TASMAN'S DISCOVERY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 132, 5 June 1937, Page 6

TASMAN'S DISCOVERY

THE DUTCH & NEW ZEALAND

An interesting talk on the history of the Dutch contacts with New Zealand was given at the Wellingtpn Kotary Club this week by Mr. D. Lammers, representative of the Royal Facket Navigation Co., Ltd., X.P.M. Line. The speaker said that about 3GU years ago the Governor-General of Java, Van Diemen, ordered one of his countrymen, Abel Tasman, to set out in a southern direction and investigate lands that had been seen by Dutch ships on their passage from Holland via Cape of Good Hope to the Dutch Indies.' They had more or less chartered the western coast of Australia previously, many of the names bearing relationship to his country, but they had never explored the seas beyond this until Abel Tasman set out with his two ships of 130 tons gross.

After sailing for.two months the first land sighted was Tasmania, which was named Van Diemen's Land after Governor Van Diemen, and there they planted the Dutch flag; sailing on from Tasmania they eventually sighted the coast of New Zealand, and dropped anchor in, what is now known as Tasman Bay, in the vicinity of Nelson. The weather turning adverse they sailed out of the bay and six days later again anchored in what is known as Queen Charlotte Sound. Their efforts to make contact with the Natives proving unsuccessful and four of their men being murdered in an attempt to visit the Natives ashore, they sailed up the west coast, and there we today find place names given by Tasman at that time, such as Mount Egmont, Cape Maria Van Diemen, and the Three Kings. From that point after an adventurous journey they - arrived back at Batavia. Tasman named this country New Zealand after the province in Holland' of which he is a native.

" In describing Java he pointed out that if New Zealand had the same population in proportion to its area as Java, the population of this country would be approximately 120,000,000; the population of Java was 42,000,000, the vast bulk of whom were natives, who were all happily employed. Under a system of Government control every native has a small area of land which he cannot dispose of, but which is held by him for himself and family so that when he is not employed for wages on plantations or in other directions he can raise sufficient food to keep his family on this land.