Time For The Council To Act

What is the status of street railway affairs ? " is a question of ten tieard on our streets. From present appearances it will be sometime before cars will be running again, rumor having it that there are now two difficulties in the way of a settlement. The fir?t is that while the eastern bondholders are willing to accept the proposition made to their representative who was here some time ago and will pay their share of the $40,000 necessary to equip the road and make extensions, local capitalists who own 10,000 worth of the bonds refuse to put in any more money and will not pay their proportion of the estimated cost. The second difficulty, rumor say, is that one of the stockholders now refuses to stand by the proposition made to the bondholders to assign all the stock if they will put the road in running order. It is too bad for the city that the interested parties cannot get together on some terms and start the cars again. It is asking our local capitalists to sacrifice a great deal in giving up their stock without compensation and lose their entire nvestment, and for the bondholders to be obliged to make a further investment to save what they already have invested, but unless some such sacrifice is made both the stock and bonds will be valueless. The city and the citizens have rights in this matter which should be protected. The Argus does not believe in being harsh or treating the stockholders or bondholders unfairly, but cars have not been running since last January and this should have given the parties pi -nty of time to settle their difficulties. The city has legal remedies and in fairness to our citizens the council should take steps at once to bring the parties to a settlement or have the franchise rescinded for failure to comply with the terms of the contract. The bondholders cannot afford to have this done, but if they did Ann Arbor would not be without street cars long, other parties having visited the city recently who are willing to carry out the conditions of the old franchise. The izens now demand almost unanimously that the council take such steps as will oblige the present compaay or bondholders to opérate the road or stand aside and give some one else a chance.