CLIMATE-ITIS.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15270, 21 June 1923, Page 2

CLIMATE-ITIS.

NEW ZEALAND'S COMPLAINT. AS AN AUSTRALIAN SEES US. It's a terrible thing to have typhoid, twins, or toothache, and just as terrible to have boils or biliousness, but the most terrible thing in the world to have is eliniatc-itis. New Zealand has it, and will never recover, declares "Trotter," in the Sydney Sun. Unfortunately, she has had it since birth, and, therefore, rather likes the complaint, simply because she doesn't know any better. If the whole place were planked clown near Sydney—and it wouldn't be noticed either —the flora and fauna and human beings would lie dazed'for a long time, because every thing would be so strange. There wouldn't be any climate. Just plain sun, and then some morel It's a pity New Zealand has "climate," for it's a grand little country, often called "the jewel 'of England's crown." And justly. The people are straight, human, with much independence; the country has some of the finest scenery of this earth; and there are enough strange things in to satiaiy the most wearied globe trotter. Yet there is that one little pebble in the Australian's boot that forms a generous blister before long—climate! What is climate, anyway? What's wrong with sun for 90 per cent of 3G5 days, with bright shining stars for 90 per cent of 305 nights in each year? Aussiesl Isn't that good enough for the average earth-bound mortal? New Zealand's two islands, dropped In the middle of the ocean thousands of miles away from anywhere, have acquired nothing to speak of, except a sympathy link with England. Australia and Australians affect the place so tittle as to be neglected. It is to England that New Zealand looks in untoward times, for she is only a little bit of the Old Dart, flicked away by a finger of chance. Two hundred "Pommies" —nasty word never heard —land in the Capital City and take up their places' with hardly a casual glance or thought, certainly not a quip.

No Getting Away From It. But that's getting away from climate, and a New Zealander will never do that. He'll talk of his climate as long as you'll listen, and feel offended if you don't ask him questions about it. Yet he has a rattling good knowlodge of meteorology, and is really interesting on the subject. He reels off statements about latitude and longitude, hot air, and moist winds, until your head whirls, and you wonder how on earth you never learned thonse things. The Aussie puts up with hot sun for about a month, and then casually wonders if a southerly' is coming along shortly. He buys an umbrella as soon as it starts to rain, because he knows he is going to gel it hot and strong. He carries hi? overcoat over his arm on an ordinary winter's afternoon, to put it on when lie gets in the train or ferry. The New Zealander does none of those things. He watches his newspapers —and there is one in every tinpot village—uses his knowledge of all the weird signs of changes, and keeps on his heavy over-coat in winter. He likes to get soaked in the drizzle, wants to get cut in two by a cold wind, so that he can go home and have a hot bath. It's a great life.

Wellington, the capital, has the strangest climate in all this land of "climate.'' One minute the sun is shining above the thousands of little ranges around the city. Before you know where you are you see a lot of smuke come blowing in from the strait between North and South Islands. It brushes up against the hills, settles down, and in a quarter of an hour from total sunshine you have a line drizzle, gradually increasing to a wet gale. And it will last for a week. No warning! No clouds coming gradually over the sun I You are caught in the rain far from home. If it's not that, it's biting wind, or blasting sun reflecting into the city from the cupped hills. You are never safe. You always know a Wellingtonian. Put him in Sydney, and as soon as he comes to a corner, up flies his hand to his hat. Climate Changing. As for the rest of this quaint .little Dominion, "climate" hits you in the eye wherever you go. Of course, being in a temperate zone, its summer, spring, and autumn leave little to be desired, except for the funny tricks they aro likely to play on you-. Residents of the cities will tell you of the way the climate is changing. It sounds weird —and it is weird. For example, the scrub in parts of the North Island —slow-growing trees, which, when destroyed, take on another existence and spring up as another kind of tree —have been the means of gradually altering the climate in one part. Cold, wet winds had hitherto been slopped by these trees — for there were no mountains about — and the cold and the moisture were stripped. The wind went on to please greatly the Maoris who niched in these little forests. Bui these trees wore cut down, and they being of exceedingly slow growth there was nothing to replace them. Result, the cold wet winds came through the land, and drove away the Maori, who fluently cursed the pakeha (white man). •*- Then there is the case of the Canterbury Plains, on the east coast of the South Island. Wet winds are forced up by the Southern Alps, expand in the process, drop their moisture, cool, and are then forced down again on the plains. Just as a bicycle pump gets hot when you pump up the tire, so this air grows hot when it is compressed, and 10, you have a scorching dry wind. But it is not like Sydney's westerlies. There's too much climate for that. People come from all parts of the globe, and especially England, to bask in New Zealand's climate. Why they don't go to Sydney or any of a thousand spots in sunny New South Wales is hard to imagine. Perhaps there's too much sun. Why, in New Zealand they publish how many hours of sunshine there are, and don't call a drizzle rain 1 Everybody Talks of Weather. Everybody wants to talk about the weather, even it' there are plenty of murders and shipwrecks to think about. An Australian went into the office of a prominent Wellington business man the other day to discuss a business deal, and the New Zealander talked about his climate for an hour and ten minutes. Perhaps the secret of all this cli-mate-itis is that the New Zealander can roam around his home in no lime, lie can get trains and boats at every point, and it is probable that ho goes about bis country more than any other person in the world. He can gel through all kinds of climates while he cats his breakfast. And, anyhow, it's a great country!