CAN ANGLO-SAXONS COLONIZE THE TROPICS ?
TO TIED EDITOR Or THE " SPEcTATOR."]
should be very much obliged if any of your readers who are familiar with the tropics would give me their opinion'
as to whether there is any hope of the successful and per- manent settlement of British-born or descended people in regions between Cancer and Capricorn. At the present time, the subject of the colonization of the Northern Territory of Australia has come into the realm of practical politics, and there are many in the Commonwealth, including those in authority, who insist that only Anglo-Saxons, or, failing them, Northern Europeans, such as Danes and Swedes, should be encouraged to go and settle there. I have very grave doubts whether a population which will have to work hard in the open throughout the year can be drawn from the Anglo-Saxon race, especially as the wives and children of the workers will have to remain continuously in the tropics. I should be glad, how- ever, to know from those who have had experience of such places as the West Indies, British Guiana, Mauritius, Ceylon, and India, where will probably be found persons of pure British or Northern European descent whose forefathers have resided for several generations in the tropics, what is the physical, mental, and moral condition of such people P Have they retained all the virility and capacity for work of their ancestors, or do they show signs of deterioration P How do the women and children compare with those who have been born and bred in the British Isles P I am convinced that the Commonwealth Government is attempting a costly and disastrous experiment in seeking to transplant people from the temperate regions to the tropics, and in rejecting the opportunity of obtaining a large number of desirable colonists from Malta, which is a sub-tropical country, and whose inhabitants therefore would be much better adapted for settlement on the hot river flats of Northern Australia than any blond Northern European could possibly be. Thanking my informants in anticipation, I am, Sir, &c., RICHARD ARTHUR, M.D. Edin.
Parliament House, Sydney.
October 7th, 1912.
[The Crusaders who settled in Palestine were said to have lost their northern energy and moral by the third generation. It has been suggested, however, that the matter is largely one of mosquitoes. The white man is more liable to be devoured by the malaria-carrying mosquito than the black, and succumbs, it is said, not to the sun-heat, but to the fever drilled into him by the insect. How far this view is true we cannot, however, venture to decide.—ED. Spectator.]
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