THE EMPIRE CITY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4176, 23 August 1939, Page 6

THE EMPIRE CITY

AN APPRECIATION OF WELLINGTON. ITS PRESENT AND ITS FUTURE. In a note to hand from a Wellington friend, a Te Awamutu resident is given some idea of the unpleasant weather conditions prevailing in that part of New Zealand, “ just to let you chaps know Te Awamutu is not the only place where rain and snow have been in evidence.” iWP quote:— “ With all this snow around the hills the winds have been very cold. We had a trip up Mount Holdsworth the other day, and returned to the city over the Rimutakas, the car running through a fairly heavy matting of snow. The wind-shield wiper became choked, with the snow still falling heavily, and we had to alight and clean the front of the wind-shield before the car could proceed. “ The fact that snow was experienced as far north as Cape Maria van Diemen makes one wonder ‘whether perhaps the periodic Ice Age is not descending on the world again ! At least the New Zealand climate seems to be deteriorating. “'The interesting thing about Wellington in the bad weather that has been experienced far and wide is the city’s comparative freedom from the excesses that other places have been visited with. It may have been a little cooler, but not much; a little windier, but not a great deal; a little less sunny, but not that you would notice just Wellington, a sort of orphan city as far as holiday-makers go, but a fine place for business. “ I think Wellington has a bracing and excellent climate, and I would not be surprised to find, when the history of the next five hundred years is written, that this city has made the biggest contribution to thought and progress in New Zealand. “ These things are, as is also the case in the United Kingdom, very closely bound up with climate, and there is apparently an ideal which the city oil Wellington does not deviate far from. “ Well, we must not begin another controversy about the best flying-boat base, so we will just have, to wait till the five hundred years are past.”