CIVIC PRIDE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 145, 23 June 1930, Page 8

CIVIC PRIDE

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—Under various headings the above subject has recently been brought prominently before your readers. A letter by "Be Loyal," drawing attention to the tendency of some Wellington residents to belittle the city's many advantages is timely, and certainly worthy of the Wellington Advertising Club's attention to take action to counteract. ..This letter and- one by "Civic Pride" has stirred two correspondents, "Anti-Booster" and "Fair View" to the usual laudation of other places, particularly Auckland, "with its glorious harbour and climate, which is the envy of its immediate Southern city" (no doubt meaning Wellington). | I have for varying periods lived in all I th.c four centres, but until five years ago had only paid, occasional visits to Auckland, and these visits being usually in February, the driest month, led me to i think that Aucklanders' had some real' claim for their boosting of their climate, | but, oh, what an awakening when the ] residence ran into some months! I found that the climate was not all it was cracked up to be. In view of-this latter experience I commenced to keep records of the rain and sunshine of both Auckland and Wellington. Here they are, commencing with the year 1926. AUCKLAND.' ' : EainfalL Number of Sunshine. Year. Inches, wet days. Hrs. miv. I 1326 m 63.55 ■ 206 1985 5 1927 ~ 53.56 174 1928 30 1928 59.27 213 197 D 4 1929 50.90 207 1962 8 1930 (5 months) 20.88 59 •— Totals .... 248.25 859 . 7854 47 . WELLINGTON. . Rainfall. Number of Sunshine. Tear. Inches.- wet days. ' Hrs. mln. 1920 42.38 172" 2048 44. 1927 43.35' 167 2035 6' 1928 55.21 ■ 146 2120, 1 1929 47.48 169' 2033 2. 1930.(5 months) 13.95 41 , •— Totals ....202.37' 695' .8256 53 •Not available. For the past 20 yeiirs (probably longer too), Auckland's yearly average sunshine is 1914 hours 28 minutes, and Wellington's 2022 hours. 11- minutes.' Wellington has thus enjoyed an average of about 18 minutes more sunshine every .day over that lengthy period. If this be totalled and reduced to an all the year round daily average of about 5 hours 20 minutes (the' average for the whole year), it will be seen that Wellington has had the pleasure and health-giving rays of over 1% years' more sunshine during the time indicated than has Auckland. Wellington may have more than its fair share of wind, but,' anyway, this is healthy. -.Statistics .state that New Zealand has,the lowest death rate in the world, and as Wellington has th~ lowest in New Zealand, ergo, it must be one of the healthiest places in ,the world, and as health is accounted the greatest blessing enjoyed by humanity, what more does one want? I fear that I have already, trespassed largely on your space, so,will defer replying to i other _ questions till some future date. Thanking you' for. publishing this letter, —I am, etc., OBSERVANT.