The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1927. TRANSPORT POLL AND A PROBLEM

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 124, 16 August 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1927. TRANSPORT POLL AND A PROBLEM

TWENTY-TWO thousand ratepayers in the Auckland city area * will be given an opportunity to-morrow to vote on the City Council’s proposal to borrow £.500,000 for tramway extensions and transport improvements in the interests of the wliole community, with a population of about two hundred thousand. The purpose of the loan is two-fold: First, to serve better than ever before the transport needs of the public and, secondly, to transform a profligate and ruinous system into a profitable civic enterprise. A serious responsibility thus devolves upon a relatively small proportion of Greater Auckland’s population. This responsibility is so heavy in respect of the financial obligations attached to it, that it is essential for all of the ratepayers not only to give the proposals deliberate and most careful consideration, but to go to the poll and express their opinion in a decisive way either for or against it. Are the ratepayers who, in recent years, have had cause to lose much of their former confidence in the municipal administration, prepared to take the risk of giving the Council an additional half a million sterling for the avowed purpose of dragging the city’s transport system out of a financial morass and placing it on a firm track with a verbal guarantee that ultimately it will run to a point of great profit ? It is impossible to forecast a definite answer to the question, though many people will anticipate a hostile verdict against the proposed loan. Of course, the mass of silent opinion on the subject has yet to become articulate and it may carry the day for an embarrassed administration. But we “hae oor doots.”

There would have been no difficulty about securing authority to raise another big loan for the provision of improved tramway facilities if tlie fundamental test bad been the question of public confidence in Auckland’s great future. Anyone who cares to roam about the spreading suburbs will see at once the impressive need of tramway extensions and better transport services. Unfortunately, however, for those administrators who realise the necessity of desperate remedies for a very sick system, much of the brightness of Auckland’s future is obscured just now by the financial shadows of the past. That, more than anything else, is the barrier against the progressive policy of tlie chairman of the City Tramways Committee. He has been loaded with a legacy of bungling. As a shrewd business man, however, Mr. J. A. C. Allum recognises that much more money will have to be spent on transport improvements, and spent soon, in order to save the whole system from something like ruin. Such is the pith of to-morrow’s issue. There can be no complaint now about any lack of information. The best is known and the worst has been told. It makes a lamentable story. The details need not be elaborated'. It is the grave duty of the ratepayers to face the facts and decide whether the new administration deserves support in its policy and pledge to bring the ruinous transport system to profit. If the loan be denied the Council, its rejection.can be taken as a plain vote of no-confidence against the general administration.