CLIMATE AND DIPLOMACY

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5321, 6 February 1947, Page 4

CLIMATE AND DIPLOMACY

^ MEWS is to hand that the British Government is considering the dispersal of its civil service permanently outside London. This announcement was made by the Chancellor of j the Exehequer, Dr. Dalton, in replying to a deputation from evacuated civil servants anxious to return to their old headquarters in London. The main issue, no doubt, is between the advisability of having departmental offices centred in London for the cohvenience of the officers themselves, or making the best use of the accommodation in less congested areas that they have occupied for the past six or seven years. Decentralisation is the theme in so many enterprises that oue sees no demerit in maintaining departments of State at a distance, especially as their dispersal offers no obstacles with our modern means of communication and is liot only an advantage but a necessity in times of national danger. In any- case, the brains of the machinery of State should fu'nction much more' advantageously in the clearer air of the counties than in the midst of the murk and fog of the metropolis. The question of climate's reaction on diplomacy is one that is worthy of consideration, and it is interesting to note that a proposal was made recently in the New York Times that the city of Denver, Colorado, ought to be and some day, might be the capital of the United States. The writer's contention was based not only on the geographieal isolation of • Washington — only a few miles from the edge of a continent 3000 miles wide — but on its climate. Washington, it was declared, was unfit for human habitation for several months of the year. On the other hand, Denver's bracin^ climate, with a magnificent vista of the Rockies, and the abundant room on all sides for development, were put forward as factors of real imliortance in the administration of the Union. Australian energy and indeliendence of outlook are reflected in the Federal capital, Canberra, which was chosen among numerous possible s;tes chiefly for its climate and central position. The chief meteorological attribute of Wellington is wind. Hence, possibly, the length and quality of our Parliamentary debates. There was keen competition between California and New York as the centre of the United Nations organisation but here, linancial 'and political considerations prevailed over the claims of an immeasurably ■ better climate. Will the- work done and decisions reached on the shores of the fog-bound Hudson have the beneficial force as if they were taken in Californian sunshine ? How much bad diplomacy has to be debited to the enervating air of Vienna, the scorching heat of a Paris summer, or the clammy cold of London's winter? Men choose the best spots 011 the earth's surface for their playgrounds, why, . then, neglect them when consultations of vital importance to humanity are being arranged? This brings us to the inevitable conclusion, of course, thatr Rotorua should be the administrative centre of New Zealand.