PEAKS OF THE EVERLASTING HILLS FOR WAR MEMORIALS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume LXXXV, Issue 3926, 16 March 1920, Page 2

PEAKS OF THE EVERLASTING HILLS FOR WAR MEMORIALS.

To the Editor. Sir, —The Waii'ewa County Council, I see, contemplate erecting a cenotaph, to the memory of theii; fallen in the Great War. Such would be a comparatively small affair appealing to residents only, and lost to the world at larg-e. May one suggest to the Council that French, Peak offers 1 grand possibilities' for . a colossal j cross or obelisk that would be an in- ( Hpinilion not alone to Little River | residents, but to all in the Akavoa Ijnsin. The Teak's claims to ingpir- '

ing posterity, however, go much further afield, for, looking as it does straight out to sea through the heads, it has, for a hundred years, . i been tho sailors' leading- mark for I making , the harbour, so that an. I illuminated shaft on the Peak would I serve a useful end at night to the I mariner. The British Illuminating Engineering Society, during the war, conducted a series of light tests to ascertain "the best and most econoImical luminous paint for/ use by i night. Greatest efficiency was gained by reducing the ' proportion o£ I radium to very minute dimensions. ] This makes first cost, which will be ' i the only cost,, so extremely small-. I that, in the not distant future, ,signi posts, electric switches, marine buoys .bridges on country roads, and scores jof other objects, we are told, will be visible by night. To think Imperially has been impressed on all throughout j the war, and it _is indeed a solid gain !to have learnt to take a broad and \ j stales-manlike view of questions I touching mankind generally. Coj operation, too, has come to b3 ;' jni. e ed as highly desirable between"'"' jcomm.uir.ties as it is a_-. .v-cen j.n- Vi i clividuals. At present French Peak <■ ;is a, barrier between the resident? of the River and French Farm and ' : Barry's Bay, but it may happily i unite the three in commemorating a j great, sacrifice common to all. The two small bays also played a noble part, and lost loved ones, but the residents being so few, the erection of suitable memorials is beyond them If Little River will generously throw in their lot in erecting a common memorial on the Peak, the whole I Peninsula will be enriched for all ', time by a noble monument that will ba an inspiration day and night to all beholders. Seen from a distance, ;and at its height of nearly SOOO feet, j the Peak looks a mere point, but a [visit —it is less than an hour's walk from tho Barry's Bay saddle—shows it to be a fiat solid rock a chain square. It would, therefore, admirably accommodate, say a castellated base carrying the memorial in its . centre. Trusting the suggestion will ■ commend itself to all interested, — I am, etc., COSMOPOLITAN.