WHOLE WORLD KIN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3796, 5 April 1913, Page 7

WHOLE WORLD KIN.

THE TREND OF CIVILISATION

PAPER BY HON. J. BRYCE

INTERNATIONAL HISTORY CONGRESS OPENED.

CTJimiSD PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT!

(Received April 4, 10.25 p.m.) LONDON, April 4. The International History Congress lias opened at Lincoln’s Inn. Mr Bryce, the President, was detained in Washington, and his inaugural address was read. The address stated that he had travelled in India, Africa, America and Australasia and saw the smaller, weaker and more backward races changing under impact with civilised man. Their religious beliefs were withering, and their customs were fading. Some, like the Maoris, were being absorbed into the white population. The world was becoming one in a new sense, and except China and, Jaapn—almost the entire earth was controlled by six European races, while eight Powers swayed the political destinies of thg globe. By the year 2000 A.D. ninetenths of the human race would speak less than 20 languages. Already there were only four great religions. Nowadays, whatever happened in any one part of the world, had a significance everywhere, including industrial disputes and the money markets. Finance, oven more than politics, made the world a single' community. World history was tending to become one history and the historian of the future would need an amplitude of conception and power in grouping figures. He must be like Tintoretto or Michael Angelo if ho was to handle so vast a canvas. Students of history wore specially called on to try and reduce the sources of international ill-feeling. Historians knew how few wars were necessary.