A TREASURED MISNOMER

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17408, 5 November 1930, Page 12

A TREASURED MISNOMER

(To tli« Editor of the Herald.) Sir,—The movement to change the name Poverty Bay seems to be lifting ns head again, and 1 hasten to do what I can to help crush it before it lifts its head any higher. The suggestion to change the name is, as you have pointed out, as old as Young Nick’s Head. All the reasons advanced to justify the proposed change, in my opinion, are poor and unconvincing. The name Poverty Bay, as everybody knows, does not describe the nature of the district, nor was it given by Captain Cook for that reason that anyone should lose' a night’s sleep over it. It was given because, owing to the hostile attitude of the Maoris, tin? intrepid explorer was unable to obtain water and fresh food for his crew. This was the reason, and this reason school-children have been taught to understand.. Are old associations, as well as history, to be disrupted just to gratify the whim of. some people? if the name is a misnomer, then the flight of so many years has rendered it a treasured misnomer, as well as a treasured and sacred memory. The name Poverty Bay is to be retained, not to keep alive the memory of Cap tain Cook (that memory will never fade us long as history lasts), but because lie gave it. To do away with the name, 1 think,..is to insult, that memory. If 1 were, the great, captain, L would certainly feel hurt if anybody dared to take upon himself to erase off the map a name I placed there ; I would regard the act as want of gratitude and appreciation of my great services to mankind. It might even turn me in my grave. What’s in a name, anyway? Call the district Poverty Bay, it would still smell as sweet—it would still be as fertile, and Hie Kin Ora butter would still be as flavorous. 1 hope, for the sake of Captain Cook, the present depression is not put down to the name Poverty Bay. Were the depression peculiar to Gisborne, then there might be something in the insinuation. If the erasure of the name Poverty Bay should raise the increasing depression, then let us call the district Cook Bay to-morrow. Captain Cook giave the name Kidnappers to Matau-a-Maui, but I don’t suppose it has ever engendered any kidnapping propensity in the people of New Zealand; if there be any propensity at all, it is that of kid-shirking, not of kid-napping. If I should pick a bone with the gallant captain, or whoever gave the name, it is for his changing Aorangi to Mount Cook, but lie never heard of Aorangi, otherwise, I am sure, lie would never have tampered with it. If Poverty Bay should be called Aorangi, I might perhaps bo tempted to concede. The Aorangi Herald undoubtedly sounds more euphonies than the Cook Herald.

Perhaps I am a hidebound conservative; yet conservatism has its uses, one of which is to stand by historical nomenclature. —I am. etc.. R. T. KOHERE.