CHOCOLATE EMPIRE

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 July 1936, Page 8

CHOCOLATE EMPIRE

ITALY’S BLACK BLOOD.

LONDON, May 30. Is Abyssinia to degenerate into an Italian chocolate empire? A warning by Professor J. B. S. Haldane on the biological consequences of the Italian conquest appears simultaneously with a cry of alarm to the same effect, in the Rome newspapers. Professor Haldane says:— “The consequences for human biology of the Italian conquest of Ethiopia, do not seem to have attracted much attention. The Duce proposes to settle a quarter of a million Italian families in that country. They are to settle as peasants. “It can be predicted that they will Interbreed with Ethiopians. This is

inevitable when European settlers are on an economic level not much above that of the natives. “It is also inevitable if the Italian Government attempts to live up to the Roman policy embodied in Claudian’s line, Haec est in gremium victos quae sola recepit. (‘She alone takes the conquered to her bosom’). “The same Roman policy will in-

volve a far closer union between Italy and Italian Ethiopia than exists between Britain and her Dominions, and a larger interchange of population. We must therefore look forward to a considerable influx of African blood into Italy. “It would be impertinent for a biologist to predict the historical consequences of such an event. But I do not think that it would be negligible for the future of Europe”