FLAT POINT OR CASTLEPOINT?

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10691, 10 August 1912, Page 5

FLAT POINT OR CASTLEPOINT?

QUESTION OF A LIGHTHOUSE.

The Evenin«; Post of last night says : Two years ago master mariners wera consulted about the relative values of lighthouses on Castlepoint or Flat Point. Six out of seven Auckland captains favoured Flat Point, and for-ty-eight out of fifty-four Wellington votes went for the same place. However, the Marine Department, acting on the advice of Captain Bollons and Captain Blackburne, adhered to Castlepoint, and a considerable sum has been spent there in preparing a site. Now the whole subject is again under review by the request of the overwhelming majority of . "Flat Pointers," and the Minister (the Hon F. M. B. Fishty) rightly says that further inquiries will be made before any additional expense is incurred which might load to a waste of public money, i The opinions of the two experts who advised the Department to go ahead with the Castlepoint proposal cannot be fairly treated with disdain, but the volume of -evidence appears to be in favour of Flat Point. The judgment, of sixty-one mariners consulted —nun who well know the East Coast by many trips in all weathers, nieht and day—cannot be lightly set aside. The moral of the controversy has not. been 'overlooked by the Minister, who has announced that the Government will look well before it leaps on to any point of the coast with a costly lighthouse. "The question of effective lighting on the New Zealand coast has beeu impressed on the Government, and close attention has been paid to the matter at the present time," states the Budget. It is the word "effective" which so closely concerns the Merchant Service Guild —and the taxpayers. The debate about the' East Coast light has raged round that word "effective." It should be a truism that men who navigate ships up and. down the coast all the year round are competent to determine the relative "effectiveness" of lights at various points.