BRITISH EMPIRE PROBLEM

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19368, 27 July 1925, Page 10

BRITISH EMPIRE PROBLEM

A NORDIC ALLIANCE. (Communicated). The chief lesson which these articles were intended to convey has been to direct (attention to the fact that, if the British is to remain a leading I people, it must purify itself physically, 'eliminate its unfit, confine marriage to healthy and, especially in warmer cli- | mates, take careful steps to invigorate ißace. The requirements of the race I should precede all others. I The three articles of this series on National Hchlth, Marriage Law (Amendment, and National Insurance, all had more to do with the future | than with to-day, indispensable as drastic reforms hre in all three directions. To-day, also, the question of a I Nordic Alliance bears more on the future than on the national problems [Which are unfolding before us daily. Nothing probably in nation-building is more difficult, particularly in supine Democracies, than any attempt to induce the popular mind to focus itself, proportionately, on matters which do not instantaneously affect every-day expenditure. True, we are learning, better than our fathers, what sort of human raw-material we are dealing with in modern peoples, and also from the scientific side how far these are,' or are not, malleable. As regards national progress, wo in the Pacific tore up against a dead wall oT indifference or inferior judgment, in the tremendous obstruction of the weak-mindedness of no less than 60 per cent, of the population. How can one expect betterment, or rehlly intelligent national reform, when the first j . I

essential is to convince the largest half of the voters, who in turn control Parliament and the Ministry, of the value of a fundamental change, which they do not possess that judgment to appreciate, and which does not appear to their feelings, is far more important, nationally, than the increase or reduction of a tax that comes out of their pockets'! They feel the deprivation of the. tax, they realise its effect upon their weekly or monthly incomes, but they cannot estimate the benefit which it would be to themselves, their children in 20 or 30 years’ time, and still loss on their grandchildren. That is the situation in which democracy, fhlse equality, and universal suffrage, places the majority of the white races to-day. To countervail that dead-weight will be h great slow task, all the more that the I .B.A. and the tXitcd Kingdom, are yet but very incompletely conscious of what has gone wrong, and the Dominions hardly at all. The British Empire is not yet awake. The majority of my readers already know the value of “stamina’ in either family or collective life. It will be a good test of popular intelligence among our British peoples, to ascertain to what extent they will wiakc up on warnings received and what price they are prepared to pay in correction of their parents’ and their own errors. However, much we may dislike the fact, wo must admit, if only as a corrective, that our relatives of the U.S.A, have beaten us in most problems of national progress. Primarily, they have in recent years infinitely surpassed us in totlal of population. Australia has a fine territory in both extent and climate, but somehow it does not succeed in attracting cither the numbers or the quality of emigrants which one would hope to secure for a model democracy. Politically speaking Australia is not yet out of school Whether one considers Sydney strikes, Melbourne slums, or Perth vagaries, it is exident that Australia in matters of national government is still only a junior initiating few signs of hopeful progress. Whether the future be a matter of securing population on something like American lines, or of preparing for the Asiatic developments of the next 20 years, Australian policy is more than dormant. Clctirly, the necessary impulse and example must either come from New Zealand, or British influence m the Pacific will decline as I steadily as already in Europe. A practical and systematically applied Nordic. Alliance would amount to Inational insurance against future political risks. The British daces in the ; Pacific will only hold their own in the future, under the existing softening and weakening influences of climate and of breeding from below, by remorselessly closing the door to emigrant weaklings, and as pitilessly improving land strengthening the established race. To continue doing nothing, as at present and wasting all one’? political time on party differences of no national or humanitarian benefit, amounts to slow but certain national collapse. The thinking minds of New Zealand must realise the seriousness ot tin- problem now- before them, and uitihse the interval before the general election in preparing the public, to perform their duties effectively Party

interests must, for once, be discarded everywhere, las the Prime Minister realised, and the whole national activity devoted to the scientific and pitiless raising of the human breed. Let us at once commence doing, for ourselves, what we have already so successfully none for racehorses, meat, wool, and butter. The “national stamina” can be effectively elevated—let us begin! The cost is only tit first; difficulties decrease. surprisingly, immediately the worst of the “unfit” have been disposed of. The point is, nationally, to commence the task. A Nordic Alliance, like so many other good ideas, was first suggested from the U.S.A. because they had been through the mill. Since they tiro will mg to raise their “national vigour,” in the Atlantic, why should not we bo equally disposed to restore white : energy in the Pacific? It, is that, or die!

■ Now this Nordic Alliance has no political subterfuge at the back of it. It is solely land entirely a eugenic proposal. It is nothing more complicated than the idea to confine emigration to the races of northern Europe which’ have already been hardened off, for centuries, by Nature’s process of killing weaklings by mehns of long and hard winters. Winters of from three to five months of ice. snow, and bitter cold, which hunt out and destroy all those born with physical weakness of any [kind. Scandinavia, if properly ap- ' preached, can come to the rescue of the [weakening racial influences of the Pacific.

The joint, population of Denmark. Sweden, and Norway, is not large, and they will never dispose of a stream of emigrants numerous enough to imperil other interests in warmer climes. But if a reliable regular system of emigration be prepared and agreed upon between New Zealand land these countries then in 20 years’ time that stream of emigrants would enlarge, ip proportion to the success of its working on this side. Those cold and poor countries are just as anxious to secure for their citizens a. milder climate together with a rich productive soil, such as New Zealand offers, as we are here to invigorate our breed. This is a good basis for economic supply and demand. Whht. is wanting is certainly method and regularity. The Emigration Department could supply that, it is merely a matter of the first approach, and success would follow. Scandinavia, says Stoddard, “is naturally poor, with a cold climate and comparatively little ■fertile soil.” New Zealand consequently can offer considerable improvement on what the Scandinavians possess, and can undertake, with great advantage to itself, to satisfactorily locate all emigrants from Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

This is more a problem for this than for the next generation because it will take at least 20 years to work out satisfactorily. Like insurance, of which it is almost a branch, it produces resuits slowly. As with the individual, so with nations, those which look ahead and arrange matters for to-morrow (as in education) are those which deserve to. and in fact do, become prosperous. Consequently patriotic citizens of New Zealand will be well advised to give the Nordic, Alliance a good place amongst the reform proposals for the coming General Election.