which its lines would be confined to the suburbs and to running in one direction. We are at present studying this project in all its practical and economic aspects, and I believe that in it lies the satisfactory solution.

Kaddoura: This is a fitting occa-sion for us today to hear something about the drivers' syndicate — will Mr. Hajjal permit it?

Hajjal: Not all drivers are enrolled as members of the syndi-cate, which makes watching them and pursuing them a toilsome affair; hence it is more proper that this work be left to the municipalities. I recall that we once formed a summary disciplinary board, and the judiciary blocked us in it because we had obtained no legal text empow-ering us to take measures against offenders. And it is only fair to draw attention to the driver's condition as a whole and to take his actual circumstances from the positive side: he is one of the ninety percent of taxi owners who are in debt for the mere acquisition of the car, and must earn, in many cases, twenty Lebanese lira a day to pay off that debt! Shall we then blame him for his fierce scramble after earnings, and his pouncing on “passengers,” when on top of it he has a wife and little ones?... The most important thing we have done is to restrict the granting of taxi licenses, resorting to several means — among them raising the price of the number plate to thirteen thousand lira.

Al-Said: It appears to me that securing traffic and transport is the

municipality's business, in which it should turn to the government only on the legal side. It is a vital project whose study requires ample time for inquiry and thoroughness, after which it should be carried to the highest authorities, that they may ratify it and bear whatever costs its execution may encounter.

Harakeh: Now that the existing state of affairs has swollen into a general tumult among cars, buses, and passers-by, and with the country in its tourist year, there is no escaping the removal of the causes of the tumult, however trifling they may seem — just as the surgeon's scalpel is brought to bear on inflamed organs, however small, and treats them with the speed and efficacy required. Among these measures: forbidding bicycles and wooden

scooters, and sending out police pur-suers on their motorcycles. Then, we are about to create Parking grounds at the Lazariyeh site, on Emir Amin Street, on the Maqasid land, at the Bahrain café, and opposite UNESCO... all of them amounting to five worksites laboring night and day. And perhaps in the future we shall find room underground for a hundred cars, as beneath the Hajj Daoud café.

•

And so, thanks to the steering of the dialogue and its protection at the two “municipal” ends, the “planet” traveled by the signal of the “pole,” untouched by any harm from the “arrow”

or the “scorpion”!

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