bs 
ys 
-} 
? 
ae 
* 
E.— GEOGRAPHY. 137 
labour was declared to be a physical and physiological impossibility. 
According to Mr. Benjamin Kidd (‘Control of the Tropics,’ 1898, p. 48), 
‘the attempt to acclimatize the white man in the Tropics must be recog- 
nized to be a blunder of the first magnitude. All experiments based 
upon the idea are mere idle and empty enterprises foredoomed to failure.’ 
Lord Olivier’s opinion is that ‘ Tropical countries are not suited for settle- 
ment by Whites. Europeans cannot labour and bring up families there.’ 
Mr. R. W. Hornabrook declares that to send Whites from Europe to 
Tropical Australia ‘is nothing short of a crime—it is worse, it will be 
murder.’ 
In 1907, in opposition to this traditional view, I remarked (‘Australasia,’ 
I, p. 15) that ‘ medical authorities on tropical climates seem now, however, 
to be coming to the opinion that this view is a popular prejudice which 
does not rest on an adequate foundation.’ The evidence to that effect had 
been stated in a remarkable paper by Dr. L. W. Sambon, and endorsed by 
the late Sir Patrick Manson, and has been supported by the general trend of 
medical opinion during the past seventeen years. Thus a leading article in 
the ‘Journal of Tropical Medicine’ (15 January, 1919, pp. 15-16) proclaims 
‘Disease, not climate, the Enemy . . . If there is one thing which the study 
_ of tropical diseases has shown us, it is that disease, and not the climate, 
is the cause of this crippling of trade, of the necessity for frequent changes 
“home,” involving expense and the employment of a large permanent 
staff to fill the gaps caused by sickness, and therefore lessening of profits. 
The legends, a ‘“ bad climate,” an ‘“ unhealthy climate,” are well-nigh 
expunged from tropical literature. All medical men familiar with the 
Tropics are cognizant of the fact that disease, and, what is more, prevent- 
able disease, is the cause of the bad name associated with any particular 
region of the Tropics.’ 
_ The general distribution of mankind is in such close agreement with 
the rule that the white race has settled in the temperate regions and 
left the tropics to the coloured races, that any policy inconsistent with 
that arrangement must be prepared to encounter a strong prepossession 
tothecontrary. Nevertheless, that rule is inconsistent with so many facts 
that it is not a safe basis for a national policy. In America, for example, 
the whole continent, except for the Eskimo in the north, was occupied by 
dark coloured Mongolian tribes, in which, according to Flower and 
_ Lydekker (‘Mammals,’ 1891, p.752),‘thecolour of the skin, notwithstanding 
the enormous difference of the climate under which many members of the 
‘group exist, varies but little.’ The most northerly part of Europe is 
occupied by a coloured race, the Lapps. In Africa the darkness of the 
skin does not always vary in accordance with distance from the Equator. 
1.—Suprosep UNFAVOURABLE Factors IN TROPICAL CLIMATE. 
(A) Heat.—The belief in the unsuitability of the tropics for the white 
man rests on several considerations. Most importance is naturally 
attributed to the heat, as that is the essential difference between the 
tropical and other zones. Intense heat is regarded as injurious to people 
not protected by a dark skin. That view overlooks the automatic process 
by which the living body adjusts itself to temperatures even higher than 
occur in any climate on earth, and that would quickly cook it, if dead. 
