rKKSJDENT S ADDRESS. 9 



ing to the people as men and women, and not merely as Scottish 

 folk, with the result that Scotland has contributed to. and shared 

 in, the advance which the past century has brought to the British 

 Empire to an extent far beyond her proportionate numbers ; 

 while Ireland, with her eye on the vertical divisions, has been 

 brought into her present unhappy position. 



So it may be concluded that national consciousness, as 

 developed by the chief and ruling place being given to barriers, 

 dividing- lines, and other vertical divisions of separation, has 

 a tendency to over-assert its own special characteristics, to 

 endeavour to bring others into conformity thereto, and in doing 

 so to make the interests of others continually subservient; 

 whereas a candid recognition of what is distinctive and valuable 

 in others, and a cultivation of the spirit of tolerance, reveals how 

 the lateral interests of humanity are those which are most 

 deeply seated and of abiding importance. It is this which the 

 scientific spirit enforces upon our attention in bidding us take 

 into account all the facts, and keep them before us all the time. 

 The universal is substituted for the particular, and though every 

 nation may rightly cherish its own ideals, it discerns the fact 

 that in the spread of these through peaceful means its own and 

 the world's highest interests are to be found. 



These are some of the factors which, neglected in the past, 

 or thrust into the background, have produced jealousy and strife, 

 militarism and war, the devastation and death qi_the past five 

 years. 



If any legacy of good can come of these experiences, it is 

 that the human race shall come to realise its own solidarity 

 beneath all its surface diversities, and in the fundamental laws 

 of unity find the prospect of abiding peace. 



(ii) In approaching the subject oi what is more strictly 

 Race-Consciousness, we find ourselves facing a much more diffi- 

 cult and delicate problem. 



The qualities demanded in its investigation are largely 

 ethical. They include Honesty, Candour, Tolerance, a willing- 

 ness to face the whole truth. A scientist destitute of certain of 

 these qualities discredits himself and is doomed to failure, and 

 a deliberate determination to ignore a whole series of facts 

 brought to his notice would be a most unscientific procedure. 

 Yet in reference to race questions solutions are often sought 

 with scarcely any reference to the ruling factors in the situation. 



That a very real problem exists in the race-consciousness 

 of the white and coloured peoples is evident, sometimes painfully 

 evident, sometimes dangerously so, and nothing is to be gained 

 by under-estimating its deep-seated nature and the gravity of its 

 issues. 



That an immediate solution of it is ready to hand, even for 

 the most earnest seeker, no wise man will affirm. That the 

 right road to travel is the road of Truth and Fairness every 

 "analogy of science declares. 



Lest what follows should seem to be an advocacy directed 



