OUR NEW ZEALAND CLIMATE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9142, 25 August 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

OUR NEW ZEALAND CLIMATE.

[by A. M. m.]

The usual monthly re (tort of our accurate Meteorological Observer appears as usual, tilling its own humble but very important place in the columns of the Herald. It is, perhaps, nearly unique as a report of one month's weather in midwinter, as compared with any other all over the world. I wonder how many read and ponder the ten tables of figures in which are written some record of the gre:it- laws that regulate the temperature of the air, the height of the barometer, the direction and velocity of tue winds, the solar radiation and the daily rainfall, all of which are matters of minute reading and careful chronicling to the clerk of the weather. Very likely to most people, who would as soon miss the mining reports, the price of butter and eggs, or the births and marriages, as they would butter to their toast and muflins at the breakfast hour, the dry and wet bulb in Mr. Cheesetnan's careful observations will be equally dry, and the whole thing fair matter for skip. Now to me this little monthly table of small type is of intense interest; and although the days have long gone by when some of us used to carry a thermometer in each bronchial tube, and a very sensitive aneroid barometer perhaps beneath a shoulderblade, I read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest this item of intelligence with interest and satisfaction, usually cutting it out to enclose, or sending the paper, to some friend far away. Just think of it! The mean temperature of the coldest month of our winter here, says our observer, is only oOdeg. Fahrenheit; and the extremest severity of the coldest day, ice and snow being unknown, only touching -lOileg. in the shade. At the same time the daily variation is no more than from 8 to 13 degrees. How strangely this report contrasts with hyperborean winters in Europe and North American blizzards. The reason I wish to draw attention to this topic is not to remind anyone what we have to be thankful for in our marvellously mild and equable climate, but to point out how much might be done to draw the attention of tens of thousands to the advantages New Zealand possesses in its mild and even climate for such as would gladly make it their home if these were accurately anil widely known abroad. It is well enough known here that many of the best settlers in this colony, who have brought with them " the peculiar treasure of kings"good citizenship and industrious families to the land of their adoption, have been influenced in doing so by the consideration of its temperate and health-giving climate. What the country needs more is the influx of people with some means to settle in it, and who would become both creators of its wealth and buyers of its productions. In India and in Australia, as well as in England, there are probably many thousands who have a competence without the power of enjoying it, owing to the exigencies of health, except in climatic conditions possessed by none of these countries. I could mention other lands highly favoured by Heaven with a wonderfully salubrious, or more correctly, a very agreeable climate, such as certain parts of California, which are now enjoying a great " boom " of prosperity in consequence of a rush to seek homes there. And this has been largely owing to the systematic way in which the climate has been extolled and advertised beyond measure all over the world. Here we in New Zealand are happy only when we are incessantly abusing each other's locality, and the weather the Almighty has blessed us withal. The petty parochial jealousies which find. vent in " windy Wellington," " blustering Dunedin," and "odoriferous Auckland," although known to experts to be only so much colonial gas and effervescence, are too apt to be believed beyond the seas. At any rate, no trouble is taken by the Government, or anyone else to advertise our land and clime as they deserve to be. As is done elsewhere, let a column be added to the Government Observer's report, giving the number of days that are "cloudy," 01* " cloudless," or " sunshine," and let the report receive prominence, so as to attract attention at home and abroad.