THE ASIATIC MENACE.

 "The Rising Tide of Color Against White-World Supremacy." By Lothrop Stoddard, A.M., Ph.D. with an introduction by Madison Grant. 

That the utmost anxiety is felt in the United States concerning the growing strength of Japan, has been very evident of recent years. The thesis of the author of this book, who is a distinguished graduate of Harvard University, and the author of several well-known books on international subjects, is that the white supremacy of the world is in danger, and that the threat of the colored races is a very real one. Under these circumstances, one would imagine that Americans, who, to a large extent, appear to share his fears, would show more practical sympathy with Great Britain in the difficulties she is encountering in respect to the government of Egypt, India, and Mesopotamia, to say nothing of the complications which have arisen in regard to former Turkish possessions nearer Constantinople. America had much to say concerning the persecutions of the Armenians, but she has done little or nothing to assist in their protection. Mr. Madison Grant, who writes the introduction to the present volume, is also a man of standing in America, and one of the books he has written is significantly entitled "The Passing of the Great Races."

 "More than a decade ago," says Mr. Stoddard, "I became convinced that the keynote of 20th century world politics would be the relations between the primary races of mankind." He refers to the fact that before the great war broke out, he wrote of the coming "conflict of color," and declared that great communities like the United States of America, the South African Confederation, and Australasia, regarded the color question as the gravest problem of the future. The frightful weakening of the white world during the war, he fears, has opened up revolutionary, even cataclysmic possibilities. He believes, however, that colored triumphs of arms subjugating white lands are even "less to be dreaded than more enduring conquests, like migrations, which would swamp whole populations and turn countries, now white, into colored men's lands irretrievably lost to the world." He considers that a candid discussion of the issues raised should be helpful at this juncture.

 Mr. Grant, in his introduction, summarises the biological and historical background of the subject. "To some," he says, "this book may seem unduly alarming, while others as the thread of logic unrolls may recoil from the logic of the deductions." If the predictions of Mr. Stoddard's book seem far-fetched, Mr. Grant reminds Americans, one has but to consider that four times since the fall of Rome has Asia conquered to the very confines of Nordic Europe. The backbone of Western civilisation, he asserts, is racially Nordic, and if this great race, with its capacity for leadership and fighting, should ultimately pass, with it would pass that which we call civilisation. As a safeguard he calls on the Nordic races to "strike off the shackles of an inveterate altruism, discard the vain phantom of internationalism, and reassert the pride of race and the right of merit to rule."

 The great hope of the future in America, continues Mr. Grant, lies in the realisation of the working class that competition of the Nordic with the alien is fatal, whether the latter be the lowly immigrant from southern or eastern Europe, or the more obviously dangerous Oriental, against whose standards of living the white man cannot compete.

 "We must look to such of our people— our farmers and artisans—as are still of American blood to recognise and meet this danger. Our present condition is the result of following the leadership of idealists and philanthropic doctrinaires, aided and abetted by the perfectly understandable demand of our captains of industry for cheap labor. Now that Asia in the guise of Bolshevism with Semitic leadership and Chinese executioners, is organising an assault upon Western Europe, the new States —Slavic-Alpine in race, with little Nordic blood —may prove to be not frontier guards of Western Europe, but vanguards of Asia in Central Europe. None of the earlier Alpine States have held firm against Asia, and it is more than doubtful whether Poland, Bohemia, Roumania, and Jugo-Slavia can face the danger successfully, now that they have been deprived of the Nordic ruling classes through democratic institutions. Democratic ideals among a homogeneous population of Nordic blood, as in England and America, are one thing, but it is quite another for the white man to share his blood with, or entrust his ideals to, brown, yellow, black, or red men. This is suicide pure and simple, and the first victim of this amazing folly will be the white man himself."

 Mr Stoddard is very much in earnest in his statement of the case for serious thought and resolute action. He divides his book into three parts—The Rising Tide of Color, the Ebbing Tide of White, and the Deluge on the Dikes—and he provides a copious index. Added interest is lent to the book by his quotation of the arguments in favor of a White Australia. He quotes Professor C. H. Pearson, well known in Australia over 30 years ago, and other trenchant writers. He also reproduces assertions by Asiatic and other colored writers. Professor Ryntaro Nagai (Japan) before the war wrote:— "The world was not made for the white races, but for the other races as well. In Australia, South Africa, Canada, and the United States there are vast tracts of unoccupied territory." Achmet Abdullah, an English-educated Afghan, shortly before the European war, inveighed against "racial prejudice, that cowardly, wretched caste-mark of the European, and the American, the world over," and predicted "a struggle between Asia, all Asia, against Europe and America. . . . An invasion of a new Attila and Tamerlane, who will use rifles and bullets, instead of lances and spears." The impassioned Afghan proceeds:—"You are deaf to the voice of reason and fairness, and so you must be taught with the whirring swish of the sword that is red."

 When the great war broke out, says Mr. Stoddard, '"through the bazaars of Asia ran the sibilant whisper, 'The East will see the West to bed.' The chorus of mingled exultation, hate, and scorn sounded from every portion of the colored world. Chinese scholars, Japanese professors, Hindu pundits. Turkish journalists, and Afro-American editors, one and all voiced drastic criticisms of white civilisation, and hailed the war as a well-merited Nemesis on white arrogance and greed." He quotes copious extracts from writings to prove his assertion. He points to the threatened anarchy in Egypt, and the unrest in India, despite "the fairness, honesty and general efficiency" of English rule, Mr. Stoddard lays stress also on the onward march of Islamism in Africa, and the growing sense of negro race "solidarity,'' but asserts that the real danger to white control of Africa lies not in brown attack or black revolt, but in possible white weakness, through chronic discord within the white world itself. The same remark is made in regard to Latin America, where with unity "white victory is sure."

 Mr. Stoddand draws from Professor Pearson many arguments concerning the adaptability of the Chinese and their capacity to work hard and live frugally. He quotes Professor Ross as saying that under good conditions the white man can beat the yellow man in turning out work, but under bad conditions the Chinese can beat the white man, because he can better endure spoiled food, poor clothing, foul air, noise, heat, dirt, discomfort, and microbes. Reilly can '"out-do"' Ah San, but Ah San can "under-live" Reilly. Mr. Stoddard tells of the startling growth of the Japanese in California and declares "the fruitfulness of the Japanese brides is almost uncanny." First come the men, then the picture brides, then the families. Two children of Japanese parentage are born in some districts of California for every white child! "And let not Europe, the white brood land, the heart of the white world, think itself immune," he cries. Mr. Stoddard repeats with enthusiasm the "White Australia" slogan, which "is not a political theory, but a gospel" He urges that some sort of provisional understanding should be arrived at between the white world and the renascent Asia. "Unless some such understanding is reached," he fears, "the world will drift into a gigantic race war." He also desires to limit the migration of lower human types (whites) into the United States, as "such migrations upset standards, sterilise better stocks, increase low types, and compromise national fitness more than war, revolutions, or native deterioration. "Such are the things which simply must be done if we are to get through the next few decades without convulsions which may render impossible the white world's recovery."

Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931), Saturday 16 April 1921,