YELLOW PERIL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXIX, Issue 9633, 13 June 1919, Page 7

YELLOW PERIL

BATTLE OF PACIFIC PREDICTED

CHRISTCHURCH, June 12.

Professor J. Macmillan Ernwa, in an address on "European and Asiatic Nationalities" before the lloyal Colonial Institute last night, said that he thought the origin of the war was in the desert of. Central Asia. Prussia came in early, but before her there wero involved both Austria and llussia, which were Kurope's bulwarks against the torrents of people who came from the East when the rainless belt lost its moisture periodically. The deserts of Central Asia* and Central Arabia, indeed, were the source of all history. The waves of Oriental migration which Charles Martei stemmed, in ins day, Professor lirown said, wouM not have been possible if iJie dry i>eriod iiad not forced the people out. liutssia, Austria and Prussia hail .become orientalised by the-hordes tliey had to iigiit against. After isapoieunj the buivs came as far as the Jbi'be, and tiiere were Slav-constituted villages now ■ m the heart of Germany. The closing of the trade routes through Central Asia when the Turks took Constantinople pushed the Western nations seawaru. They had to resort to the sea for their connection with tho East, and Coiumbus died in the belief that when^ he reached Cuba he was in the East." That migration was now coming a crisis, because the migration of Europe into America had readied the Pacific Ocean and East and' West were facing, one another again. IDdscussing the differences between West and East, the speaker said that the greatest was ethical, and was noted in the lack of honesty in the Oriental and the practical slavery of woman. There could be no hybridisation of the two races, and if the sluice gates of the East were opened there would be no white race in a couple, of centuries. He could see no solution of the difficulty until one race overcame the other, and the battle would be fought in the Pacific, although it would not be for a couple of centuries, because Japan at present was wisely guided by its statesmen. They realised the need of peaceful penetration, and they had begun it already, for every one of tho Caroline Islands had its Japanese trader. The Japanese were intoxicated witli success and ambition, and some of the officials in tho Marshall islands boasted that the Pacific would be Japan's in ten years. /The rulers, however, knew that they must have unlimited wealth before they fought for the mastery of the Pacific. He believed that the West would have to come out on top, for, if defeated, civilisation would go back tens of thousands of years. He had the strongest faith in the future of mankind, and he could not believe possible siich a retrogression.

Professor Macmillan Brown was applauded on concluding his address, and Sir John Donniston warmly congratulated him on his 'discourse, and expressed tb-e wish that time had permitted him to offer a few remarks on the subject.

A vote of thanks was carried by acclamation.