"NEW ZEALAND,"

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 240, 10 October 1932, Page 6

"NEW ZEALAND,"

Tho suggestion by a correspondent in tlie "Star" that the name "Now Zealand" should be •changed to "Oceania" brings to mind a more or definite attempt which was made to change the name of the colony some forty years ago. In the House of Representatives in 1891 Mr. W. Hutchison, member for the City of Dunedin, gave notice to move: "That in the opinion of this House it is desirable that during the recess the Government should take into consideration the propriety of changing the name of the colony from that of New Zealand to one more euphonious, suggestive and suitable." As is the way with Parliamentary practice, the motion .could be discussed only if the Government chose. The Government did not choose. , \ Realising what little hope he had of being allowed to air his views in the House, Mr. Hutchison wrote as follows to the "Evening Post," Wellington: "I need hardly say . that the motion is not one of a whimsical, character, or one of mere talk for an idle halfhour, but really deserves serious consideration as opposing what is a geographical as well as a historical misnomer. If there is something in a name—much in its sound, and more in its association—the name given to this colony is as illchosen or rather as ill-conceived (for the colonists have so far had no choice in the matter) as it is possible to Suppose. There is.both meanness, and , meaninglessnes-s in calling these fair islands by the name of New Zealand. What possible connection' lias a. British colony in the Southern Sefts —a colony ere long to be a nation of itself, with a thousand islands clustering around its knees—with Denmark or the Baltic Ocean? New Holland and Van I>iemen's Land made no bones of taking to themselves more euphonious names. The Government of the United States, I am told, is. seriously considering a change ofi dame for that great country, and they have not half the reason for any such change that we have. I have my own notion of what the new name should be; let a chastened taste decide. The name should certainly be one around which the national and patriotic feeling of coming generations can gather —a name suited alike for song and story." It will ibe noticed that Mr. Hutchison made a curious mistake. in thinking that- the colony had been named after Zealand, the largest and most important island of Denmark, instead of after Zealand, a province of the Netherlands. Whether the United States ever seriously considered changing its name I do not know, but the following comment made in 1891 by an American traveller on the name of our own country is not without interest: "Through what perversity wae this land of mountain and flood, of forest and fiords, of glittering glaciers and bright sunshine, of geyse#s and pools of exquisitely-tinted water fit for iiyads to bathe in, called after foggy, swampy Zealand? Probably only the perversity- of ignorance. Though Abel Jansen Tasman discovered it in 1642 he did not land, the wild natives frightening him off the shores. But the Dutch cartographer saw that it adjoined New Holland. The thousand miles of wild waters intervening amounted to no more under the Southern Cross than the distance between old Holland and old Zealand. On a small map the distance is a trifle;" But why want to change the name? It has done very well'in the past, so why not in the future? —W.M.L.