HONOURING AN IMPERIAL SCOUNDREL.

Free Lance, Volume XVII, Issue 916, 1 February 1918, Page 8

HONOURING AN IMPERIAL SCOUNDREL.

The Franz Josef Glacier

SOME time ago there was no small discussion in the press of the Dominion as to the desirableness of substituting British or Maori names for the German and Austrian names which appear so frequently in the topography of the Dominion, especially of the South Island. So far as we could gather, public opinion strongly favoured the project. Some sort of half promise was, if we remember rightly, made by the Government that . the matte. - would be considered, but nothing has been done. According to Professes Benham, of Dunedin, nothing should be done. The Hun and Austrian names should, he considers, be left unchanged. At the annual meeting of. the New Zealand Institute the other day this Professor was pleased to nounce the proposal "as ridiculous and highly undesirable." Curiously enough, he picked upon the name of the Franz Josef Glacier as one which specially deserves to be left in use. His argu r ment is that this particular glacier "is mentioned in books of geography and geology as possessing special features" and that "to alter the name would render all such references meaningless." But St. Petersburg gave way to Petrograd since the present war be- ' gan, and all the old geography books have not been discarded. * * * " * In our opinion the name Franz Josef calls for alteration more than any other. The Emperor Franz Josef was, a tyrant of the worst kind. He gloated over the murder of Hungarian nobles and the flogging of Hungarian women. He tyrannised so cruelly over his wife —to- whom he was grossly and continuously unfaithful—and family to such an extent that he drove the first to the. verge of insanity and earned the hatred of his nephews. The stupid fiction of the "good old Emperor Franz Josef" was exploded many years ago. It was largely the fault of his ineptitude and evil ambitions, his hatred of political liberty, his bigotry, and his insane belief that the Balkan peoples should become the helots of Austria, that this bloody and awful war is now afflicting the world. And yet Professor Benham has the audacity to accuse those who wish this hateful name struck off the map of a British Dominion of a lack of intelligence! *'* * * The name of Vou Haast stands on quite a different footing. Sir . Julius Von Haast, it is true, was of Austrian birth. But he made New Zealand his home and conferred signal benefits upon it through his devoted and selfsacrificing jmblic services. The name of Von Haast should stand unaltered, but all the other Austrian names, including Franz Josef, which Professor Benham apparently holds as a fetish, and certainly every Hun name, should disappear. After the war, perhaps Professor Benham may receive a gold medal from the Emperor Carl, that is, if by that time, the present representative of the Hapsburgs has not been deposed. The average New Zealander will, however, regard his championship of the name Franz Josef as yet another instance of how some even_ of the wisest of men can, on occasions, talk the veriest nonsense.