NEW SEA-LAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 234, 3 October 1932, Page 6

NEW SEA-LAND.

A "Star" correspondent has criticised the name "New Zealand" as primitivo and incongruous and advocated a change to "Oceania," with Aotearoa and Aorangi as the names of the North and South Islands respectively. There are many people who are not altogether satisfied with the present Dutch-given name of the Dominion and who would like to see a change to some designation more expressive of our national tradition and sentiment. But no suggestion yet anade justifies an alteration. "Dominion of Oceania" will not do; it is too indefinite, and deprives New Zealand of its identity a.nd merges it with a thousand other islands of the Pacific. As. for Maori names, •there are several suitable for local use, as poetical and hi-sfcorical descriptions of these islands, and Aotearoa fits well enough as such a term for the whole Dominion, but in these alternative names tho authentic ancient recognised terms should bo preserved. Nukuroa, meaning long, or far-extending land, is one of the Polynesian names for New Zealand. To Ika-a-Maui is well known as a name for the North Island, but its South Island complement should also be remembered —Tc Waka-a-Maui, or " Maui's Canoe." It was from the South Island, according to Southern legend, that Maui fished up, or discovered, the North; and it is a curious confirmation of this Maori tradition that pa.keha. geologists concede a greater age to the South Island than to the North. But for national use, a place on the map of the world, the various Maori names are not practicable. It does not seem possible at this time of day to interfere with the existing name of our country, for all its Dutch origin. Abel Tasman did not give New Zealand its name; he named it " Staten-landt," after the Netherlands States-General. It was the Netherlands Government cartographers who named it Nova Zelandia, or Nieuw Zeeland, after the district of Zeeland, in Holland, apparently to be in harmony with the naiino Nova Hollandia for Australia, and not after any fancied resemblance between the Dutch coast and this country. It is not correct, therefore, to say that Ta.sman named these islands because the coast reminded him of his own homeland; it would have been apparent to hint that no countries could be more unlike each other.

But the name, after all, is quite a good and fitting one. To give it its complete English spelling it is truly a "New Sea-land." Its situation on the globe, its great distance from other lands —a disadvantage in some respects, more than compensated for by its security and individuality —its sea-indented character, its sea-tempered climate, all go to justify the name. Miss Baughan, in her poem "Maui's Fis:h" expresses the essentially sea-partaking quality of the New Zealand Scene: Land! A young land from the sea ! A dnrk land, of foreßt; a bright land, of sky and ol' summits, of tussock sun-gilded, of headlands proclaiming the sun. * * » * Plumed with sky-feathers, with clouds and with snow, begirt with the mat of the ocean, Border'd with foam, with fine fringes of sand, with breast-jewels of clear-coloured pebbles; Up it sprang, out It burst from the folds of the foam, out it stood, Bare-bright 011 the jewel-bright sea : A new Land! New Zealand's name is descriptive, and it is not awkward or cumbrous. It is as short as Australia or Canada or America. And it 'ha,s acquired 86me mana in the world. It will do us very well, all things considered. What we do want to get rid of for good and all is that unblessed word "Australasia." * —J.C.