The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1927. CONTROL OF TRANSPORT

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 179, 19 October 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1927. CONTROL OF TRANSPORT

THE suggestion in the House of Representatives by Mr. W. J. Jordan, Labour member for Manukau, that the Government should give consideration to the question of establishing a metropolitan board of transport control for the Auckland district with power to take over the municipal tramway and motor-bus services is not nearly so silly as it has been made out to be by Conservative commentators. If there be any valid objection to the proposal at all, it must necessarily be confined exclusively to the question of practicability. The traditional law as to allowing local government to muddle through public business in its own way without any interference by the .State should not be considered as being unalterable or even as unassailable. It is at least conceivable that the increasing pressure of ruinous circumstances might in time force the State to interfere with a practicable attempt to serve the public in an adequate manner and at a reasonable cost. It cannot be pretended that tilings are good in respect of municipal transport services in Greater Auckland, but they are scarcely bad enough just yet as to warrant drastic State interference with a view to eliminating the existing mediocre controlling authority. The Government itself is not doing too well these days in the matter of national transport, and has actually announced its intention to develop a better system of control. In all probability Mr. Jordan did not take his inspiration from those revolutionary sources which keep Conservatism in a feverish state of agitation and timorous anxiety, but took his cue partly from the Government and partly from those citizens in Auckland who, convinced of the chronic defects of the present civic administration, urge the early establishment of a metropolitan council or Sanhedrin of municipal statesmen with power to devise schemes for better local government and direct administrators in the ways they should go. And lias not the strong Reform Government decided to inaugurate sooner or later it thorough control of all transportation in the Dominion through a Ministry of Transport? Is it strictly necessary to confine that prospective system to the control of rail and highway transport? If the idea be an excellent one for the running of trains and motor-buses and lorries throughout the country, where the warfare and waste of transport competition consumes profits, it ought to be no less admirable in practice in train and bus services for the cities, and particularly for the largest city wherein, despite the advantages of population and steep thoroughfare conformation, such services cannot be made either to pay or to satisfy the public under the existing system of municipal control. The Government did not hesitate to interfere with municipal business when the bus competition threatened to overwhelm the trams. And the municipal authorities do not resent State assistance when it is necessary to validate wrongful application of loan money to hazardous enterprises, such as the purchase of buses. Then it must not be forgotten that the Government to-day is devising plans for the electrification of metropolitan and suburban railways, so as to secure more business in the large centres of population. These and other prospects of transport development, together with the unsatisfactory conditions of Auckland services, demand a very definite change in the present system of control.

AT POINT HALSWELL

A FINAL plan for a national memorial to the late Mr. W. F. Massey has been approved by the administrative committee to whom the arrangements for an adequate design were delegated by the Government. The design will be given ready approval by tlic country as a whole. It might be said, indeed, that the time taken by the Massey Memorial Committee in evolving a monument to the memory of the late Prime Minister has been justified. As the illustrations in our columns to-day demonstrate, the design affords appreciable proof of the committee’s wisdom in seeking to express the national appreciation of the mail’s services to his country in a form commensurate with, and symbolic of, his sturdy character. This appreciation will he all the more intense because of the fact that there liad been a general fear that the committee would follow the tedious example of so many other memorial organisations in studding prominent places with meaningless obelisks, shapeless cairns and even worse perpetrations of commemorative art. Indeed, it had been suggested by the committee, at one time, to erect a pillar on Point Ilalswell, but fortunately the protest of those with a sense of aptness and a realisation of the beauty of simplicity prevailed, and persuaded the committee to improve original designs. Praise is now due to Mr. S. Hurst Seager, who, in co-opera-tion with Auckland architects, Messrs. Gummer and Ford, lias designed an appropriate and striking memorial to the memory of a man whose greatest claim to remembrance was the simplicity of his purpose, the openness of his outlook and the staunchness of his character. These are symbolised in the memorial that will soon look over the expansive harbour entrance to the heart of Wellington and remind citizens and passers-by that the best in politics is worthy to be remembered. A special word is due to Mr. Coates for the Government's decision to build the memorial in New Zealand marble—an enduring shrine of New Zealand memories to a great New Zealander.