THE STIRRING OF THE "INFERIOR RACES."

Otago Witness, Issue 2756, 9 January 1907, Page 71

THE STIRRING OF THE "INFERIOR RACES."

— Are the White Peoples Prepared?

The trouble between Japan and the United States consequent on the antiOrientalism of California forms the text of an important article in the Saturday Review (November 3). Our contemporary declaies that a grave situation is arising throughout the world, and has to be faced b} - white men everywhere. "The determination to keep aloof from the colonied races is an instinct, bad or good, which seems inseparable from residence in their

neighbourhood. . . . The troubles which agitate the Western States have been in full blast in Australia for some years. With great difficulty the betterclass Japanese aie admitted, and everyone remembers the recent legislation regaiding the labour of our own coloured subjects on liners. Our South African possesssions have legislated so as to place intolerable burdens upon any of our Indian subierts who desire to trade there. Canada shows a strong disposition to follow the example of Australia. The danger is not pressing there, but, if it were, the legislation would be similar, and the Imperial Government would in the end find as much difficulty in preventing it as the Government at Washington will in resisting the racial prejudices of San Francisco. The same phenomena obtain under different conditions in India and Egypt. In fact, there is little doubt that much of the ill-feeling latent among the upper classes on the Nile is due to the absolute refusal of British residents to treat Mohammedans on a footing of social equality, and there is no real community of feeling between British and

natives in India. . . . This state of feeling has for long found its excuse m the term 'inferior races.' and however ludicrous it may have seemed to anyone even remotely acqjainted with the ancient civilisations of the East and the defective mental culture of large numbeis of the conquering races, it v-et found excuse in the militaiy superiority of the white man. That assurance has now been rudely dispelled. We have seen an Asiatic people, comparatively pmall in numbers, inflict a smarting defeat upon the largest empire in the world, and make peace with dignity and sagacity, as they made war without barbarity. Is it wonderful then that the brown man as -well as the yellow is beginning to ask himself wherein his inferiority consists? The introduction of gunpowder killed the predominance of feudal chivalry upon the battlefields of Europe, and the acquisition by coloured races of arms of precision will ere long kill the fancied superiority of the white. . . . The recognition of the equality of all men before the law and of the right of all citizens to have a voice in the government of the country is a principle which we have been instilling into the minds of our subjects both in India and Egypt, and we now affect a pained surprise when the instruction bears its natural fruit. This is not confined to one race or one religion.

. . . The trouble in the United States is only a prelude to the far graver troubles that await this country, for the Englishman being far removed from the scene of disturbance can never appreciate adequately the spontaneous aversion that sunders the white man from the coloured. But the rulers of more .subiect -races than any other nation, we especially are affected by the grave position of the lacial question at the prerent time. We cannot hope for any sensib'e modification of their attitude by our fellow-countrymen, and the resentment created oy it may be suppressed among the co'oured races, but is not extinguished. For the certain outcome of this all the ruling white peoples should be prepared."