LONDON IN A.D. 2,000

Evening Star, Issue 23130, 2 December 1938, Page 11

LONDON IN A.D. 2,000

A PREDICTION MADE 25 YEARS AGO

A prediction of social and industrial changes that will have come about in the year 2000 was made in 1912 by a speaker who has now faded out of political life. It is interesting to note' how much of the prediction has been realised in 25 years and to speculate how near to realisation it will be in 2000 a.d.

“ I believe that three generations from now—that is, in the year 2000 —people will have recognised that the end of the aim of civic life is to build up citizens who are healthy in body, mind, and soul.” That was the prelude of a striking forecast of the future which Mr Herbert Burrows uttered in October, 1912. “ Much of what now permeates Socialistic thought will then be realised,” he said. “ The capitalist and the ground landlord will be workers, but their toil will be a rational pleasure, in which every citizen takes delight, because it will enable them to create for themselves and their fellows what has never hitherto been possible. “ London will then have been broken up. The horrid slums, as they exist to-day, will have disappeared, and London will be extended into the country for probably 50 miles from the heart of the city. • " There will be different lighting arrangements, and a different system of locomotion. The motor bus will be ‘ scrapped,’ and all will travel free, in the sense that there will be no individual payment any more than exists now for walking the street. The public will see to its travelling by a sound system of contribution from each citizen, and the whole of the physical work of the community will be completely transformed. “ Our present factories will have completely disappeared, and the motive force which will be carried into .every part of life will be first electricity and then, as science advances, some other agent on which science is just begiuing to place its fingers. “ In place of our present factories there will be beautiful and artistic buildings in which, under the healthiest and most sanitary conditions, every individual will work cheerfuly. “ In the year 2000 it will be recognised that the work of the scavenger is equally important as. that of the doctor, though possibly by that time, owin'* to the improved conditions of housing, sanitation, and all the conditions of life, doctors will not be needed, and the necessity for a Chancellor of the Exchequer will probably have disappeared as well. “ A whole system of municipal restaurants will be established, and the present dirty coffee shops, ‘ doss houses, and other abominations will be swept away for ever. The whole of London, in fact, will be transformed, for the people’s good physically, mentally. and morally, under a great communal system, and this will apply, not only to the metropolis, but to the country at large.”