Citizens Say

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 147, 12 September 1927, Page 8

Citizens Say

PUNGAS IN A CRATER Sir, — Your article, “Transformed Into a Borough Garden,” will meet with the approval of all Aucklanders who value Mount Eden as a national asset. This fine crater, famous in Maori legend and storv, should be preserved in its natural state. T t plant it with ferns is to deprive it of Us individuality. We have any quantity of native bush in this part of the world, and there is no need to make a ferny grotto of a volcano. I vote that the Mount Eden Borough Council now get busy and dig up the pungas. 1 ROOT ’EM OUT. A FERNY VOLCANO Mount Eden is one of the most perfect examples of its kind in the world. Why. then, try to improve upon Nature by planting its slopes with pungas? I felt most indignant when I saw the photograph in Friday’s SUN showing the sides of the crater all pitted with holes for trees. Really, one wonders what will be inflicted on us next. Floodlights in the Glow-worm Cave? A funicular railway on Kangitoto? NIKA.LT. MOUNT EDEN CRATER S As a visitor from the South Island I would like to enter a hearty protest against the ridiculous and short-sighted attempt to “beautify” the wonderful Mount Eden crater. In its natural state of rugged beauty it is worth travelling far to see. People from the South have not the privilege of living in a city containing a crater such as Mount Eden’s. With the planting of the plants the crater will lose its charm and become a mere commonplace bushy hollow —the ugly holes that have been dug are bad enough. It is to be hoped then that the crater may be allowed to return to its natural state, and that the childish “beautifying” will go no further. Thanking you in anticipation. VISITOR. BUS ROUTES Sir, — The tabulated summary given in your article on the late G.O.C. bus routes, seems even to a layman to be almost uncanny. It would be extremely interesting to. hear the comments thereon of the late directors of the now defunct company. How would they explain that on each of all the routes covered by the several makes of machines used, with each machine driven by different drivers under altering loads and varying road and weather conditions, the working expenses per bus mile should so amount to a figure that averages out exactly the same even to one-tenth of a penny? Indeed how can the council explain it? Again, does the council really wish us to believe seriously that the late' company, which started with .only one or two buses, built up the fleet it did, for the time it did, with a loss of over

(To the Editor.)

£4OO sterling each week? No, sir! That is too hard to swallow. Where, sir, did the money come from for the transaction of purchase or amalgamation (some consideration would be required in either case) with the late Progressive Company if the G.O.C. was in fact losing £4OO or even part of it each week?

Now, as everyone knows, there are always several viewpoints to everything. The council —in its “wisdom” —was largely instrumental in bringing the existing bus regulations into force—hoping thereby to check the omnibus “boom,” Now it has become a boomerang the council has become the owner of a monopolistic “service,” but is apparently viewing it from one, and only one, angle—profit, forgetting that if they would look at it again from some other direction that “profit” would look after itself and handsomely too. There is a large popuplation, which not only wants, but needs the transport to and fro. There are also but two parties to supply that need. Each has the machinery, both legal and mechanical, to do so, but it is open to much question if it is being administered correctly, so as to give the best “service” to those who need it. May I therefore suggest that a little more attention, given to both “service” and administration, would yield a better and cumulative return in the direction to which the aim is at present almost solely directed. H. DAVIES. Grey Lynn. TRAWLING Jir, I was one of four fishermen who last week secured a catch of nearly 400 dozen schnapper in one tide. This has been published, abroad by supporters of power-driven nets as evidence that schnapper are still plentiful in the Hauraki Gulf. Irt years past, 400 dozen schnapper for 20 nets was quite a common haul, especially in August and September, which are the best months for schnapper in the Firth of Thames. This season so far has proved the worst that Thames fishermen have experienced for many years. Good catches are so rare that they are all reported in the newspapers as an indication that schnapper are still plentiful. Why are the trawlers fishing at Mercury Bay and the seine boats fishing so far afield if schnapper are still to be caught in the Gulf? When the seine nets were first introduced there were wonderful pictures of enormous catches of schnapper, such as are never seen to-day, or never will be seen until power-driven nets axe put right outside the Gulf. While the inspectors are measuring and classifying schnapper and collecting facts, the fisheries are going from bad to worse, so that by the time they are convinced that the power nets are reducing the supply of fish, it will take a fleet of boats to find a schnapper for them to work on. V. DODLRELL. NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS G.A.G.— Your letter, hag appeared in an- | other newspaper.