NOW AND THEN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 75, 5 April 1913, Page 5

NOW AND THEN.

SNTERNATSONAL HISTORY CONGRESS. THE WORLD IX A XEW SENSE. INTERESTING 1X AUGURAL ADDRESS. [By Electric Telegraph—Copyright] [United Press Association.] London, April 4. The International History Congress is meeting at Lincoln’s Inn. The Hon. James Bdyce, the president, being detained at Washington, his inaugural address was read. In the course of his address, Mr Bryce says that, travelling in India, Africa, America and Australasia, he

saw the smaller, weaker, and more backward races changing under impact with civilised man. Their religious beliefs were withering, and their customs were fading. Some, like the Maoris, were being absorbed into the white population. The world was becoming one in a new sense. With the exception of China and Japan, almost the entire earth was controlled by six European races. Eight Powers swayed the political destinies of the globe. By the year 2000, nine-tenths of the human race would speak less than 20 languages. Already there were only four great religions. Nowadays, whatever happened in any part of tho earth had significance everywhere, including industrial disputes, and tho money markets. Fin-

ance, even more than politics, made :ho world a single community. The world’s history was tending to become one history. The historian of the future would need an amplitude of conception and a power of grouping figures like Tintoretti or Michael Angelo, if he was to handle <o vast a canvas. Students of history were especially called upon to try to reduce tiro sources of international ill-feeling. Historians knew how few wars were necessary.