AUCKLAND AND THE JUBILEE CELEBRATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10404, 31 March 1897, Page 4

AUCKLAND AND THE JUBILEE CELEBRATION.

A correspondent asks what action the Mayor intends to take to illuminate the city on the Occasion of Her Majesty's fete in June next, and says that some persons are already making arrangements to celebrate the eveut by illuminations. It is early yet to commence preparations, but we take this opportunity to make a suggestion before anything is done which might complicate matters. Illuminations are generally absolute failures, for the reason that in Great Britain and the colonies they are generally done on no plan. Every merchant or private citizen does what is good iu his own eyes, and the first result is confusion, The city is not illuminated, This, that, and the other shop is illuminated, and there is no general effect. Naturally every merchant and shopkeeper seeks to make the occasion an advertisement. Then the sameness is painful, Three or four men within a short distance will have almost identical designs, until the onlooker is sickened with the iteration. Then, the illuminations, instead of tending to a general effect, are competitive, and mutually destructive. One spoils the other, and instead of the people of Auckland illuminating the city, there is merely a few paltry illuminations of particular shops. The most brilliant experiment in the new method of illumination was carried out in Edinburgh some years ago. The municipality took charge of the matter, and gave the whole direction into the hands of a man who had made illuminations a study. No private person illuminated his place; the funds were all put together for an illumination of the city. Thus all the public buildings were lighted up in designs appropriate to their architecture. Particular areas were kept in darkness iu order to bring out the full effect of the system of lighting at great public buildings. The result was a series of magnificent effects. How Auckland could best be illuminated is a matter for discussion, Queen-street is a gully. It does not contain our public buildings, and a great crowd in it is unmanageable. Perhaps the best plan would be to illuminate the harbour. All the ships and steamers in the harbour, all the yachts and boats, might be moored in lines in the stream, and formed into divisions which would carry lights of a particular colour. In this way, wonderful efiects could be produced by changing the colours at the sound of a gun from a man-of-war in the centre. There would be abundant room for spectators, because the whole front of the harbour would offer points of view. And then we should be relieved from the poverty-stricken designs of " V.R," and figures of Victoria, and badly-painted transparencies. The whole matter should be taken up as soon as possible, and thoroughly considered. But to leave the illumination to be carried out by random and without any plan, will result in a spectacle which will be rather tiresome than otherwise, and will certainly be mean and paltry.