PRESTIGE FALLS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 623, 27 March 1929, Page 6

PRESTIGE FALLS

WHITE RACES NOT SUPERIOR THE EAST AWAKENS “The Great War and its aftermath, more than anything else, has contributed to the collapse of the old belief in the prestige of the white races,” said Professor J. B. CondlifCe, of the Institute of Pacific Relations, in an address on “The Clash of Civilisations in the Pacific,” at the University College last evening. The legend of the superior white race was completely exploded in the Far Fast, said the speaker. So far as the word "Orient” was used to designate the yellow race as a whole, the word was a misnomer, continued the professor. There was no possibility of a pan-asiatic movement such as people talked about. The gap between China ' and Japan was greater than between j either of them and any other country. The coming of the industrial age j was bringing the Fast into greater prominence. China was moving. It j had been shaken from its old moorings i and its people were migrating. The 1 speaker said he had seen the migration of 1,000,000 farmers from Northern China to the plains of Manchuria and though this was the greatest migration in history, the same thing was going on all over China. Disorder inevitably followed, but it must bo remembered that a band of men were trying to lead China to something new*. They were not building an old China, but were trying to build it new China along the lines of American democracy. This was a colossal tusk, but these men, the leaders of the Nationalists, had the support of the overwhelming majority of the educated classes and of an even greater majority of the younger people of China, of both sexes. Revolutions launched by disappointed generals were common and were featured as news, but the quiet solid work of the Nationalists was not brought into prominence. There were also men who were leading China into factory development, and they were probably doing more in the rebuilding tlian the politicians and the warring generals. Though Japan was paying the price of its rapid industrial progress, there was no doubt of the solidity of that development. Japan was developing a sound system of education also. Those who saw in the Pacific a grim relentless fate, did not have their minds on the future. Perhaps the forces now developing would overwhelm us, hut the Institute of Pacific Relations believed there was no force or movement that could not be controlled by human beings who were willing to go right to the heart of things. Sir George Fowlds presided. Professor Oondliffe was accorded a vote of thanks for his address.