Destructive Man at the End of His Tether.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 26 June 1914, Page 2

Destructive Man at the End of His Tether.

The most ravenously destructive creature that ever lived is Man. Rightly regarding himself as lord of creation, he has behaved like a wanton tyrant instead of a wise master, trilling his fellow-creatures for his food, to supply clothes and other wants, slaughtering them for amusement, massacreing them to supply his craving for ornament, cutting down the vegetation to feed his paper factories, to make room for his cities, to supply him with building material ; digging the minerals out from the earth, all with reckless carelessness of inevitable results, he has only now begun to realise that this era of wholesale destruction is rapidly approaching its close. The end must come, because before long there will be nothing left to destroy.

Man has behaved as if he-were at war with nature, forgetting or ignoring the fact that he is merely a part of a great well-balanced scheme of things and that if he upsets this balance has children and his grandchildren will be the sufferers.

Many species of animals, like the dorio and the auk, have already faeen exterminated by man. Other species, like the buffalo and the seal, have been almost exterminated, and man is tardily trying to preserve the few that are left. The same is true of our forests. The consequence of all of this improvidence and waste is that food and clothing are yearly becoming more and more difficult to get, and more and more costly.

And now, looking forward to the day when there will be no more natural food left, the chemists are

seekfhg ways to make foods by transforming the energy of sunlight. Only then will man do without animals and plants.