ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 1913. THE PLAIN OF SUNSHINE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVII, Issue 203, 28 August 1913, Page 4

ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 1913. THE PLAIN OF SUNSHINE.

An old Maori name for the Wairau Plain was "the place of the sunshine." No one knows better than does the local resident, that this is riot a misnomer ; but tte fact remains tihat our light is being hidden under a bushel. Not that -Nature's special favors are unrealised by-; the inhabitants—not even that they are not boasted about to a large extent. It is thefashion^ indeed; to parade _ before distinguished and undistinguished guests the assurance that the Marlborough climate ~is something quite out of the ctommon^ jrut.no trouble is taken to substantiate, the claim with statistical black-a lid-white, one ounce of w-hich^ would be worth more than a ton. of "unsupported asseveration>~ The inhabitants have been talking for years aboiit their* climate; .but they have done absolutely nothing about it. The. othejr day Napier and; Nelson received telling advertisements by th^" '.publication of comparative, siinshine records and winii velocities.: and Blenheim, while feeling that' it could make a better report than either of .these towns," had to stand "by- -and go on talking. One of the most effective advertisers that Blenheim, could acquire-—worth all the money that it was proposed to spend on the Auckland Exhibition —would be a recorder; and if the municipal authorities, < br, better still, some civic patriot', would provide the means for euch. "an acquisition, a good thing would be done. It would be an excellent act of citizenship. The exceptional amount of .unruffled sunshine ftlh'at this district • enjoys is certainly one of its finest' aissets. For that it is indebted to the amphitheatre of hills that encloses the Wairau Plain from, all but. the direct sea aspect, and that ■protects it .securely from the storm wrack without dej)riving 'it of a sufficient' rainifall.. ■ The White Bluff, rising abruptly from the seashore and I overlooking Cloudy Bay," 'is tJhe sure guardian of'the valley; it stays the worst fury of the Antarctic forces; and the ranvpiarts beneath which Port Underwood^'offei*s its shelter, are proof against the rude Boreias of the north. Whale the waters of Cook Strait are "being tossed by, the tempest to ..tho havoc of shipping and a- howling gale is raking the streets of Wellington. Blenheim reposes in sunshine and calmnes?. unsuspecting, even tlhat Nature is in her fiercest mood but a few miles away. rThat the Wairau district has the advantage of distinctive metebrologjoal conditions "is weli-kno\vn to anyone who has observed the daily weather reports of the Dominion for a period of years. The outstanding features are the generous allowance of glorious sunshine.-and the exceptional number' of bracing frosts, both of whidh make for healthiness and general well- j being, and both of which, no d6ubt. go to explain the. fact that the herds .and flocks of Marlborough are freer from disease i than those of any other part of, New Zealand. Blenheim is in. the happy pasition of being able to report a- blue sky more frequently, in all. probability, than any other town in the iDomihion; • Its climatic advantages are surely worth such a form of publication; and advertisement as 'will-ensure them due recognition by the outside world; and we have no hesitation in saying that a sunshine recorder' would from this point of view be an investment of the very first value.