The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-02-01


critical chaStisement of a candid yisito
ana the admonitions of a prophet in on
own country No need to be hysterical
Tor read from the Registrar-General o
Queensland that while in \ New Soutl
Wales the rate of illegitimacy was aboy
that in Queensland, on the other han,
the ratio for South Australia was re
markedly low.
The figures are:-Queensland 6e4
New South Wales. 6.9S South Australia
1862 But, further. 1 think it is as wei
we should know from the same sourc,
tnat although the present rate of lille
gitimacy is in excess of what formerl,
obtained, it still compares well witt
most European countries" Accoriins
to Mulhall some of them are as follows
England, 81: Germany. 81; France "a
sweden, 1O.2; Austria, 1875. 1 have beer
/ speaking particularly about the coast
country.
! On the tableland, however, the condi-
tons are better Although We have a
few exceptional elevations they are no.
used as in India for hill stations. These
Fayfer describes as resorts in which
| the European may preserve his health
and avoid the deterioration which inevi-
| tably results from protracted residence
| in the plains, where, indeed, it seems
even possible that he may take root,
thrive, and propagate his race, and for
the prospects of success are not alto
gether unfavorable, though so far no
conclusive proof is forthcoming" Our
Herberton district is high, about 5000
feet; there we have broad-chested, rosy
checked children, and the languor of
women in great measure disappears.
The interior averages perhaps only 100
feet above sea level, 1t is even now oh
vious to the open-eyed observer that the
stalwart pioneers who drove the first
cattle and sheep on to the unsettled
north country are being succeeded by
Simmer types of men. And now, if
have made plain my own belief that
white people in the tropics are beyond
"the bounds of their habitations," 1 trust
1 have in d measure succeeded in justi-
flying that belief. If 50, l submit that it
is subject claiming consideration at
this unique gathering. destined by force
of circumstances to be historical. upon
whose proceedings the intellectual eyes
of our empire are, beyond doubt with
ment turned.
1t is we'll if it can be established in the
minds of the jewellers in temperate Aus
tralia that the conditions of life and
climate in tropical Queensland are spe-
cial. 1t will be well If those facts. those
local conditions, be recognized and re-
membered by the legislator of the Com
monwealth. who will serve the best in
terests OF his country by preserving the
humility becoming to ignorance in mat
tiers affecting purely tropical questions.
if he be pardonably egotistical on all
others
1t should be the prayer of all of us
that the gentlemen soon to be commits
stoned by the Southern constituencies
will be temperate in their meddling with
tropical affairs. where experiment and
crude theory can be practiced without
a national industry by i'll
timed radical disturbance. / do not wish
to touch anything political. 1t is an
question of deep universal con-
Germ TO the whole Australian nation, the
question of how work is to be done in
the tropical plains and jungles, and that
question will no doubt be raised in the
Federal Parliament. 1t merely occurred
to me to make use of my little effort be-
fore you in attempting to draw a moral,
as it were-a. common-sense moral. And
my excuse is the sad experience we were
once forced to go through in North
Queensland. We suffered a set back
that generations will not overtake, when
a Jealous but impractical politician en-
the insensate demand of
thoughtIess democracy and raised him
self to power with the cry of mo col
ored labor in the cane brakes-perish the
sugar industry rather"
It was not the intention, 1 know to
degrade the white man. Sir Samuel
Griffith has been always influenced, I
believe, by the sincerest motives, but
poor failible man seizes an hypothesis
which suits his mental state at the mo-
ment, and hurries untimely, without as
certaining whether it is really proved or
not.
So, in a period. the Henry George pc |
Rod of revolutionary dementia, an edict |
went forth from the workingman's Cod !
lin that the harmless South Sea Islander, |
the only servile Iaborer employed up to |
the time, must cease to come to the SUI |
gar plantations of Queensland. The wor- |
ried planter, already feeling the effect |
Of the rival beet sugar that was increas- !
ing annually on the Continent, sought |
N every corner and by every means to |
prevent the strangulation of his indus |
.ry Every port, from the Congo mouth |
by Zanzibar to the extremities of the |
Malay Peninsula, sent us colored riff |
aft. and Oriental scoundrels crowded In |
~ every steamer.
Thus was precipitated the foundation |
If undesira BILE piebald population it was |
he hope of Sir Samuel Griffith to pre- |
5ent Then shortly the truth of nature !
asserted itself and facts spoke out; and |
Sir Samuel Griffith. discounted was ,
,rave enough to admit his error by per-
orming a more complete somersault |
han any parliamentary acrobat 1 have |
of.
If 1 have been gloomy, I have been |
truthful because you in the South ought !
O know US as we are, for shall we not |
Don have common interests? At the be-
Ginning of the new century We shall he |
Merged in definite nationality, the |
,arts that are scattered entities now to |
'e bound by close ties of sentiment, and
he closer ties of MISUNDERSTANDING Pa
er.
THE TELEPHONE.