EAST AND WEST.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16547, 12 June 1919, Page 7

EAST AND WEST.

ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR J MACMILLAN BROWN.

An interesting address on "European and Asiatic Nationalities"' was given ! by Professor J. Macmillan Brown at tho annual meeting of tiie Canterbury branch, of the Koyal Colonial lnbtituio last evening. Tno speaker said that j it was go.ierally accepted that the j cause oi the gieat war was tlio per- j son.ii ambition of tho raiser and the j Prussian Empire, but personally ho v. ii.i or the opinion ti:at tho cause lay in tiie deceits, or beiu, w C entral Asia, iho physical aUu climatic pei-'Uiianties or wi.icn he described m an interesting manner. 'Ine proieasor ucscr»yed hoiv so-caried desert aieas had tuoir mo.st and dry periods, pointing out that during tne mo.si jjjnou liiov were extmuo.y lei tile, and uecume thickly populated, but when tno dry peiioas occurred, the peoples crowded out of these populous districts, pas.ling to cast, west, north, and sou til the other peoples whom they mot. In fact, these deserts, with their hundreds of years of moisturo alternating with their centuries of dryness, were tho source of most of the iustorv of the world. The speaker traced the history of many of tho oldtime nations in respect of their relations to Central Asia, and proceeded that Russia, Prussia, and Austria had, as it were, bo.ome Orientalised by reason of the peoplo they had continually fought against. For instance, Prussia's warring against the Slavs had left a kind of Oriental spirit in Prussia herself. _ The isolation of East and West for 10,000 years, Professor Macmillan Brown proceeded, had made tho people of tho East quite different from those of the "West, and he enumerated some of tho differences, ooncluding that the groatost difference of all was an ethical one, and ethically there- were two great tests of the respective poople. (1) Tho attitude of tho mind towards truth or actual facts, and (2) tho attitude of tho mind towards women. The Oriental was extremely indifferont to truth and honesty, while woman was regarded as merely a chattel. _ Such ethical differences wero a standing bar to hybridisation between the East and the West, and, further, the respective standards of comfort, and of political views, wero lasting bars to any universality. There was absolutolv no libertyloving community in the East. China was said to bo a republic, but she was a reonblic onlv in name. Tho dilemma of East and West would never bo solved except bv East overcoming HVest, or vice versa, and that solution, if it came about, must take plneo in the Pacific, where East and West faced' each other. Stich a solution would probably not take place for a century or two, because tho Japanese, for instance, were now being guided by some of the wisest statesmen in the world. Janan was a poor country, the Professor went on, m speaking of the ambitions of that nation,-But she was going to bo rich, and if she once exploited China she would be one of tho richest nations of t the world within a couple of centuries. She had had great successes in war and commerce, two of the main factors which induced Germanv to wage the groafc war, and the speaker had no doubt that she would spend a long time, as Germany had done—though Gorman" had not spent long enough—in peacefully penetrating all the nations which sho rnennt_ later to subdue. Japan was intoxicated with her ambitions, out her rulers knew that she must havo wealth beforo sho attempted the great stniggle to secure the mastery of the Pacific Ocean. Personnllv, Professor Macmillan Brown had the strongest belief in the succoss, in that struggle, of tho West over the East. If the East were to triumph, civilisation would be thrown back ten 9 of thousands of years. Such was his faith in humanity that ho could not conceive such a thing happening.^ On the motion of Sir John Denniston, Professor Macmillan Brown was accorded a hearty vote of thanks for his instructive and interesting lecture.