MASSED MYRIADS:

NZ Truth, Issue 218, 28 August 1909, Page 8

MASSED MYRIADS :

WHERE THEY TEEM, SWARM, MULTIPLY.

Concerning the Case of a Coveted Continent.

the the People Hanger: Here the Land Lies Empty— The Turkoman's Circassian Concubine and Their Child the Modern Turk— Cole's Curiously Instructive Charts of Humanity.

We Have received; from Mr E.- W. Cole, the well-known Victorian bookseller and .publisher of educational works, two large '.framed colored charts of the world and the iiiMian race, vts most important inhabi'ifcants. These remarkable and ., valuable charts are not only interesting and instructive, but their conception is unique, and their publication opportune just now, .when the nations, frantic, with Dreadnought -dementia, are arming themselves ' jwith all the resources of science and civolisation to fly at one another's throats •lin'-the great Armageddon predicted by St. '■John the Divine. In Australia we nave an industrial democracy which has settled down upon a great continent and declares that this great, country shall be inhabited only by n/anbers of the white nations. This it declares In spite of the fact that, within . easy striking distance of Australia, are vast myriads of colored people who arre rapidly learning the ARTS OF DESTRUCTION, m which whitr, people have so long ex- . celled, and Vho are spreading out m every direction to find room for their rapidly-incr/ casing populations. If the colored pe/jples of Asia were united, and had learr/>d the art of war as; it has been learned }jy the people of Europe, and had they tHi same resources m ships and munition,7 of war, ' they could certainty subjug. i to the people of Europe. It is clear, then, that if the nations, of Asia could thu& overwhelm the prop'fe of Europe, thcj'/ could, decidedly, easily take possessio/a of Australia, a country so vast and so thinly populated 'that an army could Ui landed without being immediately defected. Mr Cole does not omit to point out the peculiar position m which. Australasia (or Southern Asia, to give the word Australasia its proper meaning) is placed by reason of . its great size, its emptiness, and its nearness to the vast Asiatic reservoirs. 'Within a few days' sail of Australia is, he points out, "a population of 900 millions, or half the human race." Furthermore, he points to the fact that little Java is near to our shores, and that, m 130 years, its population has increased from two ..millions to 31 millions, and IS STILL INCREASING. Another striking fact mentioned iby Mr Cole m the letterpress at the bottom of his chart of the human race is that 13ie British Empire is mainly a colored em- ' pire. Its population he gives as- 427,---147,700, and he shows that 284,000^000 of these ,are "East Indians," 63i870,000 'Africans, 11,000,000 Burmese, 2,j800,000 Cingalese, 1,100,000 Chinese, and, 1,000,---000 Malays. The number of the English people m this so-called "English" Empire he .gives at but 38,000,000. To these 38,000,000 of English people we have been m the habit of looking to dtefend us against the natural desire of tbe Chinese, 'Japanese, and Indians to flow into Australia, and make use of a country which, it appears to the peoples of. Asia, we .will not use ourselves. The [peoples of >.; the British Isles will, however, probably soon have what) will appear to them to be much more important work on hand, and that work is to protect their coun.itry from invasion either b£ sea or by air. A handsome • feature of IShe chart, which is entitled "The Humr&n Race at a Glance," is the" great number of portraits of racial types wiih which it is illustrated. The number ©f these portraits is 187— 87 are portrait^ of me», and 97 PORTRAITS OF WOMKN. ' ; The variety is very gr?at, and so striking 1 are the differences /of facial features alone that additional force is thereby lent to the contentions of those scientists who declare that the human race had a number of different .ancestors, all, , however, of the p-ithecoid type— a typ« much inferior to ■ any human type now existing. The student wftl turn with considerable interest to the typical portraits of the various nations that are regarded as peiculiarly the possessors of personal beauty. Side by s?.de are portraits of Circas,sians, Georgians, and Armenians. Both Circassians fjr n d Georgians are regarded as handsome peoples, and the portraits 'of CircassUifci and Georgian women ceritainly show that the women of these peoples a;ij facially beautiful. The Circassian tyflpe is, however (judging by the portrait g.iven), not uncommon among British r*JOPtes. Many 'of the women of Devonshire, for instance, ate as handsome res the Circassian woman portrayed by JVfr Cole. The Georgian type is less liJte any British type, but is beautiful, ;ind suggests some of the types prevalent on the western part of the Europ can Continent, even as far north as Germ any. The Armenian type is Semitic. Each of these types has had much to d o with the modification of the Turkish type that has taken place. When the /Tur'fc entered .Europe, HE WAS A MONGOLIAN, like, the Tartars. He took into his hartms, however, all the comely women tha/fc he could find among the surrounding peo-plcs. By the beautiful Circassian and Georgian women, and also by Armenian "Wjriien, he begot children ; and tbe chil<Xren differed considerably from himself m facial appearance. The consequence is that the Mongolian origin is no more noticeable among the Turks than tbe Tarter element is among the Russians,

