HAS CIVILISATION FAILED

Hokitika Guardian, 20 April 1926, Page 3

HAS CIVILISATION FAILED

SLR AIIBI'THNOT LANK'S VIEWS. LONDON, Feb. 19. Sir W. Arbutlniot Lane addressed the London Clinical Society last night on the subject, “ Is Civilisation a Failure ? " He said : This is it question that always arises when one sees the disastrous effect that association with the white race has upon communities that have for hundreds of centuries had a happy, vigorous life. Can anyone feel that we have conferred the slightest physical benefit on any native raeo to wliii h we have first sent our merchant seamen and lato r our missionaries The former have taught them to drink to excess and have decimated them with diseases, while the latter have altered their habits, teaching them a moral code which invariably results in their degeneration autJ degratiun. Sir Arbutlniot continued: Why do we insist on imposing on other ruevs, who have existed in communities. leading Imppy lives long before us. our methods and ideas, on the supposition that our habits and creeds arc more suitable to them than theirs? The native living in his normal surroundings and following his accustomed habits and diet, if placed in favorable circumstances, is an infinitely finer animal physically than is the product of civilisation. His men are great fighters and skilful limiters, while his women perform all the functions that nature demands of them, producing healthy vigorous children. “OUR Cl RKOI’LE.” They study birth control and eugenics in a manner quite unknown in civilisation, since they realise the absolute necessity of producing vigorous men and women, as dissimilar to our 0.3 population as it is possible to imagine.

Can anything he more painful and disappointing than to rcud the statements and statistics of those who are endeavouring to obtain recruits of even moderate physique and health for the police and for our fighting forces? let otherwise apparently quite sensible people oppose the teaching of eugenics and birth control to the mass of the people, who are practically enslaved because these in authority insist on their being ignorant.

'l'lie time Ims now come when the community must face the situation, and for this purpose the New Health .Society has been formed. The study of food and Dibits is vastly more importand to the whole, world than any of the paltry subjects which occupy so much of the minds of the public To do this, the help and assistance of the Press are the only effectual means hv which the propaganda dealing with hu.ilth can he distributed to the public; and the New Health Society realises that in the Press the,' possess an allv which will not tail it.