The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 1927 TRAM LOAN COUNTED OUT

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 126, 18 August 1927, Page 10

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 1927 TRAM LOAN COUNTED OUT

'THERE is no occasion for anyone to gloat over the result of the * poll yesterday on the ambitious proposal of the Auckland City Council to borrow lialf-a-million sterling for various transport extensions and improvements. From the outset of the brisk campaign in support of the financial appeal, it was obvious to all intelligent observers that the balance of jxublic opinion was tipped against further huge expenditure on a notoriously unprofitable system. The only chance of success was the possibility of apathetic interest on the part of the ratepayers. This was proved to have been but a faint prospect. Though the poll actually was far from being a complete test of civic thought on the council’s proposals and projects, it was much more representative than usual. It was decisive enough to convince everybody that a full muster of ratepayers at the poll would not have reversed the verdict or materially altered the proportions of the aggregate vote. A majority of 833 votes out of 7,784 is sufficiently large to smother argument. The loan was counted out in twenty different places. Ten booths favoured it, Point Chevalier, taking the bait of £92,000 for tramway extension to its robust district, leading all the rest. It may be said, however, that although the council’s scheme was killed, its death will not leave the administrators without faith in its resurrection. Meanwhile, it is not necessary to mourn in a spirit of resentment. And level-headed councillors like Mr. J. A. C. Allum, chairman of the City Tramways Committee, and those colleagues who helped him so well to make a splendid fight in a cause foredoomed to failure, will not let pique distort their judgment or betray them into a peevish policy and foolish talk. The rejection of the proposed loan was not a harsh vote of noconfidence against the present tramways administrators. It is the general administration that has been censured sharply for a miserable record. If many of the old executive place themselves on the list for early departure they never will be missed. But the past may now be kept to its proper place in the background. The immediate future alone demands serious contemplation. The trams continue to pay their way with a narrow margin in hand, but there is no blinking the fact that the wretched bus transport is still floundering in a financial bog. It is no secret that the loss on them to date this financial year is grievous. In Mr. Allum’s phrase “the less said about the buses the better.” But that policy of despair will not do in practice. Something will have to be done about the heavy losses on buses. Thus it may be taken as a thing- guaranteed that if the contraptions cannot be made to pay they must be discarded. Whatever else be done or left undone, the administration should give a fair trial to its scheme of revised tram fares and curtailment of concessions. Other tramway centres contrive to make their trams pay well on less favourable terms to tramway authorities. Above all, without fear or favour, the system of elaborate management will have to be overhauled with searching thoroughness. There comes a time in every enterprise when the test of efficiency and service is a reasonable profit on the capital invested in it.