TROPICAL HEAT

Southland Times, Issue 19332, 26 August 1924, Page 6

TROPICAL HEAT

NO PERIL TO WHITE MEN. HUMAN BODY .ADJUSTABLE. (Sun Special.) LONDON, August 9. The general distribution of mankind, with the white races in the temperate zones, says The Times, dealing with the habitability of the tropics, supports the popular belief that the tropical regions should be left to the coloured peoples, but medical opinion is veering towards the belief fhat only bad habits and bad sanitation, as well as preventable diseases, have been the white settlers’ tropical enemies. Dry heat itself is not inimical to the body, which can adjust itself to far higher temperatures than those found in any habitable region of the earth. Moist heat is trying, yet careful observation shows that white labourers such as boilermakers and stokers surpass coloured persons in endurance of fatigue under extreme moist heat. TORONTO, August 10.

Professor John Walker Gregory, formerly of Melbourne University, a distinguished geologist and geographer, who was head of the Lake Eyre expedition of 1901-2, addressing the British Association here, said that the vital statistics of Queensland compared favourably with those of other parts of Australia, and the failure of the adjacent Northern Territory to support a white population had an economic rather than a climatic explanation. A policy of co-residence with racial integrity had failed secure the harmonious progress of America* and South Africa. The development of the best qualities of these races required their separate existence as a whole, with opportunities for individual association and co-operation. In view of the inter-racial difficulties that. developed wherever the races intermingle, especially in the United States, where the negro problem was apparently unsolvable. Australia would throw away an unique opportunity if she failed to make a patient effort to secure the whole continent as a home for the white race.

“There is abundant proof,” said the professor, “that a tropical climate need not be unsuitable for white races.”