THE AUSTRALIAN TYPE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 405, 14 December 1932, Page 2

THE AUSTRALIAN TYPE

INTERESTING SURVEY ENGLISH STOCE UNDER NEW ENVIRONMENT WIDENING DIFFERENCES With every generation we — the Australians — depart ftirther from the mental and physieal characteristies of our ancestry, the British migrant stoclc. Is this a temporary modification? Or will we become a "race," as alien to thp British as the Malays or Japanese (writes H. C. Macky in the Sydney Sun-Guardian). "What is race ? The scientist supplies a neat classification : f our'or five main* stocks, with crossings and admixtures. Why is race ? The scientist gets confused and shuffles out various answers.

In Australia we have one of the I most interesting experiments ever carried out on, this earth. In other niigrations to new countries the original settlers soon become mingled in a huge melting pot of nationalities, as in the United States. In Australia the stoclc has remained 95 per cent. British, But already the Austrajian is not a replica (either physically or mentally) of the Briton. He has begun to change. The interesting prohlem he is unconsciously solving is one which' for years has been bitterly disputed amongst scientists — whether a particular race, say, the Chinese, became so through environment, or whether there was a separate potentia1ly-Chin-ese from the first. isot so long ago scientists did not recognise the problem. They answered glihly hy "natural selection." Put a primitive race in the tropics (they said) and those whose skins were slightly darlcer stood sunhurn better, and so had a greater survival value. These surviving brunettes would intermarry, and again the darker of their off spring would survive, till finally the negro would automatically emerge as a permanency. Similarly with other racial characteristies. Towards the poles, races getting less sunlight would develop partial albinism (bleaching), and so on. These scientists saw in racial differentiation a slow, automatic • process resembling that which man hims'elf has quickly, and of intention, brought about in breeding the bulldog and the racehorse. Became Shaky. Then prehistoric skulls were dug up, and the theory became shaky. Right back to the time when the first traces of man appear, there are still distinct races of man. Some differ even more than modern races — the Neanderthal and the Cro-Magnon races for instance, who (for a time, at least) were contemporaneous. So scientists went to the other extreme and postulated four (some say five) main branches of evolution from ! ape-like hnman ancestors, and spe1 cified Caucasian, Mongoloid, N'sgro, ! rroto-Australian, or other classificai tions as a result.

I If this were so, of course, each ! group, hred with Pself, should "breed | true." The English race, for instance, 1 is a blend of allied Caucasian strains, which has become stabilised to a racial ! type over the last 500 years. Trans■planted to Australia and interbred with itself it should reproduce this typ'e and nothing else. . But it does not. Though there is j not complete data to . go on, figurss are available for infants, school-child-ren, and males of the age of military I training. Physieal measurements show that young Australians differ marlcedly from English children. The late Prof. Brailsford Robertson, of Adelaide, made a detailed study of there differ ences, and showed that while the Australian child is heavier at birth than the English, it later grows less hulky in proportion to stature, that is, th'e adult Australian is a taller, leaner type. This, of course, is a matter of general remark. "Tall, hatchet-faced colonials," was a frequent description of Australian soldiers in London during . the war, while to an Australian at first j sight the chief charaeteristic of an 1 English migrant is his stocky form j and "pudding face." There are other minor details, such as proportionately ! larger hands and feet in the Briton, J greater development of the muscles > of trunk and thigh in the Australian, i and so on. But the greatest divergence of -all is found in the mentality. How "We Differ. It is, of course, Sifficult for Australians to recognise their own racial traits. Apart from unconscious bias, our isolation gives us no scale of com- , parison. Outsiders ,especially Eng- i lishmen) however, have frequently summed up the differences between the parent race and the "Colonials," and hackecl with Australian experience of Englishmen, a fair parallel may he drawn. The Australian is more resourceful, and has more initiative; at the same time he is self-assertive, often exasperatingly so. This is prohably a defensive assertiveness, due to isolation and laclc of tradition. He is parochial; he thinks the world rotates round his corner of the Pacific. But this, as Prof. Robertson has pointed out, is merely British insularity translated to another sphere. He suffers from laclc of imagination, which malces him quite fearless. He is quicker-minded than the Briton, that is, quicker to seize a situation; so much so that several English critics of the Australiaif, as s'een in the rough a,t the war, credited him with "low cunning." He is far more easy-going generally than, the Briton. The latter does not understand this. "Easy-going" to him is a symbol of laziness, and he is perp.etually surprised at the fact that the Australian can equal or surpass him at work or play. There are also more) profound and suhtle differences, difficult to define. Axtitude to life differ. Very often an Australian associating with an Englishman feels lilce a grown man humouring a child. Conversely, the Englishman, who has learnt through' centuries to play the fool lightly, according to a formula, is astonished at the hitter mordapt hum,our of the . easy-going Australian. The latter has reaeted to his environment. He is at heart a fatalist, and his wit it tipped ) with irony. The side-issue of th'e "Australian

