Page:The influence of commerce on civilization (IA influenceofcomme00ellerich).pdf/40

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all our universities of chairs of commerce. The "Joseph Fisher" lectures in your honourable University have already struck the key-note of what I would desire. I would go further and advocate the establishment of chairs and professorships of Oriental languages in the universities of Australia. The study of ancient and modern Oriental languages and literature will fit the youth in this country to be in the running with what will, and must, come from the future expansion of Australia. As Roosevelt has said, "Every country is now our neighbour". This will be true as regards Australia in the remote if not in the near future. Not that I am an advocate of the meaningless phrase "The Yellow Peril": I know Asia better than that. But when our Australian commercial community is educated thoroughly to understand, appreciate, and respect the great civilized nations of Asia, from whom most, if not all, of our civilization has been derived, then may commerce and civilization go hand in hand, and may it be said about Australia that she has derived "Ex Oriente lux". May her desire be to merit a motto engraved on her national history, similar to that on the memorial tablet to Sir Christopher Wren in St. Paul's, "Si monumentum quaeris circumspice".


In conclusion, Mr. Chancellor, ladies and gentlemen, seeing that I have advocated in my paper the establishment of chairs for Oriental languages in Australian universities, may I, as a tribute to the patient hearing you have given me to-night, in the Oriental language I know best, the Chinese, say: "Sun hong sun tsui-tiong siong". The characters for these words are inscribed on the sterns of all Chinese sea-going vessels. Literally translated they mean: "A fair wind and a fair tide, very high and overflowing always". In other words: "May your course be onward and your path