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District Doings,
IN QUEEN’S CO.
…
The members of the Queen’s County Council would do well to
study the proceedings of their Kildare brethren on Saturday last,
and the numerous difficulties and liabilities which the hitherto
neglected question of extra police has raised in connection with
the Motor Race.
***
It will be seen that the Automobile Club, though very satisfactory
in the verbal assurances made on their behalf, were significantly
reluctant to put their names to any document indemnifying the ratepayers
against cost.
***
A sense of false security we know prevails amongst Queen’s
County ratepayers on the subject of extra police, and at any rate
it is now too late, since the Council have sealed their order permitting
the Race, to absolutely compel, though not perhaps to induce, the
Automobile Club to guarantee the County against expense in this matter.
***
The Queen’s County portion of the Motor Course has been so
well prepared as to evoke expressions of surprise from the Club officials,
who state that they never anticipated that such an improvement could
be effected in so short a time.
***
In Naas and North Kildare
Elsewhere we publish the full circumstances attending the sensational
rumour of the stoppage of the Motor Race. We also publish a
special wire from our own correspondent in London anent the negotiations
to which the Treasury the Automobile Club and Mr. Brown, chairman
of the Kildare County Council, were parties.
***
The fact that these negotiations have been necessary showed
that there was really a “hitch” in spite of official
denials and contradictions.
***
Mr. R. J. Mecredy’s letter on page 7 confirms the impression
that has prevailed with respect to the exploitation of local accommodation
by speculators.
***
Mr. Mecredy publishes a letter he had from a house agent complaining
that he was not “letting as many house as he expected”.
The people had “changed their minds” and “doubled
their charges.”
***
If they (as we are informed) had come to the conclusion that
their houses and rooms were being “farmed” out for the
profit of middleman[sic], it was perfectly natural for them to “change
their minds.”
***
There is a considerable difference from the point of view of
the average householder on the Gordon-Bennett territory, between
a visitor making a bargain for himself and an outsider seeking
to reap a harvest out of both visitors and residents.
***
The question of whether really “extravagant” sums were
demanded is, however, one to be settled by specific details, and
not by the generalities of house agents. Mr. Kelly, of Kilmeade,
Athy, for instance, was represented as having charged “six
pounds,” but on investigation the story acquired quite a different
complexion from the one sought to be put on it.
***
The owner of a house, willing to undertake the domestic disorganisation
and inconvenience which the admission of tourist lodgers would
necessarily involve, would naturally look for the very biggest price
that the state of the “market” would permit. There is no great
distinction between his case and the case of the owner of “land
on which to erect grand stands.”
***
The element of “rent” would rule in both cases, for rent,
in economics, means a special value arising from “demand and
position.”
***
This brings us to Mr. Mecredy’s comparison between accommodation
prices in Down, Cork, Kerry and Kildare. There can be absolutely
none. The “position” rent of houses on the verge of the
course and houses a hundred miles from it would be influenced by
two varying sets of considerations.
***
The hotel-keeper in Kerry and Cork might naturally anticipate
a brisk demand, but he could not count with the same practical
certainty upon fierce competition and famine prices, as the house
owner whose premises virtually overlook the course.
***
There may have been a falling off in inquiries for accommodation,
but if so we believe that it can be explained by other reasons
than the so-called exorbitant demands made for local rooms.
***
We know ourselves cases where hotel-keepers have demanded as
low as 5s. and 2s. 6d. for the storage and care of motors!.
This was not “extortion” – it was something more akin
to folly.
***
Considering that a writer in the “Pall Mall Gazette” (Mr.
Mecredy himself, we think) forecasts the probability that the Gordon-Bennett
motor roads will be selected as a permanent motor course, we think
no uneasiness need be entertained about motorists warning their friends
off. If a permanent motor course is ambitioned[sic], we think that
those concerned in the project would be wise in saying as little
as possible in offence to local opinion. Local sanction alone will
decide whether or not the course will be “permanent.”