NAMING NEW ZEALAND.

Shannon News, 1 August 1924, Page 3

NAMING NEW ZEALAND.

THE DUTCH DISCOVERERS. CONSUL-GENERAL'S STATEMENT. Particulars as to the origin, of ttft,:i. name New Zealand were recentlysought from'the Consul-General .of the Netherlands for Australia and New. Zealand, who resides in Sydney,. >oyAir F C Attwood, of Woodhill. ,Mr Attwood states that; one of his- objects was to clear "up the misapprehension that the name was adopted from Zealand in Denmark. ' In*, his' reply the . ' Consul-General states that .Abel Tasman named , this Dominion "Stntcn-lanHt/'.after; the , Netherland States-General,' i-beine? ua-\ der the impression that the land" -dis-' •„ covered might be part of the' Statenlandt, situated near the South Point of South America. The name Statenlandt was altered to about the year 1650 to Nova Zealandia, or to the* Low Dutch name, Nieuw Zeeland. Presumably the name Statenlaildt was -• . finally rejected because in the year" 1693, Hedrik Brouwer, GovernorGeneral of the West India Company, discovered, when making a poyage to" Chili, that the Statenlandt near the South Point of South America was not a.continent but an island, so that' Tas- ~ man's suppostion proved, to' be fallacious. The name Nova-Zelandia was then apparently given by Netherlands , chartographers as a pendant to Nova Hollandia for Australia, Nova Zelandia, concludes the letter, is .named after the district of Zeeland, which, v like Holland, was one of the provinces of the republic of the United Netherlands Provinces and the corropt TJutr.n orthography of the".name is Nieuw Zeeland. - .