The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1919. MENACING WORLD PERILS.

Taihape Daily Times, 12 August 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1919. MENACING WORLD PERILS.

W—it~h which its incorporated “The Taih/ape Post and Waimarin-0 - News.”

Perhaps the most reniarkable book published in modern times is one written by Charles H. Pearson, ‘a foremost scholar and statesman, but too fine in moral fibre to stand the roughness of ordinary political life; The title of the book is “N.a‘tional Life and Character,” and it is in essence a forecast of the national life of most nations, and sequentially of civilisation. Nod thinker concerned with the future of his own, or of any other c'ountry,Vcan discover so much food for thought between two covers as he would find in “Naltioinal Life (and Character.” Pearson’.s- Wonderful book is brought ‘to memory by a, short -cable from New York, which states that “Fifty Chinese have joined the Sinn Fein movement, and are becoming members of the Irish Freedom Society; .tlleACvhairln~an, in welconiing the Chinese, said that every nation was rallying to the “Irish fight ‘for independence.” Now, fifty Chinese are not going to help the Irish movement, and ‘admitting them into any Irish organisatioii will be viewed by every 't.llougilltf'xrl person .'as one 0-fl those blunders that are fatal to Ireland’s best interests in the present, or .in any other future struggle for tliaxt com-

plete emancipation that true patriots, from Dan O’Connell to Parnell, have _given their live ’s work in trying to a'\ttain. It is not the Irish aspect: of the i cablegrani quoted, but the Chinese that l we are now concerned with. VVllen Peas- } son wrote that the Chinese would one i day develop into a. fighting people not inferior to any other Oriental race, there were many who were opposed to his views. He said that Chinese would probably become no wilt inferior as fighters to those other Oriental peo])lC, who have awakened into new life before t'he eyes of a wondering world, and had driven VVestern nations to confer as to whether the young civilisation of Japan is -not desltincd to alter the plans of Western diplomacy. How deeply the threatening “Yellow Peril” problem had tipubled Pearson is fully discovered in only one remarkable passage, in which he wrote: “It is now more -than probable that our science, our civilisation, our great and real advance in the practice of Government are only bringing us nearer to the ‘day when the lower races will predominate in the world, when we shall ask nothing from the day but to live, 1201' from the future but that we may not deteriorate. Even so, there will still remzlin to us ourselves.” When Pearson wrote there was little to indicate that China niiglit ever rise to become the peril that nervous minds had visaged, rather from more numbers tlyiin fronr any apparent fighting quality, latent or otherwise. He had the means, however, of obtaining the innermost facts about the Chinese people from an old pupil of his, the now famous Dl‘. Morrison, and it is not unlikely that Pearson, in forecasting the future of China, also expressed views held by his old pupil_ “Chinese Gordon” had said, that when well led the Chinese made splendid fighting men; the population of China is .t'abulously great, the people are poor, and are in--creasing. These are the epitoniisings of Pearson and Morrison,‘ as well as I of many British ofiicers. including Gor,don. It is now nearly thirty years ‘since Pearson wrote his “Forecast,” and we to-day discover hordes of Chinese B'ol.sheviks. fighting against civilisation in Russia, committing those orgies of scientific cruelty and ruthlessness that they have learned from Russia and Germany, and the latest chapter in the history of the “Yellow Peril” commences with the intelligence that fifty Chinese have been taken to the Irish hearts of Sinn Feiners, and the “Irish Freedom Soeiety_” To-day we Have abundant experience of tlfe -Chinese as soldiers. and reasoning therefrom it is not difiicult to imagine what would happen were all China armed and equipped for ~.va.“r. In helplessness to cliscover any escape from this peril, we lav it aside in our memories, but present-day thinkers have not been idle. Tho Teuton Peril has been laid, and in a .T.e-ague of Nations may be found

the key to the solution of the Yellow

‘Peril. Pearson realised in his day. I as statesmen have it forccl upon them today, that the masses‘ in foremost lcivilised nations are being callously “driven from their love of country « to the point of not caring to what they | may fall a. prey. Tt is the poor who l clutch at a crust; the drowning person l that seizes the straw, and it. is in the masses who are‘ oV"erwhelmed with cl'i'lllinal profifteering extortion, and Bolshevism, that mad-strivers for ill-gotten riches are raising up a menace to Western civilisation. There are those in New Zealand who may, on one ground or anot'h\€-'l7,“‘liot heed what Sir Joseph Ward is "endeavouring to impress upon them respecting the League of Nations. Other ‘delegates at" the Peace Conference have doubts about the usefulness of ‘a League of Nations, but t-hose luke-warm supporters are invariably found amongst the apostles of greed and Bolshevism; the more shallow -among the thinkers who took part in evolving some nleans 1 of saving civilisation. In our mostl aberrant moods we cannot conceive itl to be in the interests of civilisation to I persist in «a. course that robs a peo~‘ ple of all love for their country, um‘ til they would not voluntarily lift a hand to save it, regarding the enemy from without no less it scourge than the enemy of greed and dishonesty within. Sir Joseph Ward, with other strong advocates of .-a League of ‘Nations, sees no other method ready to, hand of bringing peace and contentment to unruly, fretting peoples of the earth, who are already casting -aside all considerations of law and order. It is obvious from the thoughtcompelling references, explanations and reasonings made by Sir Joseph \Va~:(ii since his return that, in such matters. I he ranks with the greatest‘ statesmen of other countries; We have only tel

make comparisons to convince ourselves of that fact, and, no prejudice -should be allowed to obscure that which is. Mr W. M, Hughes, the energetic Commonwealth statesman, states boldly that there are two classes who are enemies to society——Bolsheviks and pi-ofiteers—-and he, in his rough honesty says, “Damn them both.” But, Sir Joseph Ward, in his advocacy of a League of Nations, is just as strongly, but more rationally, declai-ming against those evils‘. Mr Hughes is concerned about their immediate - eflect, Sir Joseph Wa.rd about the. disastrous in-‘ fluence they have. upon civilisation, and upon the future safety» of. Western races. -Pearson-n, thirty years ago. plainly saw the ultimate ot‘ nlo‘de'rn crmrmeircialism with its deIhumanising influence tllrough absence of sympathy; he, seemingly, despaired i of hope and saw in the multi-millions 'ol‘ China the destroyer of Western icivilisaltion. He could not foretell the i outcome of the Teuton. peril, but statesmen of to-day have not that to consider, but are free‘-to evolve means of coping with t'hat rapidly growing reality, the Yellow Peril_ From what Sir Joseph Ward has stated about world problems, we are enabled. to approximately visualise the nature of his political proposals for the future. This country’s most vital interests are cen-. tred in shipping; the German combine; is strangled, but there is still ‘the virile 1 American combine, and the menacing} Japanese combine. Every success of trust, combine, or syndicate devital-I ises the nation or people who constitute the victims and renders I them less immune from any world peril that may overtake them. It I is not only essential to immediate‘ freedom from strife and social disaster that the two great curses-Bolshevisml and profit.eering——should be abolished, I but the very existence of the race and l the future of civilisaftiou demand! that such unruly, dangerous, exeresences I of modern eommerciali:<m should be‘ suppressed by a League of all pen-g ples. (A r l