NEW ZEALAND CLIMATE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5061, 6 December 1926, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND CLIMATE.

STATEMENT' BY VETERINARIAN.

A LIBEL ON THE DOMINION.

Mr HF A. Reid, 0.8. E-, F.R.C.V.S, D.V.H., F.R.S.E., one time officer in charge of the Veterinary Laboratory at Wajlaceville, is now in England and has written an article on New Zealand for the "Veterinary Jour.nal” of London. The article is quite good from a veterinary point of view, if decidedly candid (especially when the writer refers to the poor remunerajtion of veterinary surgeons in New Zealand), but why does Mr Reid (asks the “Dairyfa'rmer”) put into print this libel on our climate?

“There can be no greater misconception than to picture New Zealand's climate as ideal. True there is more sunshine than these isles enjoy. But the characteristics over, the greater part of the country are excess of moisture and tempestuous; gales. The winds, are at their worst in summer time, ajid frequently mar what otherwise would be a perfect day. Though perhaps, healthy, these winds: are extremely annoying, and account while they last for au increase in nervous irritability and its concomitants. Winter days are often bitterly’ cold, and the dong periods of wet weather are depressing.” Becajuse Mr Rqid spent all the years of his New Zealand experience in Wellington why attribute a very exaggerated' idea of the Wellington climate to the whole of Ne,w Zealand? And as Tor excess pf moisture over the greater part off the country, what of Hawke’s Bay, Poverty Bay, the Wairarapa, Canterbury, North Otago, Central Otago, and a few other places ? Rqally, Mr Reid, you should have visited “the greater part of the country” before writing such a wild and absolutely untruthful statement —the worst libel on New Zealand that has bean published.