The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and the Echo. SATURDAY, JULY 11, 1923. POPULATION PROBLEMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 162, 11 July 1925, Page 8

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and the Echo.

SATURDAY, JULY 11, 1923. POPULATION PROBLEMS.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance. For the future in the distance, And the good that toe can da-

Tlie Institute of Pacific Relations now in session at Honolulu is attended by delegates from all the larger countries bordering on the great ocean, and so far the most important topic discussed has been the question of immigration, with all the problems that it involves. It is interesting to note triat a prominent part has been taken in the discussion on the ethnological side by Mr. S. Roberts, an Australian delegate who dealt with the decay of the native races in the Pacific Islands and the possibility of checking it. Mr. Roberts maintains that experience has already shown that inter-marriage with Chinese has supplied a new element of stamina to some of these decadent races. He suggests further that the introduction of more vigorous types from French Cochin China, from Samoa and from the West Indies into some of the Pacific islands would produce similar results. The problem indicated is at once grave and complex, and no doubt the suggestions put forward by Mr. Roberts deserve the attention of the scientific world. But it is well to remember that such problems present many different phases, and that the strictly ethnological side is not the only aspect that deserves consideration. The mere disappearance of a primitive race, so long as it is not accompanied or caused by famine or pestilence or demoralised conditions of life, is not a serious calamity to tne civilised world. But when forms of culture, however primitive, are thus obliterated the world is infinitely poorer for the disappearance of a stage in human progress that cannot be replaced. From this point of view the extinction of such primitive social systems and habits as were represented in tne aboriginal life of Fiji or Samoa or New Zealand when white men first reached these shores represents a loss to tlie world that should be averted by all practicable means at our disposal. But the proposal to prolong the existence of a dying race by hybridizing it with another race representing an entirely different racial type and grade of civilisation involves many dangerous contingencies. Ethnological records show that the admixture of races distinct from one another in type and culture almost invariably produces a nondescript species representing most of the defects of both progenitors, and few of their merits. The consequences, physical and mental, social and moral, are always likely to be deplorable; and we do not think that the civilised world could afford to look with complacency on the emergence of a new mixed breed of Oriental and Malay or Melanesian extraction which would be supposed to justify itself by the pretext of prolonging a precarious and probably degraded existence for the dying races of the Pacific. Another aspect of these grave problems was touched upon by Dr. Parker, of Chicago. As Director of Research into the racial relations of America. Dr. Parker has devoted much attention to the question of immigration in all its phases, and his conclusion ia that "immigration restrictions are powerless to prevent the ultimate movement and permeation of races as demanded by vast and irresistible cosmic processes." Here we have in a resuscitated and thinly disguised form the famous German theory of "the Wandering of the Nations." According to this doctrine the great movements of races which produced in prehistoric times the irruption of the Aryan peoplesCelts, Teutons and Slavs —into Europe, and in later centuries drove the Teutons of the north over the Alps in many successive descents upon the Mediterranean countries, and later still brought down Mongol and Hun ana Tartar in countless hordes upon Eastern Europe—these movements of population were chiefly due to the working of "immutable cosmic laws." and were therefore inevitable and irresistible. In criticism of this theory, it may be said briefly that the need of wider territories to provide subsistence for growing populations, and tho love of adventure or the hope or conquest and spoil, all played a part in these great dispersals and wanderings. But this particular doctrine was used with great effect by the Germans to support their own demand for the enlargement of their boundaries in modern times, and Germans have been found to justify not only their annexations of 1864 aud 1871, but also their last great attempt at aggressive conquest in 1914, on these alleged ethnological grounds. The doctrine is open to grave suspicion, and its application should be watched with the utmost caution and care,