PEAS, PIES AND COFFEE

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 67, 10 June 1927, Page 9

PEAS, PIES AND COFFEE

REFRESHMENTS AT STATION PRIVILEGE WITHOUT TENDER The liitle stall at the Auckland Railway Station, at which damsels clad in white uniforms and caps serve out pies, peas, coffee and other hot and stimulating comestibles to the cold and hungry wayfarers, does a particularly brisk business in this weather. The proprietor, said to be an immigrant, is also said to be on “a good thing.” Immigrant or no immigrant, he displayed an enterprise which had long been sadly needed when he set up his stall at the station entrance, and if he succeeded in obtaining the lease at a low rental, without having to tender for it, who will blame him? There are, however, people ready to blame the Railway Department for having departed from the established practice of calling for tenders for the lease of privileges on railway premises. Some time ago the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Natives’ Association wrote to the Minister of Railways, asking whether tenders had been invited for conducting the stall. The Minister replied: “I have to inform you that the department did not call tenders for the conducting of the refreshment stall on the Auckland Railway Station. ~'he stall was erected by the present owner, who holds a lease of the site on which the stall now stands.” At the last meeting of the Management Committee of the association, the following resolution was carried: “That this association strongly pro? tests against the action of the Railway Department in leasing portion of the railway station at Auckland for a refreshment stall without tenders having been called and New Zealanders being given the opportunity of applying for it.”