THE GAME OF LIFE

Hokitika Guardian, 23 July 1931, Page 2

THE GAME OF LIFE

ALAN’S RACIAL BIRTHRIGHT

,SIR ARTHUR, KEITH’S VIEWS

LONDON, June 12. Sir Arthur Keith delivered his Rectorial Address at the University of Aberdeen, his subject being “Ihe Place of Prejudice jin Modern Civilisation.” •Some of his main points were: The cost of maintaining our racialised world is a continuation of inter-tribal rivalries and eternal competition. Nature keeps her human orchard healthy by pruning ■ war is her pruning hook. The English-speaking peoples become more and more custodians of peace. The -national heart must never master the natonal head. “The heart of modern civilised man,’’ said Sir Arthur, “i 9 still alive with the instinctive longings, desires, and prejudices of tribal man. "The unrest of the modern world is not a disorder of the head, but of the heart. Modern man is struggling to adapt his Inheritance from a pre-historic tribal past to the economic needs of the modern world. Mankind is more in need of a racial physician than jn any of its many, previous maladies. “The world to-day is a bed of sickness, and there is no lack of physicians standing round the patient. The peoples of Scotland, England and Ireland are on that bed : all the nationalities of Europe are there; nay. aR mml.-ind is on it. Let us listen lu>.i i<> <mu- , gytd physicians; they assure ns there call never be health in our modern world until all mankind sleeps under the same tribal blanket.

“Can this dream of an un-itr'bal world, .free for ever from war, be realised? I-o obtain universal and perennial peace you must also reckon the- price you will have to pay for it. The price is the racial birthright that Nature has bestowed on you. To attain such an ideal world peoples of all countries and continents must pool not only their national •nterests, but they must also pool their bloods.- ,

“Black, brown, yellow and white must give and take in marriage, and distribute in a common ' progeny the inheritance which each has come by in their uphill struggle through the- leagues of prehistoric time towards the present.

RACE PREJUDICE

“If this scheme of universal deracialisation ever becomes before you as i» matter of practical politics—as the sole way of establishing peace and goodwill in all partß of our world, I feel certain both head and heart will rise against it.

"Race prejudice has to be given a recognised' place in our modern civilisation. You may demand of me whether I have reckoned the cost of maintaining our racialised World. • Yes, I have, It means the continuation of Nature's old scheme of iriter-criba] rivalries and eternal competition. “Without competition mankind can never progress; the price of progress is competition, nay, race prejudice and, what is the same thing, national antagonism, has to be purchased, not with gold, but with life, "Nature throughout the past has demanded that a people who seek independence as well as peace can obtain these privileges only in one way—by being prepared to sacrifice their blood to secure them.

“Nature keeps her human orchard healthy by pruning; wav is her pruninghook. We cannot dispense with her services; This harsh and repugnant forecast of man’s future is wrung from me. The future of my dreams is a warless world.

THE FUTURE OF MAN

‘My ominous forecast of man’s future is not based solely upon my studies of the. prehistoric world, nor on my analysis of the inheritance which has come down to us from that world. .It is supported by what .is now happening in every part of our globe.

“There is a movement on foot now which is the reverse of the' one which brought the League of Nations into being. The leaguist movement seeks for the universal dominance of the 1 good or altruistjc side of our tribal tmt'ire. “Self-determination, <m t|y other hand, encourages the power to ha+ r as well as the power to love. 4u • ks to resuscitate the tribal heart with all its prejudices; it likes and its dislikes. This separatist (self determinist) movement is stirring the blood of peoples in every part of the world at the present time.

“Man’s tribal heart finds itself at war with the conditions of modern civiljsaton, and seeks to reassert isejf, Two cures are proposed for its restoration.— leaguism and determinism. Both remedies, I believe are more difficult to swallow and assimilate than the disorders they are called in to cure. ‘<What, - then, do I advise? This: Give our prejudices a place in our civilisation, but keep them under the control of reason."

At the conclusion of his address, Sir Arthur 'Keith was carried shoulder high from the Mitchell Hall to H.M.S. Wrecktor ia, a miniature battleship on wheels. .Sitting on top of this strong vehicle, be was borne through several of the principal streets, followed by a cheering crowd of students.