The N.Z. Mail PUBLISHED WEEKLY. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1905. THE FOUNDING OF A NATION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1748, 6 September 1905, Page 41

The N.Z. Mail PUBLISHED WEEKLY. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1905. THE FOUNDING OF A NATION.

Dr Chappie’s lecture on "Human Progress,” the text of which appeared in our issue a of last week, is one which not only contains sound scientific information in plain terms, but also stimulates those who, hear or read it to, personal reflection. The anthropological and sociological matter® dealt with are of a nature to command the deep attention of every person who realises that we are the founders of a nation, and may do our work well or ill accordingly as we observe or neglect the teachings of human and scc'al evolution. What Dr Chappie emphasises is that, given the right kind of men and women now, New Zealand cannot but produce a people in the future who will stand among the finest of the nations of the world. With this class of people our future laws, customs, and national movements will take cave of themselves. We may legislate for 999 year land leases as hard-and-fast as written words can make them, and there is no certainty that they will last for a decade; but let us have sane and physically fit men and women as the progenitors of our people, and Nature guarantees a high average quality to their posterity for untold generations. That as a people we possess the natural environment essential to the growth of a clean and energetic nation is clearly shown by Dr Chappie’s able sketch of the conditions which largely made the Maori what he was when Europe found him and destroyed his isolation for ever. That by a naturally selective process our white population began on a sound foundation is also- demonstrated. But that there is now more than danger of introducing weaker and less trustworthy elements into our national growth, is also insisted on. 111-regulated assistance to immigration it is pointed out may domuch to neutralise the good results we are beginning as a people to enjoy from largely fortuitous luck in the past. This contention is not only soundly argued but is supported by a report from Dr MacGregor which establishes the fact that in days past this country distinctly suffered from the operation of a similar policy, “Now this is the conclusion of the whole matter,” says the lecturer; “we need population, hut quality is of the first importance.” How this quality may be secured is pointed out. Only picked families from farming districts should receive Government encouragement, to enter this country.

Dr Chappie’s conclusion Is one to which common-sense as well as common prudence must alike assent. We do* not want any portion of England’s “submerged tenth.” It is, in plain words, a matter of breeding from the best stocks, and minimising as far as we may the influx of inferior elements. In every community, as in every studmaster’s herd or flock, there is a possibility, even a certainty, never wholly eliminated of the occurrence of individual cases of atavism —the tendency to “throw back” to earlier and less perfect types. Civilisation itself is hardly more than a long struggle against this recurrent ele-

tnent in humanity. There is further, from various condition®, such as defective nutrition, a tendency among the poorer classes in cities towards physical and mental degeneracy. The “throw-backs?’ and the degenerates in any given nation constitute its natural percentage of “wasters” and almost predestined criminals. To control, and, as far as be, to help this element to 1 a place somewhat higher than the one in which, “cruel Nature” left it, is problem sufficient for any people. To assist to our shores the Waste and hopeless element of other lands is s. blunder of the kind which has been described' as worse than a crime. Dr Chappie’s lecture is therefore not one which should be allowed to, pass into the too ready oblivion of things said and done with. That gentleman has done a public duty, not only in reviving the warning of Dr MacGregor, than whom, as a sociologist, no one is more competent to speak, hut also in giving those who seek enlightenment the benefit of his own reading and observation on a subject of momentous national importance.