Western Star WALLACE COUNTY GAZETTE. TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1929. A MODERN MARCO POLO.

Western Star, 20 August 1929, Page 2

Western Star WALLACE COUNTY GA ZETTE. TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1929. A MODERN MARCO POLO.

A London cable received last week mentioned that Dr Malcolm MacLaren, mining geologist and engineer who, in his early days, was connected with the Otago School of Mines, has returned after a mining research expedition to Bolivia on behalf of a London group. He has now completed eight hundred thousand miles of travel in the course of his work, and claims to be the second most travelled man in the world, the record for travel in a professional capacity being held by Mr J. H. Curie, another mining engineer, who has passed the one million miles’ mark. The mention of Mr Curie’s name recalls the fact that the results of his experiences have been recorded in three books hearing the titles of “The Shadow Show,” “This World of Ours,” and “To-Day and To-morrow,” the lastmentioned being published in 1926. Five editions of this were published in 1927. A short while after the Great War he was walking with a friend by the shore of Hobson’s Bay, in Australia. When they had discussed all things, especially the human outlook, and the uncertainty of it, his friend said to him, “I want you to write a book with the gloves off.” Mr Curie knew what he meant. It was to he a book about Nature, Race, Hereditary, Social Problems, Mind and Matter, Cause and Effect in a blend of the human, the personal, and the philosophic. Shortly after this meeting Mr Curie went to Central Africa, and, .during the weeks spent there in drifting along rivers, he commenced .to put things together. His experiences, knowledge, and deductions are contained in the works mentioned. Some of his observations have reference to what goes by the name of the Eastern Problem. Russia is showing itself to.be aggressive, and China has determined to 'resist any interference with its territorial rights. “When w e turn to Eastern Europe with its great food belts,” he says, “we are face to face with a deep and subtle problem. Eastern Europeans, of whom the Slav is the dominant type, are not, as we know,, of our race. They have their undoubted qualities; but they have neither the European pedigree nor mentality. Their most marked quality, as concerns us, is their fecundity. It is such that the _ food belts of Eastern Europe will vanish in a few years, before fresh millions of Slavic stomachs. That is only half the story. This gigantic, fecund peasantry, with its non-European mind, cares no more for a white race than do the cattle in its fields. I can see it a century hence, mad for food, and the need for more land, swarming over Europe like a new Asiatic horde—perhaps the most dangerous and subtle menace in Europe’s future.” He then pictures Western Europe thrown hack upon itself for food. It will have any quantity of goods to exchange. But the outside world will not then need most of these things, neither will it have any food to spare. Japan, China, and India, if there is no collapse in Asia, will he-manufacturing on a gigantic scale, by very cheap labour. The United States will also h e feverishly supplying every market, while even new countries like Canada and Australia will he largely self-supnorting. Europe will find it is organised to sell goods which fewer and fewer want, and to need more and more food, which nobody is able to supply. Fof tfee

rapidly increasing Slavic and Far Eastern races there will be a time of tribulation in the shape of famine. Even to-day famine is working havoc in China, and has been severe in India, and even the Slavs have experienced it through want of scientific knowledge and lack of proper economic organisation. While these racial troubles are being worked out, he mentions that masses of those least able to think are saturated with communistic propaganda. Those responsible for the revolution in China realised, when it dismissed Russian officials from its service, that the result of that propaganda could only mean chaos, but Russia sees no evils in it, and would obliterate th e superior altogether. So long as it possesses that attitude of mind anything may happen between China and Russia. “In handing over th c ultimate control of things to the least capable,” says Mr Curie, “we are flouting the human brain, overthrowing the experience of wisdom since the world began. The brainy and the balanced have always controlled our world. When they cease to do so, our white race must pass into the decline like all the rest.” He tells the western whites that they are the heirs of the ages, but they fail to recognise the fact. Everything calls upon them to come together to repair the loss of prestige caused by the World War. Though eleven years have passed since the termination of that disaster, the nations are still riven by hatreds and jealousies. A perusal of the many discussions on reparations and disarmament is sufficient to show how distrustful they are of each other. And yet the condition of the world calls upon them to come together. They should take up the trusteeship of the world, promote scientific research and widely disseminate the knowledge, and do ail in their power to direct economic forces into channels that will lead to peace and security. In an illuminating article on “Economics and the Menace of War,” Sir L. Chiozza Money, in showing how human thought and action in the years before and after 1914 were affected by economic necessities, says civilization connotes much more than the development of economic powers; nevertheless, a sound economy lies at the basis, of the lives of men, since , they must be fed and housed and provided for. The struggle with economic forces does not end; its continuance is forced upon mankind. That is the tru e and worthy warfare, the real battle of life. If it is to be waged successfully, if men are to obtain more than poor results from arduous labour, they must put away th e ancient conception that wealth is to be gained or sustained by war and preparation for war.