CURRENT LITERATURE

Hokitika Guardian, 3 July 1926, Page 4

CURRENT LITERATURE

TO-DAY AND TO-MOHROAY. -Mr J. H. Curie is a mining engineer whose calling lias taken him all over the world and whose wanderings on professional missions have engendered in him n passion for travel for its own sake. No man, probably, has seen so much of the globe we inhabit. Nor is Mr Curie a mere casual bird of passage. He is a shrewd observer, and lie pitches his tent in the various countries lie visits long enough to gain a close acquaintance with them and their peoples. He has written two travel hooks, which rank as classics, and in “ To-day and To-morrow ” he indulges in prophecy. It is characteristic of -Mr Curie that lie should have conceived tho idea of this work while walking on tlio shores of Hobson’s Bay, and that'lie began to write it in Timbuetoo, the city of mystery. The author first surveys the present position of the human race, and then speculates on tho future. In an inlroductory chanter, entitled “Gaining Experience,” he seats himself on the magic carpet of Baghdad, and shows us the material which he lias collected for his task, and upon which his conclusions are founded. We have vivid glimpses of an old Spanish town high in the Ecuadorian Andes, where the many hells are tolling a Saints’ Day, of Hie deserted temples of Cambodia, of (be steaming jungle in the C'ameroons, of a fur-trailing settlement in Hudson’s Bay, of fragrant South Sea Islands, of Selville tinder the stars, of Australians, Cane boys. Arabs. Eskimo and many others besides. But everywhere. in the tropics and within tho Arctic Circle, in Equatorial jungles and in desert sands, the same phenomenon is to be discerned. All organic life, from the highest to the lowest forms is engaged in a grim and ceaseless struggle for existence. Mr Curie will not allow that Nature is benign, and indeed any one who has given the matter a moment’s thought will agree with him. The wastage that goes on is incalculable. The weak, whether animal or vegetable in genus, go to the wall. The expression, “ vis ’naturae medicanrix,” is a metaphor with a very limited application. Nature is “ red in tooth and claw.” The law of Nature, if one there he, is the law of violence, ciinn ing and rapacity. These are the dominant forces.

So much for the background, the setting of the great drama which is being enacted year by year, hour by hour, minute by minute. What of the human protagonists? Mr Curie passes in review the various peoples who dwell upon the earth. He believes that just as man stands, out at the head of nature, so the white race stands out at the head of humanity. This might not seem self evident to a, cultured ( uincse or a haughty Arab proud of his undiluted blood. But the reasons which Mr Curie gives for his conviction seem to be adequate. In regard to the white race, he adopts, though with reservations, the usual division into three stocks. There are the Nordics, the* taller, fairer peoples of Northern and Western Europe; tile Mediterraneans, shortish, and dark, of the south ; and the Alpines, occupying the European East. The Nordics claim that they are the choicest stock. They have the greatest balance and stolidity. The Mediterraneans, though more brilliant are less stable, and the qualities possessed by the Alpines, though genera lisnti oils are difficult, arc commonly considered to ho the least valuable of the three. For himself, Mr Curie is inclined to think that no stock is absolutely pure, and that the ideal is a mingled strain; a basis of Nordic with, an admixture of either or both of the ((flier two.

."Ur Curio next examines various members of these stocks. His diagnosis does not always Hatter national susceptibilities. He maintains that what is good in the British, comes from about 4 per cent, of the population, a 4 per cent, distributed among all ranks and classes. “ The ruck of the British are ordinary, their mentality is low. their outlook trivial. . . But they .have it in them, because of their leavening, when emergency calls, to rise to standard of national tradition and acquit themselves to it.” Again, this unidentified elite possesses the qualities which have put the British where they are. namely': “ being practical, steadfast, seeing things through; a sense of fair play; respect for law and order. You can sum them all up as Character.” His remarks about Australia are interesting. He sympathises with the White Australia ideal, although he is be no means blind to certain obstacles in the way of its realisation.' He thinks that we are running a risk of impairing our stock by allowing entry to too many Southern Europeans—the actual figures, however, suggest that he exaggerates this danger—and bv countenancing vitiating agencies within. Nevertheless. lie is of the opinion that the Commonwealth and New Zealand “still have it in their power, by excluding colour and by preventing the unfit from breeding, to become and remain about the finest white strains in the world.”

Thc prospects of the white races as a whole are. according to Mr Curie, far from encouraging. Soon there will he ruthless competition among them for mw materials, such as oil and iron ore, and for markets. Then they will he confronted with a new menace. The coloured races are developing an even stronger national self-consciousness,

and arc becoming moro cohesive. No longer will they suffer themselves to bo exploited by the wliitjos ;on the contrary, they will turn the tables. The war which the author anticipates will not be a war of armaments. The whites are too highly organised and mechanised to be challenged in that field, as the coloured races well know. The latter will employ the economic weapon. Before long food supplies will fail. At their present rate of increase the whites will not have enough to- eat. .Mr Curie believes that this tragic consummation will be reached thirty years hence. Perhaps he is mistaken. Before now, prophets have negleeteed to take into sufficient account the possibilities of scientific advances. Thus in 1898 Sir William Crookes declared that the world was nearing its limit of wheat production, and that hv 19.80 the Caucasians would have to turn to other grains. Yet since he wrote new types of drought-resisting or coldresisting wheat have been evolved, improved methods of cultivation have increased productivity, and there is little likelihood that his prediction will he so soon fulfilled. Mr Curie, also, may. for the same reason, have envisaged the future in over-sombre lines. Still, even if some of his conclusions are open to criticism, he lias written a most engrossing and provocative book.