A WORLD-WIDE COLOR LINE 475 



To these influences should be added the diseases, before unknown, 

 which the whites have carried with them. Tuberculosis, small-pox, 

 syphilis and alcoholism have proved peculiarly destructive to primitive 

 peoples accustomed to a mode of life which brings the effect of such 

 diseases to a maximum. Until proper medical service and adequate 

 sanitary safeguards are secured, this heavy penalty for the fruits of 

 civilization must continue to be paid. The change to a settled, orderly 

 mode of living and to a new food economy may also often bring about 

 a physical deterioration as baneful as specific diseases. 



European colonization in regions occupied by backward races often 

 results in the violent destruction of native populations in the struggle 

 for territory. The Dutch settlers in South Africa are said to have re- 

 garded " shooting off the black stuff " as their first task in fitting the 

 land for occupation. Whatever the government may have intended, it 

 is certain that the English colonists in Australia have in many in- 

 stances deliberately slaughtered the blacks on the pretext of safety. 

 Writing of conditions as they existed thirty years ago, Carl Lumholtz 

 says : 



There are instances where the young men of the station have employed the 

 Sunday in hunting the blacks, not only for some definite purpose, but also for 

 the sake of the sport; the blacks have been killed by poison. A squatter at 

 Long Lagoon in the interior of Queensland achieved notoriety by laying strych- 

 nine for the blacks, and thus taking the life of a large number in a single day. 

 . . . The 'result of this is that in the frontier districts there is still being waged 

 a war of extermination between the two races. Any savage discovered by the 

 white man runs the risk of being shot. Poison was laid in the way of the blacks 

 once while I was in Queensland. 3 



In certain instances like Tasmania and Cuba, European coloniza- 

 tion has led to the complete extinction of the aboriginal population as 

 a separate group, and in other instances, like those of the Maoris of 

 New Zealand and the Hottentots, the native population has been very 

 greatly depleted. Most of these disastrous results have come to peoples, 

 generally blacks, in the lowest stages of culture. Where the aborigines 

 are more advanced and hence more pliable they have usually profited 

 by contact with Europeans. As a consequence several colored races are 

 now enjoying considerable prosperity, due to the removal of the worst 

 checks to their growth. The negroid peoples exhibit an amazing power 

 of multiplication when protected from destructive forces. Negrophobe 

 critics are wont to go so far as to hold that this is the sole important 

 capacity which the blacks possess. The race is taunted with being by 

 nature and capacity proletarii in the most primitive sense of the term 

 — mere breeders. 



While the yellow races are not so characteristically prolific as the 

 blacks, they have, in several conspicuous instances, emerged on the 

 modern field not only with a more elaborate culture, but with a denser 



8 Lumholtz, "Among Cannibals," pp. 346-347. 



