Tje Chronicle LEVIN. THURSDAY, MAY 24, 1914. LEVIN BOROUGH COUNCIĹORS MISTAKE

Levin Daily Chronicle, 24 May 1917, Page 2

Tje Chronicle LEVIN. THURSDAY, MAY 24, 1914. LEVIN BOROUGH COUNCIĹORS MISTAKE

The decision of the .'Levin Borough Council to remove the ornamental and highly effective street lights from the centre of Oxford street is cause for regret. The present /system of street lighting in Levin's main thoroughfare is without a peer in any township ol ■Levin's size throughout ,Xew Zealand. The new system of lighting iprovides for the substitution of inferior-power gas-lamps at more frequent intervals." but these are to be placed at the sides of the streete, where their chief uses will be to illumine shop windows. 'Incidentally the gutters will share in the illumination, but the roadway as a whole will receive a poorer light. Three are facts'that none can gainsay. Per . contra, councillors are advised that the present style of arc lamp is unobtainable in the dominion at the present time; that they need - renewing" every seven years or so, Whereas the inferior style of lamp will last on and on; that the new etyle of lighting will do away with the necessity for the boosting of the gas pressure to extinguish tlie arc lamps a practice that in recent years is said to have caused the' breaking of innumerable gas mantles and gas globes. It is a. formidable list of advantages; but on* analysis they lose part of their seeming cogency. So, too, does, the incidental decision to remove the concrete pillars from the centre of the street, where they now act as a regulator of traffic, not a hindrance; and ■where also, beyond dispute, they lend to the street the same aspect of esthetic characteristic that a collar and i tie confer • upon the average citizen.

The councillors, we hear, spent a lot of midnight oil—to be quite correct we should say gas—in •'arrjving at the decision which the borough council confirmed at last Monday's meeting. Yet tlie report shows that the gas committee's recommendations to the council were arrived at with undone haste. Even had the report been flawless in point of comprehensiveness its purport should have been made public for a week or two before submission to the council to vote upon. Such citizens as take an interest in municipal matters without troubling to buttonhole councillors with intent to ascertain in advance what schemes are toward also were entitled to the information beffore so' retrograde a decision was arrived at. We make no claim that every little matter f of borough administration should be made ipublic in advance of the council's decision ; but a council elected entirely without public pronouncement as to a municipal policy should be. chary as to resolving such 1 a matter as this in what smacks of coterie procedure. Tlie point we now maie is the more apt in view of the fact that a thin end of the wedge towards the present decision was plaoed in position' at a meeting of the late council, and' not successfully, so far as that council was concerned. The resolve to remove the i concrete pillars, we take it, is a

recrudescence of the first unsuccessful attempt. For, -even if recourse to sidelight street lamps should be imperative in fact as in assertion, that does not carry an absolute necessity to pull down the concrete pillar®.

We oome now to the third and the greatest head of the council's shortcoming: councillors' failure to see the true financial aspect of the proposition they endorse. If the present pillars are to be taken down, and reerected to accommodate the lantern lamps, a considerable extra expense will he incurred for which no provision is made in the gas Committee's report as submitted to the council. Further, there are to be double the number of lantern lamps provided; so it is fair inference that double the number of lamp-posts will be needed. But perhaps the estimate of cost includes the cost of the extra lampposts? or, maybe, the council will go cap-in-hand to the Government asking for permission to hang "lamternlamps" on the telegraph poles along Oxford street! If the latter proposition is contemplated, the fact should h'av-e been stated ainambiguotosly—even, at the risk of setting burgesses wondering why removal of. the .present /pedestals was deemed necessary by almost every councillor who took part in last Monday's debate! To our mind, the manner in which councillors are sheltering themselves behind the gasworks manager is ludicro-path-etic; like anv other manager, lie is concerned solely with the profit earning aßpect of an undertaking, primarily and all thei time views matters from a pecuniary standpoint; and he recommends the adoption of what will minimise expense, in cost of plant and in attendance alike. But borough councillors, surely, while regarding all matters with due regard to the economic side, should weigh up all matters Of civic concern with proper reeO'T'ii' ions of public Stress as those bro'adter purviews of municipal affairs. By broader purviews, we mean such recognitions! of public fitness as that which requires an asphalt footpath in preference to-the cheaper macadam; and public gardens maintained at a cost to the ratepayers in preference to an "uncultivated reserve from which a few pounds per year might be earned in agistment fees. Let the council consider this subject of street lighting on broad lines. The differenoe in cost between the two systems is but a bagatelle to an unburdened municipality such as Levin. Therefore it is doubly regrettable that the council should have resolved upon such a cheeseparing process. The allegedly compelling reasons for the change are quite unconvincing. If new arc lights are unobtainable in this dominion at present, Levin can make the old ones do for another year or two by supplyling extra parts. Those councillors who insist upon the paramount duty, of laymen to be guided and bound by the experts diould remember that an eminent expert recommended the installation of the present system, and that certain additions to it that are now generally condemned were made, after another expert (the present gasworks manager's predecessor) had made a tour of observation to where the system was installed and favorably regarded. Which brings us to the old Latin enigma, "Where doctors differ, who .shall decide?" Undoubtedly there is a generally entertained idea in Levin that, the "boosting')' process that is a part of the system now in vogue here causes loss through breakages of mantles and gas-globes; ■but in the past we were assured that our own experiences in that., respect were eixceptional. In any case, the trouble could be overcome by adopting the mayor's suggestion that the aro lights be lit and extinguished by a lamplighter. The bars and disabilities of which so much has been made really are "bogies" in the aggregate; or, to change the comparison, an extension of the "boosting" principle in the interests of the new scheme. The i new council's! tread# acceptance of J the proposition that they are an incontrovertible reason for changing the lighting system _ reflects diminished light on the council's repute for acumen. Wo 'believe they have been induced into* this false position by failure to give mature thought to the proposition Wore them; and, in consequence! they are in the difficult position to-day of requiring to reverse their vote of Commitment. To do this requires a) 'degree of moral courage; but it should be done. Another, and an easier way, would be to follow the famous "Wereroa roa'd precedent" and leave the problem for final disposal (and reversal) by the nextelected council. Tlie intervening two years could be filled in hy pursuing •Tobn Churchill's prescriptive policy of "a wise and masterly inactivity"— so' far as street-lamp problems may arise.