Problems of the Pacific

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 88, 18 August 1923, Page 5

Problems of the Pacific

VIEWS OF SCIENCE OF CONCRESS. PRESERVATION OF THE NATIVES. (Received 10.45 a.m.) Melbourne, August 18. The Science Congress discussod Pacific problem**. Dr. Crumpton stated that owing to the inadequate understanding of tropical diseases the natives of the Pacific Islands were dying out, their places being taken by coolies from India and Ceylon. The inevitable result Would bo that higher types would follow, and later there would be a huge international conflict in the Pacific. He urged the study of tropical disease and the preservation of native races. Professor Skinner (Otagd) said Dunedin had ostablisbed'a lectureship in Ethnology, though no Australian university had done so. Only now was New Zealand obtaining authentic information regarding the Maori races.

Dr. Buck strongly pleaded for the increased study of physical an thrology in the Pacific Islands. A working scheme was wanted, which would allow ccfieentrntion ia investigations on specified a;eas.

Professor Ew.art of Edinburgh, outlining the h'story of the merino, urged experiments in Australia of a cross between, the merino and fat-tail-ed sheep of Asia, which subsist for drought periodsr /or years on the fat of their taiiw, in much tho same way as tho camel on the store of fat in his hump. Dr CA'umpston, in a quarantine paper, said that in 1918 influenza was imported into Samoa from New Zealand and caused the death of twenty per cent, of tho population. Proper measures of quarantine could prevent overseas transmission of epidemic diseases. The island groups with maritime communication with Australia escaped in 1918, while the groups communicating with New I Zealand suffered severely.