No Superior Race

Northern Advocate, 27 October 1938, Page 12

No Superior Race

That differences from the characteristics of prehistoric man or the apes provided no standard for measuring racial superiority was illustrated by Professor I. L. G. Sutherland in aff address on race and nationalism which he delivered in Christchurch. Prehistoric man had a flat nose, and so did negroes; but Europeans had narrow and prominent noses, he said. On this basis Europeans, as most removed from the primitive form, might be said to be superior to negroes. If the same argument was applied to the evidence of fullness of lips there was a different result. Apes had narrow, thin lips, and so did Europeans. , Negroes had the thickest and most aggressively “human” lips, and so might be considered superior on this point. When hairiness of skin was taken as a basis, the yellow races came out first, for they had least hair, negroes a little more, and Europeans most of all. In this case Euro- ‘ peans had advanced least from prehistoric man. Whatever differences in individual characteristics might exist between races, no race had yet been proved superior, and none was likely to be.