AN ILL-NAMED DISTRICT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 245, 17 October 1933, Page 6

AN ILL-NAMED DISTRICT.

For forty years there lias been an agitation to change the name Poverty Bay, but it is still used to designate the bay and the district. Wo arc used to the name in New Zealand, but, as was shown at a meeting in Gisbornc last week, people abroad are puzzled and misled by it. Naturally there is a disposition to take it literally, and a traveller's financial standing has been questioned because he came from so ill-named a district. It certainly is a bad advertisement. "Pioneering in Poverty Bay" was the title of a book published a lew years ago—a lively and valuable record by an Englishman who made a home for himself there, but the title, one. imagines, affected sales. There must have been persons who passed it by as a story of a grim struggle in some half-desert spot, isolated and poverty-stricken. The only argument for the retention of the name is its historical interest. Cook, however, was sometimes less than happy in his choice of. names, and no slur upon the memory of a great man, no ingratitude to him Cor what he did for New Zealand, would be involved if "Poverty Bay" were dropped. A determined effort by Gisborne patriots, including the enlistment of the Geographic Board in Wellington, and fyially notification to the map-makers, would banish the objectionable title. In the meantime the name seems not to be used so much as formerly, and propaganda might affect habit as it has the- use of the term "Australasian." But Gisborne and its district must first set an example.