or than the Mongolian element is among . the Hungarians. The deposed Sultan of Turkey had the Semitic appearance of an Armenian. So extremely noticeable was this, so much like s the Armenian did he look, that Constantinople scandal-mong-ers were wont to whisper that he was the fruit of an illicit amour that his mother bad with, an Armenian porter — m spite of the seclusion of the . women of the harem. . \ Many of the portraits are rendered ol particular value, because of their being rom photographs of actual well-known men and women, lor instance, among . the representative Chinese types, are given portraits of Kong Meng and Li Hung Chang ; and Marquis Ito and Count Okuma have their portraits given as representatives of the Japanese types. Kanjitsinhji and Chunder Sen are given as representative .of Indian types. In addition, there are given the PORTRAITS OP ASIATICS, who have come' very much less under European influence than have those whose names we have mentioned. In addition to the information that we have v mentioned, the chart contains extremely useful and .instructive facts about the religions of the world. Mr Cole shows that professing Christians are more numerous .than those who profess any other religion. He declares that there are no' few^r than 570 million Christians. Yet it is among these "Christians" that the greatest progress has been made m the arts ot killing. The Christian peoples of the world are making preparations to slaughter one another upon a scale and with a ruthlessness that quite dwarfs the cruel mercilessness and contempt for human life displayed by ancient Pagans. Among non-Christian religions, the most important is that of Gautama the Buddha. He was an Indian prince who lived about 600 years before the birth of Christ, and who went about doing good and spreading a religion that has had a profound influence upon great multitudes of the human race, and,, by depressing the energies of MYRIADS OF ASIATICS, : has brought about the predominance of the less numerous white people. The number of Buddhists is given by Mr Cole at 450,000,000. Confucianism, the religion of the most enlightened Chinese, which was founded by the Chinese philosopher Confucius, and is believed m by some of the most enlightened and patriotic of the Chinese is estimated to be about 80,000,---000 strong. Taoism, another Chinese faith, has about 70,000,000 adherents. Mr Cole points out that the non-Christian religions, with all their faults and superstitions, have yet done an immense amount of good "through condemning vice . and teaching virtue. < In the middle of "The Human Race" chart is a map of the world showing all its principal natural features and indicating the principal railways, submarine telegraph cables, and distances and towns, etc. The second of the two charts sent to us by Mr Cole is entitled "The "Whole World at a Glance." In the middle of the framed chart, is a colored map of the world, indicating by means of red dots the distribution of population, . each of which stands for a million inhabitants. It is extremely instructive as to -the parts of the world that seem to favor the multiplication of people as distinguished from those which do not favor the existence and increase of human beings. The most sparsely populated parts of the world are shown to be THE FRIGID PARTS ; the hot parts are much more populous than the cold parts — we are not speaking of the temperate countries that are erroneously called cold, but of those m the parts of the world that are. near to the regions of ice. The hot countries— those near to the equator, are— compared with Australia— quite considerably populated. Thus it is shown that m Equatorial Africa, quite close to the equatorial line, there is a population of about twelve millions. Close to the equatorial line running through South America, there is seen to be a population of about six million people. Fortunately, the torrid equator ' does not pass through any part of Australia, although it does traverse Borneo and two neighboring islands. These three islands are estimated to contain among them five millions of inhabitants. A little further west there is Sumatra, with a population of three millions. Each of these islands is considerably hotter than any part of Australia. Then we come to the consideration of the condition of Australia itself, as regards population, as compared with that of the other countries m the Southern Hemisphere. (It is amusing, by the way \ that some persons m this country will talk as if Australia " constituted the Southern Hemisphere, and AS IF IT HAD A MONOPOLY of the '•'Southern Cross," about which we hear so much sensational stuff.) The population of Australasia is given as five millions, and it is to be found between the fortieth and twentieth parallels of latitude. It should be mentioned that numbers less than a million are not indicated ou the chart. The population

