WHEN IT’S 300 M.P.H.

Evening Star, Issue 20023, 14 November 1928, Page 2

WHEN IT’S 300 M.P.H.

WILL MEH BE BSFFEP.EHT ?

Every day brings us a record of some new mechanical triumph, and makes ns wonder what tho whole world and the next generation are going to do about it (writes Sir Edward Parry, in- tho ‘Sunday Chronicle’). , The speed records foi aeroplanes must, it seems, be lowered, and for this purpose FJight-Heut. D’Arcy Grcig, 11.A.F., has been provided with a machine which is understood to bo capable of travelling at 323-} mile* an hour. Tho distance is practically the length of England, or let ns say from London to Gretna Green. Then there is a windmill aeroplane which hovers over your garden like a hawk, and the largest Zeppelin ever built is going to start next month for America. Meanwhile all sorts of excellent Robots have been invented to do tho ordinary household tasks, and others arc promised that will provide plots for novels, act as bookmakers, ami in course of time no doubt sit ns judges and decide cases.

DRIVEN UNDERGROUND

America is building houses without any windows whatever, lit entirely by mechanical artificial daylight. Still this will not cut out the buzz and uproar of the machines, and America and the rest of us will still have to face that music. Unless, of course, as many think, mankind will bo driven by the crowds in the air and on the surface of the earth to live underground altogether. In many large hotels the underground rooms are very comfortable/ and an underground house would be ady, eligible property in many suburbs, i through and over which a traffic of motor charabancs, lorries, and low-ily-mg air liners plies continuously. This will duty he reverting to an earlier civilisation when all our ancestors lived in caves to protect themselves, not from mechanical contrivances so much as from wild beasts. But there are many legends of flying : men before our time, and it is, of course, possible that people used to fly and then gave it up as an over-rated amusement. Drcdalus, the Athenian, who was an excellent mechanic and invented quite a lot of useful tools and machines, and built some modern temples and palaces in his day, claims to have hold the long-distance record of flight in his own generation for a “ hop ” from Crete to Sicily. 1 understand, however, that his claim is not recognised by the modem air authorities, as it was not officially timed. The effect of the perfection of mechanical contrivances on the human race must necessarily be to lessen man’s capacity for doing things. Already people do not learn to play the piano or to draw, and soon they will cease to write or read or do arithmetic, for these things can all be done better for them, as they suppose, by machine. DEPRIVED OF LEGS. Even to-day, with the exception of a small percentage of athletes, the human race is ceasing to walk. Quite young people become, as we may say, prematurely motor-ridden, and have to bo carried about for oven tho shortest distances. This, following the evolutionary laws, can only end m ono way. Men and women, ceasing to use their legs for the purpose of locomotion, will gradually bo deprived of legs as we now know them. They will become rudimentary like the claws and tails and fur of tho animal man, of which little evidence 'remains. If these tendencies of mechanical improvements and human dependence on machines continue for another thousand years or so it would seem possible that this civilisation will disappear, asmany more wonderful ones have done in the world’s history, and bo gradually replaced by something hotter. In the British Museum to-day there are some marvellous jewels recovered from tombs at Ur, which are at least 5,000 years old. There are gold and silver jewels, beads, goblets, and lamps, a royal gaming board, vases in copper and silver, alabaster and clay, beautiful bracelets, earrings, and armlets. And that these things belonged to an ancient and important civilisation in the world’s history was clear from the extraordinary wealth of beautiful objects found in tho Queen’s tomb. The more highly civilised man becomes, the more money is spent on the adornment of women. It was in the Queen’s tomb that a wonderful harp was found and a royal sledge with silver rings for the reins to run through, surmounted by a silver gilt mascot such as you place on the bonnet of a motor car to-day. Gazing at this historic salvage in awe and wonder, I could not help trying to imagine what would be known of our civilisation of to-day 5,000 years hence.

At a recent congress of librarians it was announced, not, 1 thought, without a note of satisfaction, that in 50 or 100 years at most the newspapers and novels of to-day would have crumbled with their authors into dust. This being so, 5,000 years hence no one will be able to read of our mechanical achievements. The whole written history of our race will have disappeared as completely as the written history of the kings and people of Ur.

And though sufficient remains were found to satisfy the men of science that the people of Ur had chariots on wheels, it was the njtists who made fresco drawings on plaques of lapis lazuli inlaid with shells that enabled us to visualise to-day tho form of these carriages.

NOT THE MILLENNIUM,

It seems impossible to suppose that the wonderful new machines that genius turns out day by day will be known or in use 5,000 years hence. But that is no reason why we should not employ them to promote peace and good fellowship as long as they last. Father Time will turn the aeroplane and the taxicab off the rank as ho haa ticked off the hansom cab and the “ growler,” We must admire the ingenuity of the engineer who designs these modern marvels, still more the daring and the skill of the pilot. But the machine age will not last longer than the stone age, the flint age. the bronze age or the civilisation or the Cities of the Elain.

The only' real evolution of mankind is spiritual, not mechanical. An age of super-planes and super-cars is not necessarily heading for tne Millennium. They will take the new generation exactly where it wants to go to.