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Bush, City Engineer, on pages 220-222 of the Book of Evidence, setting out the legislation by which Greater Brisbane was called into existence, to absorb all contiguous local bodies and take over regional services from separate Boards. The district covered by the Transport Board whose constitution we have advocated contains ten municipal authorities, 103 Councillors, five Mayors, five Chairman of local bodies, ten administrative officers, and ten staffs of municipal officers, with the relative engineers, road foremen, works foremen, legal and other professional advisors. All of those persons have immediate relations and friends. In those districts where the separationist policy holds sway, these persons and their friends, with their personal ambitions and personal interests, constitute a formidable group of citizens, unified by these ambitions and interests, keenly awake to their protection. So far, they are likely to be assisted in preserving the existing state of things by the natural conservation and the usual apathy of the remaining citizens of their areas. This is the problem that lies before those who wish to educate the community to the adoption of better methods. Appreciation and Thanks. We wish here to express our appreciation of the work done by the Manager of the Auckland City Tramways and his staff in the preparation for this hearing. We have now completed the task which Your Excellency submitted to us, and we have dismissed from our minds everything of the nature of controversy and the weighing of conflicting views. We have before us a document labelled and described as Exhibit No. 2, a statistical table containing 136 pages of historical and technical information relating to the system. After we have spent weeks of close examination of these tables and schedules we are struck by the fact, which must be apparent to any impartial mind that will make an equal study of them, that they were prepared not as a case is usually prepared for litigation, not as propaganda, not as a matter required to meet a charge, but as the fullest and fairest presentation of all information that might be useful to assist the inquiry. The mass of work and the magnitude of the task is worthy of praise ; the spirit in which it was obviously undertaken commands also our respect. We met with unfailing courtesy from witnesses and counsel to whom we applied for information or assistance. All information sought for, all returns, statements, documents that we suggested should be placed before us, were produced in the shortest possible time and in the most willing manner. Our thanks are due to the Mayor, Councillors, and citizens of Auckland for the use of the Council Chamber as a session room, and for suitable offices in the same building for our deliberations and the preparation of our report. The Town Clerk and all members of the staff gave us willingly and cordially all assistance that we required. The press of Auckland had representatives attending all sessions, and published fair, accurate, and intelligible reports. We have prepared a volume containing a file of these reports, and it is preserved with the records of this Commission. Costs. As Your Excellency's order of reference did not direct our attention to the costs of the inquiry, we are making no recommendation or order in relation to costs. Disposal op Exhibits and Papers. As we indicated on page 4 hereof, we do not consider it necessary that the whole of the exhibits which were placed before us should be handed to Your Excellency with this report. A list of them appears as Appendix C, and with some exceptions we are filing the exhibits away with the papers relating to the work of the Commission as a whole.

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