REV. J. W. BURTON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10152, 31 January 1911, Page 5

REV. J. W. BURTON.

"Public Opinion" has something to say about the Rev. J. W. Burton, who is lecturing in IVlastei-ton to-night The pictures in "The Fiji of To-day," ; by the Rev. J. W. Burton, ate exceptionally good and show us som6 fine hpecimens of humanity. One has the inscription, "Is he not worth saving?" and there can be only one answer. Mr A. J. Small, who writes an introduction, says that Mr Burton's two conclusions are (1) the prime need of industrial education to enable the cus-tom-swathed native to arrive, at length at complete social emanciption; and, secondly, the necessity of a more thoroughly intellectual cultivation, that spiritual truths may strike their roots more deeply into character. ( Mr Burton takes a wide view of the significance of the future of Fiji. "The demands of civilisation." he says, "are such as to more and more exclude the drones from the great hive; and now that this spirit" is coming to the Pacific no exception

can be expected, . .. . The Pacific is the natural order for the pent-up pressure of human life. . . Japan, with its crowded cities and infertile mountain sides, cannot fail: to notice the uninhabited richness of these island' groups. . . . The once isavage tribes: indigenous to these lands can only play a very secondary part in the great drama which the Zeitgeist is about to stage."