LOOKING AHEAD

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 August 1935, Page 12

LOOKING AHEAD

TO-MORROW IN THE DOMINIONS.

In the “United Empire” journal Mr. Wyatt Tilby, discussing “The New English Mind: An Analysis of Intellectual Tendencies in the Dominions,” speculates as to the services th® nations of the British Empire are to rem der in the direction of culture in the days to come. “Canada is a land of lakes and rivers and abundant water, Australia is deficient in these respects. In both these causes, then, environment seconds and reinforces ancestry as in England. “New Zealand, on the other hand, is a land of abundant water, whereas South Africa is. a dry country. In both these cases, then, environment must tend to check and modify the normal continuity of mental ancestry. “It seems, therefore, that four distinct varieties or types of national character Should eventually develop in the Dominions. “1. The Canadian will tend, both by ancestry and environment, to prefer’ the personal and human angle of approach to the impersonal, the scientific and the statistical. He will incline to the tolerant and open mind; and unless his feelinjgs are so deeply involved as to distort and narrow his vision he will usually see both sides of a case. He will seek (what he will not always get in this obstinate world) agreement by compromise and consent on broad and ©equitable lines rather than victory by force on a more restricted basis.

“The culture that develops in the senior Dominion should therefore be inclusive rather than exclusive, organic and vital rather than systematic and defined, and its social philosophy will recognise the imponderables as potential but important factors in tha business of life and equipment of a complete civilisation. “2. The’Australian, on the other hand, with an unmixed ancestry and less humid climatic environment, will develop along different mental lines. “His characteristic attitude and ap-’ proach will be more consistent and more instantly decisive than the Canadian; but he will be less tolerant of differences of opinion, he will tend to think of society as a static system rather than as a fluid organism, and be inclined to take the strict legalist view which insists on rights, rather than the more malleable and elastic humanist view which leads to mutual accommodation and compromise. “A civilisation of this type, which likes to define and stick to the definition, is apt to prefer the letter to the spirit, and to ignore the imponderables as irrelevant.

“It can, and no doubt will, produce much splendid and original work; but that work will be conceived and executed in the spirit, of science rather than philosophy, and —so fay as the arts are concerned —it will emphasise style and appearance rather than emotional content and expression.

“3. The New Zealander lias the same unmixed ancestry as the Australian, which will tend to make him as consistent and decisive in action and thought as his Continental neighbour; but by way of contrast his climatic environment is more variable and more humid, and this will operate to make his mental attitude and approach more flexible, and more open to move with tho times and to change with changing circumstances.

THE NEW ZEALANDER

“On the whole the New Zealander will be more imaginative, less precisa and less bound by definition than the Australian, and more inclined to admit that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in his philosophy. He will consequently take the larger (though it is not necessarily always the clearer view, he will look on society as a fluid organism rather than a static system, and his definitions will bo subject to revision in the light of further experience. "4. The £outh African of the future again will bo of a different type. Maxed racial ancestry compels him to. admit that the two streams of British and Dutch must run in one channel. But a dry climatic environment tends to make him think along rigid and systematic lines, to emphasise points of difference on principle rather than points of personal agreement; and he will tend to regret ami retard a little the inevitable approach to union of the two European races in on:- national stock.

“Tlie civilisation that ensues is likeIv to bo less rigid and systematic than the Australian in its conception of the State, less poetical and imaginative than that of New Zealand in its attitude to life and the things that lie beyond life; but the forces that compose its intellectual outlook will be tnoi\» complex than those of any other of the Dominions, because it will necessarily bo influenced continually by the permanent native background. It may well be that, its inevitable preoccupation with human and political} factors will make it product l more in I

literature and art. and less in science] and invention, than the other Dominions. J “In actual fact the future will pro-; bably not work out quite like that, fori —apart from the incalculable chance of some strange individual genius ap-l nearing in the most unexpected place,l like John Keats in the City of London —both the currents of heredity and

the channels of environmenl which go to form tho separate mental streams of the new Dominions must be affected from time to time by external and unpredictable ('vents in Europe and elsewhere. “The intellectual if not the political unity ol the world is bound io increase as tho isolation of its several parts diminishes; but even so, local conditions must alwavs continue to influence;

the mental outlook, and in th? main to* determine the intellectual horizon of the great mass of population which livese and works close to its own home. "Which of these four n‘w nations will contribute the most tint! the finest flowers to the new civilisation that is now in process of formation is an open question. But that each will contribute something of distinction and value can hardly he in doubt, for the establishment and permanence of the new English-speaking States seems now reasonably assured.”