LIGHTS AND RADIO

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 82, 4 October 1938, Page 12

LIGHTS AND RADIO

SERVICE TO SHIPPING

A trip around part of the North Island coast on the Government steamer Matai was described by Rotarian C. Wheeler at today's Rotary Club luncheon during an informal talk on the lighthouse service of New Zealand. He paid a warm tribute to the Matai's complement for the skill and courage shown in the landing of stores and other goods at lighthouses, and said that, far from leading a lonely life, as was generally supposed, the people at the lighthouses had plenty to do and found diversion in the radio and other interests.

The §peaker devoted some time to the radio beacon system operating in the seaward approaches to Wellington and Auckland, .and stressed the value the beacons were to ships in poor visibility such as often obtained in Cook Strait. He also related how the early Provincial Government, desiring to erect a lighthouse at Pencarrow, decided to impose light dues on shipping. Those liable to pay objected, since they were not getting the light in return, and the Government then got over the difficulty by imposing a tax of one shilling a gallon on imported whisky and building up the fund in that way. The results obtained from education by correspondence of lighthouse keepers' children were also remarked upon by the speaker, who said that by this means children had even been taken through the secondary school course.