DAY BY DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 104, Issue 17501, 7 September 1928, Page 6

DAY BY DAY.

A missionary, speaking at a luncheon

Equality of Man.

given by the Congregational Men’s Association in Sydney, stood up valiantly for the essential

equality of all men. He denied that coloured races are inferior to ourselves. Science increasingly discloses, he declared, “that _we are of one common stock. There Is hut one species of mankind, and skin coloration has not. mental or moral meaning for scientists. No race on earth is congenitally inferior t.o another.’’ This will be news to the scientists who haxe found enormous differences between the races of mankind, and among, also, the members of the same race. According to the simple theory of the missionary it would seem that there arc no ‘■•C3” peoples or individuals, -nor are there any geniuses or grades of ability. Binghi, the black fellow, is not congenitally infgrior to Edison, and at anv moment a New Hebridean cannibal “ may rival Beethoven! The theory, at all events, reflects the ''greatest, 'credit on the amiable missionary's heart.

If King Amanullah has his way the wild Afghan of romance

Taming The Afghan.

and, till yesterday at any rate, of history will soon lie completely a figure of the past. The Afghan

monarch lias returned from his tour of Europe full of reforming zeal and with schemes ail ready for transformiug his picturesque subjects into an orderly and industrious community busied with the arts not -of war but of peace- Instead of roaming his mountains the young Afghan will now be tied to the school desk, for education is to be compulsory and free for all, although the wealthy will have to pay a nominal sum for the privilege of being educated with the poor. Nobody will escape the net nor leave it, apparently, till he has reached such a standard of culture that he will pride himself on having been tamed. And to make the taming complete, he will find when he emerges from school and college into life woman has been emancipated. It is an ambitious programme, but its adoption was inevitable. Afghanistan could not refuse to share in the _ tremendously rapid advance in the Middle East towards new : standards of civilisation and in the general effort that is transforming Asia.