CO129-465 - Public Offices & Others - 1920 — Page 331

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Me date m

7th April, 1920.

330

Sir,

་

With reference to your letters of the 27th February and 22nd March, (Nos. 179.744/17 and 7 207/10/23) on the subject of representations made by the Imperial Merchant Service Guild, as to the urgent necessity of a light or lights on the Paracels Reefs, the Board of Trade to refer to the correspondence which

China Sea, I am directed by passed between the Foreign Office and this Department in the years 1912 and 1913 on this subject, and to acquaint you, for the information of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, that the Board adhere to the opinions which they then expressed, and which were summarised in the letter from the Foreign Office to the Imperial Merchant Service Guild dated the 30th December, 1913 (No. 57807/13).

To supplement the opinions then given, I am to state that the board are further advised that any lighthouses erected to guard navigation in the vicinity would require to be very tall, to be of any real value. Lights to be seen twenty miles from a vessel's deck would require to be about 175 feet above the water, and they would have to be constructed so as to withstand the force of a typhoon, such storme being very common in that part of the world. As regards the number of lights to be erected to be of any use to shipping. they would, the Board are advised, have to consist of at least two lights for the track to the Eastward of the group

Lincoln Island and bombay Reef) and two for the track to the Lestward (North Reef and Triton Island). In each case one light' would be on a low smell islet and the other on a reef awash.

I/

der Secretary of State,

Foreign Office,

S.W.1.