TASMAN SEA

Evening Star, Issue 18045, 12 August 1922, Page 8

TASMAN SEA

m JUSTICE CHAPMAN’S VIEWS TO THE EDITOH. .-.ir,—lt seems to me that it is a j ater for congratulation that the Australian Prime Minister has discouraged any attempt to exchange the name of the Tasman Sea for Anzac Sea. The existing name has a meaning; the proposed now name is really meaningless . > applied to this particular sheet of ',,etsr. The former rests on an hisl.uical basis; the latter does not. The proper locality in which to perpetuate the great name of Tasman in the great sea which he discovered; there are other more appropriate ways of perpetuating the glorious *l®*>ds of our soldiers at Anzac Cove. The actual history of the name Tasman Sea has never been fully written; I am, however, in a position to dve it. Many years ago Sir James Hector, Government Geologist, one of our most distinguished men of science, called my attention to the fact that the great sea between New Zealand and Australia had no separate name. Some years later, when preparations wore making for the meeting at Christchurch in 1890 of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, I was appointed vice-president of tho geographical section. In anticipation of the meeting I sent in to the secretary a notice of motion to the effect that the name Tasman Sea should bo given to the great stretch of ocean in question, and that the Lords of tho Admiralty bo requested to give effect to this suggestion.. I did not happen to bo at tho meeting at which the proposal was moved, as I had other duties at other sections; but soon afterwards Mr S. Percy Smith, then, 1 think, Surveyor-General of Now Zealand, informed me that the resolution I had proposed was adopted. Later Mr Smith informed me that the New- Zealand Survey Office bad mapped tho limits of the. Tasman Sea in such a wav as to avoid confusion, and that with this delimitation the proposal had gone forward to the Lords of tho Admiralty. In due course word came that the suggestion had been adopted. This means that, on the recommendation of a scientific body that represents both Australia and New Zealand, the name has. been entered on tho Admiralty charts by what must bo considered to be Imperial authority. It means a great deal more than that. The other nations follow our Admiralty in the construction of international oceanic charts, and all over the world map makers and publishers of maps have adopted this name as surely as they have adopted the names of other international seas, such as Behring Sea, Davis Strait, Bass Strait, and Cook’s Strait. All these names represent, as Tasman Sea represents, the name of a discoverer. Such names, originating with some particular nation, are no longer the property of any nation, to bo changed at will as a nation may change the name of its territory. The limit of tho authority of the Admiralty was to put forward a name for an area that had no name. A suggestion even of that great body to change the name of an area of tho ocean would not bo entitled to international recognition. If in a moment of patriotic enthusiasm wo were to attempt to make the change, even with tho approval of the Lords of the Admiralty, wc could not force it on other nations. It seems to me, further, that, the name Anzao is quite inappropriate. The matter is an international one. There is no reason, for instance, why the French should recognise a name which does not recognise their services at the Dardanelles; there is no.reason w’hy Americans should recognise the right of the British to rename that sea any more than if they claimed to rename the Caribbean Sea. I baye in my possession a school atlas published in Cairo; do those who support this proposal expect independent Egypt to recognise this change? All nations—even enemy nations—have equal rights in a question of this kind. Both Australia and New Zealand owe much to the Dutch. In a large measure wo owe the discovery of our respective countries to that greathearted nation. Surely the name of Tasman Sea, deliberately given on. the recommendation, of these young nations, is a fitting monument for the British nation to have in tills way erected to one of the greatest seamen of our ancient ally, and surely it would be an exhibition of something w’orse than bad taste now to attempt to pull it down. —I am, etc., Fbedk. R. Chapman. August 10.