machines bursting into flames; disasters in which pilots and passengers meet horrible deaths. And pending the construction of accident-proof and fool-proof airplanes and airships, 99 per cent, of the travelling jiublic prefers to do its travelling in a safer way. There is a reasonable chance of escape in a railway or motor-car smash. There is but little hope when a fall of thousands of feet is involved. It is thrilling reading to learn from the cables in your daily paper that some famous airman has flown 200 miles or more in an hour, that another has ascended to such a height that he has been almost within cooee of the moon, or that a new plane has been invented which can drop bombs weighing a ton on enemy towns. But these are not the kind of thrills that the plain, ordinary man wants to experience personally. What he seeks is a guarantee that if he goes aloft he will be brought back to earth in safety, and until he can receive that guarantee, aviation as a popular passenger-carrying proposition 'frill remain a desideratum of the future.