The Half Caste

The commonly held idea that intermarriage between members of different races must result badly was also scouted. If the health and vigour of both partners is good the results should be good. Social attitudes are to blame for any ill-effects. This is illustrated by the difference between the observed results of Chinese-European unions in Shanghai, where they are looked down upon, and in Hawaii, where they are regarded as quite normal.

The Pacific provides excellent conditions for understanding race-mixture. There are examples of contacts ending in all three of the possible ways—extermination, resistance, and compromise. Extermination like that of the Tasmanians and South American Indians is very probably occurring to-day in the Japanese mandated islands like the Marshalls.

The lecturer made a plea for greater understanding on the part of the dominant race where compromise had to take place. He pointed out how vitally affected native peoples were by the changes the white man had brought about in fields such as those of economics, warfare and religion, instancing especially all that was involved in doing away with such main-pins of the social structure as the highly-ceremonial custom of headhunting, and the shock to the natives on discovering that Christian missionaries brought a new moral code as well as a new religion. All these problems required not merely theoretical but soundly practical treatment on our part.

Though there was a fair attendance, one would have expected to see more students at this series of lectures. Older people seemed to compose quite half of last Tuesday's audience. It was, of course, examination week, and the night was unusually bad, but surely students are no less vitally concerned in Pacific problems than their elders.

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