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Salient. The Newspaper of Victoria University College. Vol. 20, No. 5. June 14, 1956
[Introduction]
"The domination of the world by North-western Europe during the last four or five hundred years is an abnormal state. We are seeing in our lifetime, with the reawakening of Asia, a return to a normal state, with the centre of the world more to the East."
This was the main point made by Dr. Arnold Toynbee in the first W. E. Collins Memorial Lecture, given in at VUC on Wednesday, May 23. A crowd of over five hundred gave this notable historian a warm welcome when he rose to talk on "the impact on the Commonwealth and Empire of an awakening and developing Asia."
The "abnormal" ascendancy of the Atlantic seaboard of Europe during the last five hundred years, Dr. Toynbee said, is a result of the enterprise of the sailing ships of Portugal. Ships like these can be at sea for an indefinite time. They do not need refueling bases, and so they can go even where the way has not been prepared ahead.
N.W. Europe's supremacy was a marvellous feat, and has knit the human race together, though superficially. The world is very nearly one economically, but not so spiritually. But in time mankind must draw closer together. The alternative consequence is too terrible.