of Australia is about half a 1 million more than ' the five red dots indicated, but this .is not shown. However,, the population of Australasia is certainly less than six millions, unless we include Papua, which is much nearer the Equator than any part of thte Australian mainland, and is estimated by Mr Cole to have a population of about one million: Now, if ; we look at other countries m the Southern Hemisphere that 'lie within the same parallels of latitude as Australia, we find that the population is considerably greater. Thus, . the f chart shows us the two parallels of. latitude 20 and 40 running through South America, Australia, and South Alrica. Between these parallels, the chart shows . that m Australia and New Zealand there are five million people, but it shows that m South America, between; exactly the SAME PARALLELS,' and, therefore, m climates that are probably similar to our own, there are no fewer than sixteen millions of persons. In Africa, ; within the same lines of latitude, ■ there are seven million persons. Africa and South America also show many millions of people north of the twentieth parallel of latitude. In the corresponding part of Australia, no millions are marked on the chart, for the reason that most of the people of Australia are to be found m the south. Thus is Australia shown to be absurdly underpopulated when compared with the other countries m the northern half of the world. Naturally, this half is not so populous as the northern half, for, at this side of the world, ocean is enormously m excess of land. It is m the northern half of the world, where the great continents are, that one naturally expects to see the greatest number of people, and there we find them, swarming m countries whose climatic conditions do not differ very greatly from our own. Take, for instance, the United States. In the parts of the United States that lie south of latitude 20, and, therefore, having similar climates to the southern half of Australia, Mr Cole's chart shows ABOUT FORTY MILLIONS of people. The greater portion of China lies between the same lines of latitude as most of Australasia, and the population of China is given by 'Mr Cole as 400,---000,000. India, the greater portion of which also lies between the same lines lof latitude, has a population, according to Mr Cole, of 300,000,000. Then there is Egypt, with its population of 11 millions, and Algeria and Morocco. There is also Persia, Turkey, and the southern portions of Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. If we had to depends for the settlement of this country on white "Christian" peoples accustomed to climates somewhat similar to ■ our own, the people m question would come to us from Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal. What Mr Cole's chart has, so far, made clear is that about half of the people upon this planet live between precisely the same lines of -latitude m the northern half of the world as those between which m the southern half of the world, the peoples of Australasia dwell. Yet -we'expect to keep this vast, thinly-populated country for ourselves, without any attempt to defend it except with the aid of cadets \ Enclosed within a beautifully-colored border representing the Dags of all nations is another border consisting of black squares upon which appear ( white dots. These squares are intended to show the density of population m each country, the number of persons to the square mile. Thus the black square representing Australia shows /BUT' ONE WHITE DOT, ' j which means that we have but one person m this country to the square mile. In some few other cases, however, Mr Cole has simply placed upon the square the number. Thus Hongkong, that Chinese portion of the British Empire, has 10,000 placed upon its square, which means that each square mile of Hongkong contains, on the average, 10,000 people. What a contrast between Hongkong and Australia ! China proper has 267 persons to the square-mile, Japan 383 persons, and India 169 persons. The most thickly-populated spot m the world appears to be the rock of Gibralta, which is only two square miles m area, but, has within its borders 27,200 persons. Among ■ THrCKLY POPULATED EUROPEAN COUNTRIES are Belgium, with 633 persons to the square mile, • Holland- with 457 persons, and England and Wales with 603 persons. The two charts should prove of great educational value, and should teach many lessons. The population of the world, says Mr Cole, has doubled itself during the last hundred years ; it is more than likely that, during the next hundred, it will more than double itself. Australia must prepare to make room for some of these millions, just as Africa is doing, just as South America is doing (with the result that Argentina is being erected into a new Power), and, if we want to keep Australia white, then we must prepare to flight, not by deputy, but m person. Mr Cole is to be commended for having rendered a valuable educational service just when it was needed.