November 28, 1908.]
Much useless talk has been indulged with regard to the new Regent again, as to whether he is pro-foreign," or "anti- foreign," as if that were an important matter of policy. What China needs is, of course, simply that the country and its best interests should be the first aim of her 8latesmen. China has wisely taken to heart the lesson impressed on her by misfortunes thal, there are many things necessary for her well being, that she can only learn from foreigners; but on the other hand it will be equally incumbent on her rulers to learn that there are many foreign things which the wise will equally profitably reject with disgust and loathing. Above all it will be the wisest thing of the new Regent to avoid the use of either one term or the other. and look only in his policy to the interests of the Empire itself. Foreign Powers will certainly not permit him to forget their existence, so that part of his rule will need little prompting.
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THE EDUCATION QUESTION IN ENGLAND.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT causes that rendered reform under the late perform all work of a tropicultural nature regime actually impossible. The fact was in Queensland has disappeared; the ques- notorious that practically all the principal tion is a thing of the past, and a deep thrill appointments in the Empire were merely of hope has gone through the land that the
(Daily Press, November 26.) matters of barter. This had been common | Anglo-Saxon people will reach the culmina- Situated as we are in this outpost of the enough under the later rulers of the dynasty tion of its destiny in tropical lands." Statis- Empire, happily removed from all the with whoin every post had its assesed value, tics are quoted to show the enormous sect urina jealousies and party strife which so that practically the revenuess of the expansion of sugar grown by whi e labour distract the people at home, we still watch State were as much farmed as they were in Queensland, from some 221,776 tons in with interest the attempt to reduce the under the later Roman Emperors. But 1903 to no less than 1,197,435 tons in 1906, educational chaos to something like order. of late years affairs had become worse. Over -a wonderful advance for four short years. For years there has been no problem before and above the regular a sea ment the Various reasons have from time to time the country so difficult of solution as that Eunuchs, separately and individually, had been set forth by medical scientists to concerning education. It has evoked a to be arranged with ;-and this while the support the view that tropical climates are bitterness and a rancʊur not found in the Empress Regent was all the while impressing inimical to the white man, and the pigment-ordinary political discussions of the day, on the Provinces the necessity of retrench ation of the skin of the tropical races bas fierce as they often are, and this regrettable ment. This system of vails, which, for all been regarded as the last word on the circumstance is simply due to the fact that her strength of character the Regent had the subject. What, it is asked, is this religious considerations, or rather sectarian permitted to grow up to the most outrageous pigment but a God-given protection from ealousies, underlie the whole question. dimensions within her own Court, has been the actinic or short wave rays of the sun Admittedly such a condition of affairs is the besetting sin of her alministration, the Dr. MACDONALD shows that this view will bad for all.concerned. The education of one sin, in fact, which rendered every at- not stand investigation. In the first place the young, perhaps the most important tempt at reform impracticable.
we are told that it is rather a staggering charge devolving upon the State, dues blow to this assumption to note that the Dot receive the whole-hearted attention average temperatura of Japan is the same that it merits. Other considerations as that of England, and that not a scrip of are allowed to obtrude themselves, with the islands of Japan extends into the the result that the educational system tropics. They are a non-tropical race, and of England is ia many senses as such can claim no climatic or peculiar | reproach to the nation. It is not equal fitness for occupying any tropical or sub- to the systems of America or Germany,; tropical region." We think this conclusion and it is not difficult to under- is open to argument. While it is true that stand why such keen competition should Japan is not a tropical country, and while come from the two countries named. Even it may also be true that the average temper- Sutla d is better off in this respect than ature of Japan is the same a that of the "predominant partner." The need for England (a statement which we cannot at betterment is apparent to most people but present accept as applying to Japan as a the way to this end is beset with many whole) it must be allowed that the summers difficulties. Whatever solution is offered of Japan are far better samples of "tropical" must have regard to existing rights, aud weather than England can furnish. We that is the rock on which so many schemes doubt if Dr. MACDONALD Would get from have been wrecked. anyone who has lived in Japan-at all events in Central Japan--any support for his assertion that the English agricultural labourer is equally as well qualified as the Japanese so far as climatic experience goes for work in tropical countries. He certainly is not.
