NO KAISER WILHELM LANDS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 16704, 24 July 1916, Page 3

NO KAISER WILHELM LANDS.

BITS OF THE EARTH WE HOPE TO RE-CHRISTEN.

The juoposal, put forward by the Australian Commonwealth, that lva:ser Wiihelm's Land, the German portion of New Guinea now in our occupation, shall bo renamed, is a reminder that other considerable portions of the earth's surface may undergo a similar change when we win the Avar. For instance, there is Bismarck Archipelago, ceded by England to Germany in 1884. In is is now held by us, and it is very unlikolj' that the island group will retain its present name much longer. Probably it will be changed to New Britain, which was what it was called before we surrendered it. Curiously enough one of the largest islands in the archipelago was christened N-ew Hanover by ourselves, a name which it still retains. This, too, will have to go. We want no names reminiscent of the Hun on our maps nowadays, nor hereafter. Then there is Kaiser Kilhelm 11. Land, situated in the Antarctic Continent. This may well go the way of the other German overseas possessions, for although it is of little use to anybody just at present, being covered all over with an ice-cap a mile or so thick, one never knows what the future may bring forth. These frozen lands round the South Pole are believed to abound in mineral wealth; gold and coal, for instance. And, by the way, there is yet anoVhcr Kaiser Wilhelm Land, in Greenland. We shall have to rechristen this also. And while Ay e ara about it we may very possibly feel impelled to rename Franz Joseph Land; so called, by its discoverer, after the present Emperor of Austria.