accent" (really a rough intonation, and changes of vowel), raises an important point. Good or had, it is spoken throughout our continent, and is already firmly established. The Englishman dislikes it, as he dislikes the American mode of speech, but the latter and the Australian mode are national, and spread over millions of square miles. The Briton has no national speech, only a score of dial'ects, many almost unintelligible beyond their county of origin. Infiuence of Environment. Much will depend on environment. Gan climate and food change the charaeter of a nation? Strangely enough Prof. Ellsworth Huntingdon, th'e American authority on this subject, who insists that climate has shaped national character in past history, denies its effect on Australians. He ascribes all the differences between Australians and the average Briton to selection. The early migrants, he says, were picked men and women. They were of the type fitted to undergo physieal hardships. Weaker types did not emigrate, or if they did, died before they reprodueed their kind. Similarly all the mental traits of modern Australians, such as resonrcefulness and independence, are handed down from these picked migrants. Environment, so far (argues Huntingdon) has had little eff ect, and when it does affect our nation may have a weakening result. There is another aspect. In heredity there is a peculiar mechanism, first designed hy Bateson, called "unpaclcing," or, as the layman calls it, "throwing pack." Now the Australian of British ancestry eomes of • a race that has been crossed hy dozens of others. Early Britons (Welsh), Keltie, and non-Kel-tic races of Ireland and Scotland, Romans, Angies, Saxons, I^anes, and Normans, are represented in his blood. Who can guess which, singly or in mixture, will he unpacked as the new ehemical environments (minerals in drinlcing water, soil-constituents which cnter his animal and vegetable food) react on his heredity ? Tallness already seems to have definitely emerged, which may be the unpacking of an ancestral race-factor. i Comparitive leanness may have a si- : milar origin.

In spite of Huntingdon's pessimistic forecast re climate, the work of Dr. Cilento on the effect of the Australian tropical climate upon children and adults in Townsville shows that it is groundless. "^he high physieal standard that has emerged there has been lcept up in the younger generations. Slight changes in the blood, and temporary increase of temperature after strenuous exercise sum the whole effect of environment, and appear to he rath'er beneficial than otherwise — at least, North Queensland children are as healthy as the best picked classes of Europe and America. The Ray Theory. An entirely new hypotbesis emerges as a result of recenj; investigation of "cosmic rays." These days are showered down on the earth continuously from above. It was once thought they came from outer space, and were invariable. Recent experiments show they are born in the upper atmosphere. Prof. Compton, a famous American j)hysicist, was here a few months ago to measure Australia's share. (This is done on a mountain-top, where the rays are, so to spealc, undiluted). He found it was above the average. Similar high readings were found in the Caucusus and parts of California. Now every living person on the earth gets a bath of cosmic rays every moment of the day. They penetrate walls, roofs, clothing, and human bodies. As soon as a child is conceived the rays begin to course through it. These rays are 144 times more penetrating than the fiercest radium ray issued by physicians to treat cancei% By the time these rays reach th'e lower atmosyhere, where human beings live, they have become "softened" to ordinary X-rays. Nevertheless they are still active. The full significance of this activity is shown in | recent experiments with insects. If j insect-eggs are subjected to X-rays j when hatehing, new varieties of that species of insect are produced — with longer or shorter wings, change of size, diffierence of colours, and so on. Using radium rays (in this case the insects were hatched in a tunnel of radio-active rock another variety was created. These varieties were absolutely new cre.ations — they did not exist on the earth till Man created them with Xrays. Th'e analogy with cosmic rays is obvious. If these vary with loeality, the effect on the unhorn child may he ''to produce those changes which cause variation, otherwise the creation of a new race.

Changing Already. All the original differentiation of the ape-man into racial types may have dependecE on the strength of th'e rays in the places where he roamed; and to-day the changes taking place in the Australians may he a similar effect. ' ' . Anyhow here we are, a race of European ancestry in a strange environment, changing already in the course of a few generations. What our eventual destiny may be is one of the absorhing problems of the future. T'he effect of gland secretions on racial type h'as become a subject -of great interest lately, because it has been found that in children of white

ancestry, "Mongoloid" characteristies now and again appear. These infants are born with the almond eyes and high cheek-bones charaeteristic of the Chinese, Japanese, and other races of Eastem Asia. There are two such white Mongoloids at Glenfield Private School, and several in Newcastle Mental Hospital. Some deficieney in the pituitary gland is believed responsihle, as such cases improve on doses of qnterior pituitary extract. In Asia, there may he some modifying effect on the gland, due to mineral contents of the soil or drinking water. The parents of the 'Sydney Mongoloid children!' (one father is a well-known business man) are of pure white ancestry.