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Hokitika Guardian, 14 December 1932, Page 4

“A rose by any other name womld smell just as sweet,” is a well known quotation, so that the controversy at present in progress in Canterbury over the actual name of the dividing pass between Canterbury and Westland does not enpear to be of snob an importance as some writers appear to think it is. The dicigion tlia-t the Lands Department lias come to is that it shall be known in future as Arthur Pass (not Arthur’s). In an objection to the alteration an East Coast paper says unfortunately the Department adopted it and now refuses to turn back; yet the appeal of the authority controlling the National Dark is the latest of many, while nothing has been said in favour of “Arthur Pass” except by or on behalf of the geographic Board. Every reason of convenience and sentiment is against the altered form, which of course is never heard or seen except in very narrowly restricted official usage. “Arthur s is supported and “Arthur 1 discountenanced by history and by the living agent of history; the possessive form has undisputed currency and is not phonetically troublesome. In favour of “Arthur” there stands only, a (theory, the substance of which is that non-possessive forms are safer n place-names than possessive, because they are lesis subject to corruption and change; a. theory, that is, which would justify a preference for one current form over another, or for the simpler form in settling a new place-name.