STREET LIGHTING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8157, 14 July 1906, Page 2

STREET LIGHTING.

TO THE EDITOR. Sin,—You wpre pleased in your issue- j if the 12th to devote a leader in vilifying my humble efforts a 9 Borough Councillor in the cause of electric lighting of the streets of the town. It is often asked, why is it so difficult a

•njtter to obtain suitable candidate for the Borough Council? Allow m to suggest that the spirit of the abov mentioned leader (which is not conlinei .0 this instance) supplies a considerabl lortion of the answer, and whilst on nay not object to fair criticism ono cai easinably object to deliberate mi 9 tatements. You state, that I " affirmei hat the adoption of an all-night servie rould cost the Council an extra £4o* year." I to submit that I sail lothing of the kind, the only positivi .ssertion I made iu that direction wa hat itwouM cost £4O, not £IOO i r ear, and your rendering of the onl; talement I used, which could posßibl; le so construed, is a deliberate per r ersion. Your argument, therefore vhich is based upon this mis-statemen s, of course, of no further use to any me, and we will leave it There is lowover, one statement in your articl ,o which, if you will allow me, I wil ry to reply, and that is where yo iay, " And here we say that the electri ight would have more private users i lie Council would put itself in th losition of being able to tell the peopl ■xnctly what it has to sell. . . . What the public would like to know 1 ;he comparative cost for house lightinj )f electric and gas lamps of simila :andle power," It is a simplo lookini juestion, and many another has askei t and has not had it answered, an< vou will find that neither the gas no jlectrioal engineers will answer it, i&ve submitted the question to all th wthonties I have had- the privilege o nterviewing, and on the principle o ;he old apothegm, "That fools rush ii tfhere angels fear to tread," I will giv pou the reasons as I have gatherei ,hem why such a seemingly simpl lueshon is evaded by all. One unit of electricity will light on 16-candle power incandescent lam Eor one hour, or two 8 cp. for on lour, or two 16 cp. for half an houi )r in any other way you may arrang it, or in other words, one unit o slectricity contains 256 caudle hours that is one 16 candle power lamp multiplied by 16 hours). Now, on irould think that it would be very eas; Foe any prospective consumer to fiiu mt for himself how many lamps h ivants to put into his house, and hov many hours he proposes to use each o them, and then to find out on th ibovc basis, what his light will cos per week, or month, but it is not s simple as it loqlfs—you try it and le u'g know the result. A gas manager sells you a cubic foo of gas, and delivers it to a meter ii your house. What you do with, that foo of gas, what light you get tram it, hoi much light it is capable of giving, ar subjects which all gas managers studi onsly ignore, and yet the light givinj capacity, (or as it is termed the photo metric efficiency) of this gas is th very thing that is wanted before an; possible comparison can be made a; between the cost of these two source; of illumination. The photometrii efficiency of gas depends upon so manj factors that it is impossible for auj consumer to say what %ht he i: getting from h's supply. The f|ualitj of tho coal, boots, op othep mediun from which the gas is made—for ga> nan be made from almost anything - Lhe efficiency of the rotort, the skill ol the operator, the treatment of the gas, scrubbing, cleaning, purifying, all have influence upon its efficiency before it is stored in the gasomoter. Between the gasometer and the house it may not in frequently got mixed with air, water, etc., which each have their influence on the record of the metor, and after it passes tWe meter it has to run the gauntlet of the householders fittings, pipes, burners, mantels, etc., and this is where a considerable loss in photometric efficiency occurs. The average householders' fittings are cheap, and wc not kept in their even poor original ?lnciency, so that by the time the contiding householder applies his match to the gas, we may easily see that the jas inanager may be readily excused from being ausweiable for the results, What light New Plymouth gas consumers are gettjng from their gas is nqt known, and so far as I am aware nobody V s e ? er '° aßcerta ' D > but it is admitted tlfat fhe present lighting of the streets of Npvy Plymouth by electricity compares very favorably wift the previous jighting by jas, This is admired by all who have liad experience of the two, The electric lamps of the town are 82 candle power, ;he old gas lamps were called 60 iandle power, so this will perhaps illow anyone to roughly settle the juestion for himself. Fearing that I am trespassing too nuch upon your space, and trusting ;hat my attempt at an answer will cniblo all future enquirers to work out he question for themselves, and sinlerely trusting that the next time you lome the honor of traversing mv itatements you will at least quote me lorrectly.—l am, etc., W. F. Bbookino. [Our sense of justice and fair play s such that we trust, despite our orrespondent's somewhat serious harge, we may never have an accusaion of misquotation against us susained. In order that there may bc< 10 room for doubt, we take the liberty if quoting from Ur Brooking's speech is it was reported in the columns of >iir evening contemporary. He is to' have said : " The scheme tar running' alj the ljghts right :hrough the night would cost £4O a Fear, and for the arc lights £27 a year, these amounts; being for actual expenses, carbons, globes, trimming, lamps, ronewils, and attendance. This was exclusive of tho current, The cost of street lighting credited to the scheme was only about one penny and a farthing per unit at £4OO per annum. If the Council decided to adopt allnight lighting, the consumption would be doubled. Were- the Council prepared to pay another £4OO a year f" If Cr Brooking was not endeavouring to affirm that the all-mght lighting would cost another £4OO per annum, we should like to know what he did moan. —Ed. News.]

TO ME KMTOH. Sir,—With reference to your article in Thursday morning's paper re the electric lighting of the Borough, you mate a statement which is (to put it .uihlly) misleading, and which I am to say, in this respect, is on a par with many iff yqw "short sketches" of the doings of the Borough Council.

For your inform itiou I may say thai Or. Brooking did nit state at the last Council mooting that keeping the lamps alight all would oost the Borough £IOO a year. The actual cost, as stated by Cr Brooking was £.lO a year for all the lamp, or £27 a year for the arc lamps. In reply to a question Cr Brooking certainly did say that " if the current was to be paid for at the same rate 'after 12 o'clock as before, then the oost to the Borough would bo £'loo more," but ho also stated that the electric, light committee made no recommendation as to the payment for current, leaving it to the Council to propose what they thoughl best m the matter, a very different thing to what you lead the public to understand he said. Trusting- that you will, in fairness to Cr Brooking, rectify tin wrong impression that you have ma 1c as to wh-.it he said.—l am, etc-.,

L. M. MoifTE.iTn. [Our reporter is convinced that Cr Brooking did not make his statemen' re the extra £IOO "in reply to r. question." He made the statement in the course of his speech. Our contemporary's report of the proceedingsbears out the showing of our reporter's notes.—Ep. News.]