The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. MONDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1927. BACK TO PENNY FARES

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 165, 3 October 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. MONDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1927. BACK TO PENNY FARES

A MIXED reception has been given to the new scale of Auckland tram fares. It is probable that the mixture of appreciation and discontent in almost equal measure will ferment a sour dissatisfaction when the public acquires more experience of the latest experimental tramway tariff. Those who keenly appreciate the belated return to penny fares find praise of the administration stopped in their mouths by the severe curtailment of ticket concessions. The purchase of concession tickets has never been made easy by the management, and now they are hardly worth the trouble required to buy them. The benefit is meagre at its best, while, at its worst, com : pared with the popular and quite profitable universal three penny fare in Wellington, where one may enjoy twelve trips alj over the place for three shilling's, it is almost microscopic. It has to be recognised, of course, that the Auckland muni cipal transport service has. been in a bad way financially for a long time—so bad, indeed, that something new had to be tried in order to check the drift toward bankruptcy. This intolerable condition was not due to any losses on running the trams. Ii would have been unpardonable if the trams, with the advantage of high fares, had failed to j>ay. The chronic defect of the system was caused principally by serious loss on an inglorious experiment with motor-buses. But (to quote again the merciful wisdom of Mr. J. A. C. Allum, chairman of the Tramways Committee) “the less said about motor-buses the better.” Still, it was foolish to waste a king’s ransom on cut-throat bus competition when the simple process of reverting to-penny tram fares would have killed the rattling challenger. It is too early as yet either to anticipate a tramway triumph as a result of the new scale of fares or to look for another disappointment. The idea of shortening first sections out of the city and charging a penny for each section along, each route, with the exception of the long run to Onehunga on which the through fare will be sixpence for seven sections, is to encourage the public to use the trams more frequently for short distances about the city. In other countries the metropolitan populations certainly do take advantage of cheap fares for short distances in and aboul their cities, but then they are not financially harassed by the necessity of paying a penny for every section on a long route home. This fact has been overlooked by the Auckland tramway administrators who have handed the public a sweet orange in or near Queen Street, and a lemon in the “Suburbs. Already, a feature of the tramway traffic is the number of passengers, encouraged both by the need of economy and charming spring weather (at last), who have decided-to alight at the Town Hall and save a penny by walking down-hill to town. They may not walk up, of course, but quite obviously many people will become pedestrians on the easy grades into the city. The most serious feature of the experimental schedule, which is to he tried for six months, is its effect on suburban residents. They are being compelled at last to know what it is to help maintain an expensive tramway service. Their only remedy is to join the city and thus have a voice in the control of transport. The city ratepayers cannot afford to pay for transport losses. No great profit need be expected this half-year. Nine additional inspectors have been appointed. What they will prevent in losses will be more than absorbed by their salaries. THE LOST LEGIONS HOW vividly does that master of expression, Sir lan Hamilton, depict in one simple sentence the amazing horror of organised war. Soldier and poet, he knows the horrors of armed conflict, and he knows how to emphasise them in words. As direct, and picturesque as was his famous dispatch on the landing at Gallipoli—an epic* absolute —are his reflections on what martial glory costs in human sacrifice. “There must he something wrong with the scheme of existence when a State, whenever it is disturbed, devours its own children,” said Sir lan. Sad, indeed, must have been such an utterance when the occasion of it was to pay honour to 500 high school hot's of one city who were killed in the Great War. “On hard-fought fields,” continued the gallant commander, one’s mind inevitably turns to the lost legions. .. . How often in my own agony and suspense have I called up from the dead the beautiful 20th Division, as 1 saw it standing intact on parade in Alexandria. . . . f” When the young hosts pass through the cities before wetting forth to the bloody fields of battle, it is not the old soldiers who cheer. They cvatch, in silence and with saddened eyes, the noble youth of their country marching to the horrors they remember only too well. It is the inexperienced in war, inspired by the unreasoning fever which makes nations mad, who stand and cheer those who go to the altars of Moloch. There has been too great a tendency in the past to glorify war. History bristles with its heroism and its victories, but dwells all too lightly on its devastation, its stark frightfulness and its inevitable aftermath of universal misery. Men like General Sir lan Hamilton, who have passed through its fires, are the men to educate the world to a true perspective of the appalling dreadfulness of that, “something wrong” by which a State “devours its own children.” If they had the writing of history, the time would be within sight when : “The common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.”