TALL OR SHORT

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 January 1926, Page 2

TALL OR SHORT

SIR A. KEITH’S VIEWS. “If I were asked to select migrants for New Zealand or any other country, 1 should not take stature into account, lest 1 made the mistake of excluding great soldiers like Napoleon, great industrialists like Lord Leyerhuime, and big newspaper men like Lord Northcliife, all of whom were small men physically.’’ In these terms Sir Arthur Keith, the famous anthropologist, expressed his opinion as a scientist when asked whether he thought Australia was wise in fixing and retaining a height standard for migrants. “One can certainly say that there is no relationship between stature and ability, stature and character, stature and fitness, or stature and morality. There is as much laziness among tall men as among short men. There is a good deal to be said for both tall and small men. The tall men, for instance, always seem to create the greatest impression in any committee meeting or public assembly. It is difficult to give the reason, but the fact is there none the less. They tend to dominate the others. ‘ Leo us take next the scientific woild as an example. For this purpose we might quote the Fellows of the Royal Society. An analysis show ? s

that most of them are well above tdie mean height. Again, in the professional classes—lawyers, medical men, etc. —the standard of height appears to be, up to the average. "But these examples are not necessarily good criteria of a man’s value racially or commercially, because, in all walks of life, one can point to outstanding men of caapcity who are physically small. Good brain capacity is not related to stature. Small, stocky men, however, possess greater endurance physically and mentally. That point should not be overlooked in making selections for fitness. Personally, I would include a man of five

feet or less as a migrant, providing he was solidly built, organically free from disease, of good character, and industrious. The tall man may have many advantages on the land, but he is not necessarily more industrious, and in the industries and offices of town life under modern civilisation tendencies favour the small man. “So far as 1 am aware, climatic conditions are in no way responsible for stature. For instance, the Dinka tribesmen on the Blue Nile are notoriously tall men, six feet upwards in height But not very far from them you find pigmy races thriving. “Again, the farmers of Galloway and Dumfriesshire, in the south of Scotland, are generally tall men. There is no known reason for this regional evid-

ence of stature, except that of heredity. You can stunt a person’s growth by under-feeding, but you cannot increase his height by over-feeding. “It is a mistake to exclude migrants on the ground of short stature, because on the average their physical and mental capacity as industrial producers is equally as good as that of the tall men. The only people I would exclude are the weaklings, the diseased, and the politically weak-minded men, who are never happy unless they are stirring up trouble—for other people.”