Reverting, however, to the colour question, Dr. MACDONALD'S olservations are that the Chinese, who are inhabitants of a country with a bigher average temperature (Daily Press, November 25th.)
than that of Japan are neverthel-es several The idea is very commonly entertained that degrees lighter in colour than the Japanese. the white man can ́t live and thrive in the Again, if skin pigmentation or colour is tropical regions of the earth under any an adaptation to sunlight, we may well ask other than what have been termed why are the Eskimos, inhabitants of the "aristocratic conditions,”—that is to say con- Arctic regions, brown in colour, or the Fiu- ditions similar to those prevailing in India landers dusky, the Indians of the American and the Far East where the white races and Canadian prairies red, the Maories of supply the brains, the capital and the New Zealand black, and the Eugens from organising power and leave the unskilled and the icelound straits of Magellan, black, or manual labour to be done by the indigenous why are some of the races of India, the so- Taces. This belief, we notice, has recently called Dravidians, much darker in colour been strongly attacked by an Aust alian than many other races of India wh bave physician, Dr. T. P. MACDONALD, who has equally been exposed for countless genera lived and practised for many years in the tions to the same bot sun?" This seems to bottest parts of Queensland. In a lecture effectually explode the colour the ry of geo- del vered at the London School of Tropical graphical distribution. Dr. MACDONALD's Medicine he affirmed most emphatically own theory of colour is that the pigment of that there is no essential reason why a the skin corresponds to the place in time of white Northern race should not flourish in the races, the blackest skins being found in the hottest and most "tropical" parts of that the most primitive and backward races, and country. The Doctor's interest in the subject that between the coal black skin of the chim was apparently excited by the alleged exist-panzee. our remote cousin, and the skin of ence in Japan of a party which is strongly of the white races there is a spectrum of colour opinion that the Japanese race is ultimately according to the degrees of lightness of shade destined to colonise and control a large which correctly indicate the degree of the portion of Northern or tropical sustralia, evolution of the race, and its distance from while in Europe there is said to be an its remote anthropoi 1 origin, Pigment,
uneasy feling" that the island-contineut says Dr. MACDONALD, "is dissolved by time is not adapted by Nature for the production out of the human skin. Climate plays no or continuance of a vigorous white race. part in the operation." The whi e races are Dr. MACDONALD says that the recent history the elder brothers of the human race "the of Australia supplies an unanswerable beirs of all the ages, in the foremost files of refutation of this theory. "In Australia," | time. " This is a very interesting theory, he says, opp sition to the main contention but we fancy it is one which antiquarian of the people that they could and would research does not tend to confirm.
THE WHITE RACE IN TROPICAL COUNTRIES.
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The Education Act of 1870 made educa- tion compulsory, but unfortunately it made the establishment of School Boards optional. The inevitable happened. Tue denomina- tionalists refused to give up their schools, and School Boards. were found competing with denominational schools. It Was sorry state of affairs. Then came the Act of 1902, which imperfect as it was, had the merit of introducing some
sort of sys- tem where none existed. It co-orinated both elementary and higher education and it place all the schools under an authority. Of course the Non-con- formists did not like the Act. But neither did the parish priests. Tue Non-conformista felt they had a grievance in having as rate payers to contribute to the teaching in schools other than their own of dogmas to which, they objected overlooking tue fict that the cost of the secular education in their own schools which they had proviously to pay was now thrown on the community. Ou the other haud the parish priest and his school managers were shorn of many of their o d privileges, and the Roman Catho lics bad also to come under secular authority from which they had hitherto been free. Still, imperfect as it was, the Act introduced a better system of education. It was also responsible for the appearance of the Pas. sive Resisters, a body whose actions were never free from bathos, and who were distinguished for that intolerance of. which they themselves complained. The long delayed return of the Liberal party to office in 1916 gave rise to ar leut hopes that the grievances created by the Act of 1903 would be removed. Mr. BIBBELL introduced an Educational Bill that year and after a stormy passage through the House of Commons it was rejected by the House of Lords. Its primary objects were public control of schools, establish- ment of ́undenominational teaching and Lthe abolition of religious tests for teachers.
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