WHY "ANZACS" ARE FINE AND LARGE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2974, 11 January 1917, Page 7

WHY "ANZACS" ARE FINE AND LARGE

THE EUGENICS OF RACE (By Sir Leo Chiozza Money, M.P., in tho "Daily. Mail.") !. Among the niariy ornaments of our briguteued streets of late tho Anzacs .-have been prominent. Thoy cannot . riieip making tuemselves prominent. It is not tliat ihey thrust themselves upon "the public gaze; it is merely that tney are wuac they are—alert, keen-eyed, picturesque. Something, doubtless, they gain from hats which arc calculated to set off tho buauty of either wan or woman, but in nearly every •caso tlio features under the hat are good—the noso and chin strong, ,tho eyes bright and alert. As for tlie'size of them, it is rarely that one meets an Aiizac short enough to be described ■■as of middle size, and, I have never seen, .a small one. I am Hot seeking to dispraise our own men by comparison; far from it. In the pictures of tho JBjvttlo of tho Somme (.which have been missed by tho jpcoplo who aro too good or too superior to go to the kiiieina) nothing is more striking thiui tho contrast between the German prisoners and their British cap,tors. It is not merely that the prison'ors are naturally depressed by their unfortunate position. It is that they aro obviously inferior,-to> our soldiers in bearing and comeliness. Our mon, indeed, aro among tho finest looking soldiers the world can show. If, tli.eh,, the Anzac stand out among British soldiery it is hecauso they aro of a very tino typo indeed. ; ■' ; How Explain It? r' "Well, New Uealanders and 'Australians are mostly of British, stock. At a quito recent period their ancestors wero citizens of the United Kingdom. If, then, their stature and bearing strike us as superior, what is the explanation. For roy own part, I believe tho phenomenon to bo susceptible of explanation, and that the explana- ■, iion is one which it is of tho greatest value for us to understand here in the Mother Country. •' The Anzacs bavo hecn reared tho'.sous of men whohave shaken off many of the customs 'and traditions which shackle progress in tho United Kingdom. Here, in the old civilisation, wo., inherit good traditions and bad—some of them very bad.' And . among the bad tinea' is the ■■•tradition.' of poverty ; ' poverty which grinds the faces of men until their features become inferior; poverty which robs children of their hair and teeth, and eyes; poverty which takes inches from the stature of a boy or girl; poverty which in some cases subdues-character to an inferior environment. • Does any man think these words' exaggerated? -If such there be. let him : liie to his bookseller and buy for the small sum of ninepence the Annual Report, for 1.915, of tho Chief Medical Officer of the Board- of Education. There lie will find in cold and appalling figures the facts as to physical defects ; among children in our public clement- , arr schools. He will find that j;ho record runs that 69 per cent, have bad teeth; that 20 per cent, have disease of the nose or throat; that 14 per cent, have unclean heads: that 30 per cent, suffer from malnutrition; that! 17 per cent, have defective vision : that 11 per cent, have defective hearing. '■; : Robbery of the Child's Birthright. 'A few years ago the factory inspector of. Dundee measured and weighed--169 boys arid girls and compared them with tho -recognised normal standards of their age.. .He.found that,.. taking •boys , and girls fof'..ll ..to". 15, the boys werooin. in-height and 121b. in weight' below the norinal- standard, and that the girls were 4in.- in height and 1911). in weight below ,the. normal standard. ■And tho. worst of; it is; that an ( old civilisation like, ours "gets- so accustomed ;to ' the .'.symptom? • and degeneracies of poverty that it is in terrible danger of , thinking that, tlioso' are necessary and :.that poverty itself - is to he • accepted as "always with us."the reader remembers what General lan Hamilton said about the Lnnca- • shire boys who fought in the Boer War. He praised their spirit and courage, but why, he asked, had they not a fojv moro inches round the chest? The answer to that question is to bo found \by any student of .'society wrirtpn ,in the" doctrine of- "laissez : .fairo" in government which is associated with the name of the industrial capital of Lancashire.. .: . ■ .. . . ~•' ..-..' When men cross the ocean and establish themselves in! a now. countryiwhero there is an abundance of natural opportunity, and- whore there is no- one of life to which God appointed them, it to tell them that it is their, business to stay contentedly in that station goes hard with'thc tradition of poverty. A. high rate of wages becomes a matter of "course under'such conditions, and men sometimes earn twice as nrach as in tho Mother Country. - Let us "contemplate the rates of wages which wore paid in Australia in 1914 as officially recorded by tho Australian Federal Government. . ' ■ I find that tho following rates of remuneration obtained in Sydney in that year :-r- ---•■ Weekly Wages in Sydney, 1914. Bricklayers 78s. jto 84s. Bricklayers' labourers ...'....." 625. Plasterers 78s. . Gasworks labourers 545. Ironmoulders •: 665. i Bakers' doughnien ■ . 60s. Boilermakers ..„!.:..'.. ..;'...'....' 665. Fitters 70s. \ Engine-drivers 275. , to 965, /Railway porters ' 48s. to 545. i Signalmen 665. to 78s. Australian farm labourers cam about twice as much as ours. In fact, the minimum wage,- which wo havo been afraid to tackle, except in' a few sweated trades (and even then only because of tho special agitation carried on by the late Sir Charles Dilke and the Anti-Sweating League), is a. commonplace in Australia, like many other things which our hidebound traditions stay us from performing. Let those who-argue that the chief duty of Government is not to govern contemplate the piien produced in Australia in a democracy which has ' exercised the powers of government more, perhaps, than any other country in."tin , world. It amazes mo that those who disapprove of Government action refer to Prussianisni, and would have us. believe that freedom is incompatible with the exorcise of tho powers of the State. AVhat of Australia and New Zealand? I would say to theso people: Merc are British States within ■ the Empire which hnve abolished from their parties altogether the word Conservative. The railways belong to tho State, and from year to year the. public increasingly takes control of the national economy. Tlio result is to give us not a race »f serfs, but a race of free and independent men, whoso snirit is ■ exhibited in their bearing; whoso staturo is tho. result of thoir economic status.; ■ : . . . And nn , they dull dogs reduced to nia'chiric-lilfP wineoptinns l>y Slnlp .icl.ion ?i Go. my friend, and consult any nne of the English girls who are lnnrryiiu; tlioui in such large numbers. It r>ll'tfiin.es In this. The Anzaos arc. proof of tho great scientific truth thai flic neo can easily regain tho. phvsiral standard which is its pronur inheritanro. Apart from the splendid sliarn they hnve taken in _ tins war, the Anstars will not liave visited our shores i:i rain if w« tn-Ice the trouble to understand what has made tliern tlio line men they are. . ■ ■