Influence of Climate on Race.

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 95, 21 April 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

Influence of Climate on Race.

The Anglo-Saxon race ia at present trying, on a magnificent Bcale, an experiment which has never been similarly tried before, viz., the capacity of a vigorous conquering and colonieing stock to oxtend ibself through countries the moat diverse in all the conditions that affect most powerfully health, vigour and reproductive faculty. But can a race that grew to its full stature among the marshes ot the Baltic, the fiords of Norway, and the humid hills and dales of Britain hope to retain that vigour on the Bwoltering plains of India and Australia, or on the ice-bound wilds of Canada? Will a new type of Englishmen finally evolve itself in Florida, in New South Wales and in Becnuanaland ? Will the Anglo-Saxon ever remain vigorous and fertile within the limits of the tropics? These are vast questions, on the answer to which great destinies hang, and we can hardly evade them any longer on the ground that no materials for a solution exist. Some materials, inadequate and in* complete no doubt, do exist and are, constantly accumulating. Let; us look aba few of the facts brought forward in the article before us.

The writer takes the case of Barbadoes, ' the oldest and healthiest of our tropical possessions.' There, he says, the observer ' will see some people known as the " mean whites," men and women of blood as pure as his own, whose progenitors have lost through poverty the luxuries and advantages which, with constant infusion of fresh blood, alone keep the whites alive there. He can notice at the same time the ineolence which the consciousness of physical superiority has bred in the descendants oi African slaves.' As an example the writer takes New Zealand. After pointing out what is so constantly forgotten, that the position of New Zealand in the Southern Hemisphere corresponds rather to that of Italy than Great Britain in the Northern Hemisphere, he gives hia opinion that in New Zealand • the people are undergoing a rapid process of alteration—are becoming, to coin a word, dis-Englished in rospecti of mental characteristics.' They are losing the melancholy, restlessness and anxiety said to be characteristic of Englishmen, and are becoming cheerful and lighthearted, like oho southern races of Europe. Further, by reason of the absence of a hard winter, severe struggle with the elements, and through high wages and abundance of food, the New Zealander tends to become easy-going, pleasure-loving and optimistic.