THE LIGHTING QUESTION.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 390, 26 August 1911, Page 5

THE LIGHTING QUESTION.

| To The Editcr. I My attention has been drawn to a i letter by Cr Forsyth on the above subject in your last issue, and although jas a rule I do not discuss in the j columns of the press public questions that are still being dealt with by the Council, where Councillors have ample opportunity of expressing their views, still I cannqt allow one state, ment made by Cr Forsyth in his letter to you to pass unchallenged. No doubt Cr Forsyth or any other member of the Council has a perfect right to advocate any light they may fancy, either at the Council table, or in the public press, but in any such advocacy one is entitled to look for fair, if not generous treatment of their fellow Coun- ■ cillors, even if they ure forced to i differ from them. But when Cr ForI syth wrote "that until six weeks ago i no other light but Dreadnought got a I hearing," I do not think he was either ! generous or just either to the memI bers of the first Council or those who | differ from him on this question on | the present Council. A reference to j j the files of the "Chronicle'' will prove I that some six months ago, before a | i public meeting of ratepayers, 1 dealt | I fully with the reasons that led the j j then Council to unanimously discard I j both coal gas and electric light, and I recommend petrol gas, these being j briefly the fact that to install either i of the two former would entail an ext! penditure of anything from £6OOO upi wards, a sum which I still maintain i will be required, and a sum which in j view of our already indebtedness the ; Council did not consider should be ini curred, especially when it was found i that taking the high cost of running, ; and the small number of consumers, iwe could not hope to make it pay ; without charging exorbitant prices ito the consumer. On the other hand, i there was this new light with two j i years' proved satisfactory working, j : capable of being produced and sold to | ! the ordinary user at just one-third | j that of either of the other lights and | still show a sufficient margin of profit jto pay interest and sinking fund, whilst its merits are admitted by those who are now strongly opposing it. And then our report proclaims it to be an excellent light, and worthy of the highest commendation, and well suited for lighting towns like Te Kuiti. Surely evidence of this sort from its bitter opponents must convince all unbiass=d minds that in recommending this light the Council made no mistake? So far from Cr For-

syth's statement being correct,l again emphatically assert that the whole question of lighting the town by the different systems mentioned 'above was gone exhaustively into by myself and other members of the first Council, and that I still believe that- the conclusions arrived at were sound, and in the best interests of the ratepayers, and notwithstanding the fact that some of those who were responsible for, and endorsed the first Council's recommendations, have doubled on their tracks, and joined the opposition, so long as I am of opinion that the light recommended is not only the cheapest by a long way for a 3mall town like ours, but is in every way an efficient and satisfactory light, I shall continue to stand by it, even if I stand alone.—l am, etc., JAMES BODDIE, Mayor.