“MINIATURE MUSSOLINIS”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 214, 29 November 1927, Page 13

“MINIATURE MUSSOLINIS”

CITY COUNCIL SOUNDLY TROUNCED MOUNT ROSKILL AND TRANSPORT

• THE deputation that interviewed the Prime Minister last I week on the Auckland and snburban transport question, received a very favourable hearing and there is everv reason to hope that the buses will be restored.”

rpHIS cheering piece of news was - 1 conveyed by Mr E. F. Jones, chairman of the Mount Roskill Road Board, at the public meeting held in the Methodist Hall, Greenwood's Corner, last evening. “The City Council has not played the game,” continued Mr. Jones, “and the Mount Roskill Road Board has lost all faith in it. The full details received by post from the Prime Minister will be made public at the board's meeting to-morrow night.” Mr. S. I. Goodall, secretary of the Suburban Transport Committee, said that the trouble had arisen through an outside authority having the power to control their transport for its own benefit, not theirs. He further stated that various suggestions were exchanged, and the one favoured by the Prime Minister was the establishment of a transport board. He said that he had Bent forward to the Auckland City Council some time ago proposals for such an authority to take over the control of transport. “That letter was not private, as the Mayor of Auckland would have us believe,” said Mr. Goodall. “When is it going to see the light of day? What is the council going to do about it?” He declared that the council had failed to keep faith so far as transport was concerned. Properties Depreciate "I have watched properties in New Lynn depreciate in value day by day since the buses were stopped,” said Mr. Titchener, chairman of the New Lynn Town Board. “We are under the heel of dictatorship and miniature Mussolinis. The outer districts are being bludgeoned. Ignorant Russian peasants would revolt against such iniquitous legislation, the most iniquitous in the Empire. It would not stand For five minutes if brought before the Privy Council. In the bus days New Lynn had prospered as it had never done before, and last census it had headed the Dominion list for increase of population. Now it was stagnant. He considered that the City Council delegated too much of its authority to committees.

“The City Council’s financial position is so bad that it Would take a Philadelphia lawyer and an archangel from Heaven to straighten it out.’’ continued Mr. Titchener. “They paid £1,112,500 for a worn-out plant, and have borrowed nearly another million to patch it up. Now they can’t make it pay, because it is over capitalised.” He quoted figures to show that whereas the City Council required Is Sd a mile to meet the cost of trams, the buses could make a profit on lid a mile.

“Trams are not obsolete,” he said, “but they are obsolescent, and you can no more stop buses to-day than the coach-owners of 100 years ago could stop railways.” Not a Private Letter Mr. L. A. Tozer shed further light on the recent interview which the Mount Roskill Road Board had with the Tramways Committee. He said that at that interview Mr. Allum wunted a guarantee from Mount Eden and Mount Roskill to pay £25,000 for an extension of the trams for a mile and a-quarter, payable over three years. This meant that Mount Roskill would have to increase its rates by 50 per cent, for a service that would touch only the' fringe of the district — a most hopeless proposition. Referring to the Prime Minister's letter to the City Council, Mr. Tozer declared that it was not a private communication at all. It was dated September 25, and was addressed to the Mayor of Auckland in his official capacity. Ten weeks had passed, and the council had not yet discussed its contents. That letter asks the City Council to favour the setting up of a transport board, to take over the tramway system at a valuation. Mr. Coates was waiting for a reply to that letter, and assured the deputation—of which Mr. Tozer was a member —that the Government would assist the outer bodies to get efficient transport. "The City Council secured the passage of a law to save itself from bankruptcy, and that same law is now having the effect of driving suburban house owners into the Bankruptcy Court,” said Mr. A. E. Roxburgh. The following resolution was carried unanimously:— •

“This meeting protests against the inadequate bus services provided by the Auckland City Council, and against the ill-judged curtailments of time-tables and the withdrawal of workmen’s tickets. It calls upon, the Government to bring pressure to hear on the Auckland City Council immediately to honour Its promise to provide services at reasonable rates, and urges the Government that in the event of the City Council not immediately providing improved and adequate services, to amend existing legislation to permit of private enterprise operating the services. It also stresses the necessity for an inquiry into the question of passenger transport in Auck-land,-and the ultimate setting, up of an elected transport board, on which suburban areas shall have adequate representaVui.’”