THOUGHTS OF LEADERS

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14758, 30 August 1913, Page 13

THOUGHTS OF LEADERS

(FltOM OVn OWN COItItESPOV.ILNT.) TX)XDOX. July 2:3. THE EUGENICS OF WAR. Professor Starr Jordan, at Sundorland House:—"lf n nation disposes in war of its men over six foot high, in time it will not have any men over six feet lukli. There is no nation which is to-day wha£"it might have been if it had chosen its best for survival instead of for slaughter. _\ German writer has claimed that the Thirty Years' War. which destroyed ten millions of people out of sixteen millions, did not harm tho breed, because massacre. n:ore kindly than war, takes nil—the weak and tho poor and the incompetent as well as the strong. It may be that massacre is loss harmful than war in tin , long run. From tho standpoint of eugenics it is bettor to have massacres which take all classes, but from the point of view of morals as peace advocates wo do not, of course, dosiro either war or massacre. If wo had the- skulls of all tho men who died in the Napoleonic wars they would make a pyramid of upwards of twenty-five times as hi<zh as any building or column in Europe." Professor Jordan concluded with an axiom from Benjamin Franklin: ''Wars aro not paid for in war-time—-the bill comes later."

MODERN IMPERIALISA!. Viscount Ilardinge, at Wimbledon : — "The opponents of Imperialism say that, the idea which underlies the question of Empire sounds very big and grand, but it is purely switimont. I like the sentimental side if it is going to join our brothers across tho seas with thoso at home. But if w<; look on it from the business point of view it is exactly the .same. Foreigners have twitted Englishmen with being a nation of shopkeepers. I do not quarrel with the description, but wo ought to bo worthy of it. and bo a nation of capable shopkeepers, and conduct our business on business line*. I do noi. think that can be said of the present-day methods, for we have only to look at the question of emigration to prove that if there is so much prosperity at home people would not bo likely to go abroad in such numbers. The foreigner is reaping tho benefit of the trade boom, and in our own labour market there is great unrest, while at the same time the prices of all our household commodities are going up. Preference will give our colonies tho lead over strangers. We shall then be a people capable of supplying ourselves with practically all wo want; food will bo cneaper, because the price of foodstuffs does not depend on preference, but on the law of demand and supply; and by giving preference to our colonies we shaU be a nation feeding ourselves, defending ourselves, and defying the whole world." (Applause.)