THE CHANGING WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 209, 5 April 1913, Page 5

THE CHANGING WORLD.

TENDENCY TO UNITY. IN LANGUAGE AND RELIGION. HON. JAMES BRYCE'S VIEWS. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. Received 4, 10.25 p.m. London, April 4. The International History Congress is meeting at Lincoln's Inn." The Hon. James Bryce, the president, being detained at Washington, his inaugural address was read.

In the course of his address, Mr. Bryce says that, travelling in India, Africa, America and Australasia, he saw the smaller, weaker and more backward races changing under impact with civilised man. Their religious beliefs were withering, and their customs were fading. Some. Ike the Maoris, were being absorbed into the white population. The world was becoming one in a new sense. With the exception of China and Japan, almost the entire earth was controlled by six European races. Eight Powers swayed the political destinies of the globe. By the year 2000, nine-tenths of the human race would speak less than twenty languages. Already there were only four great religions. Nowadays, whatever happened in any part of the earth had significance everywhere, including industrial disputes and the money markets. Finance, even more than politics, made the world a single community.

The world's history was tending to become one history. The historian of the future would need an amplitude of conception and a power of grouping figures like Tintoretti or Michael Angelo, if he was to handle so vast a can-

vas. Students of history were specially celled upon to try to reduce the sources of international ill-feeling. Historians knew how few wars Averc necessary.