WHEN IT’S 300 M.P.H.

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 November 1928, Page 10

WHEN IT’S 300 M.P.H.

WILL MEN BE DIFFERENT’

Every day brings us a. record of •some new mechanical triumph, and makes us wonder what the whole world and the next generation are going to do about it (writes Sir Edward Parry, in the ‘Sunday Chronicle’). The speed records for aeroplanes must, it seems, be lowered, and for this purpose Flight-Lieut. D’Arcy Greig, R.A.F., has been provided with a machine which is understood to be. capable of travelling at. 3231 miles an hour. The distance is practically the length of England, or let us 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 fox’ America. Meanwhile all sorts of excellent Ra;bots have been invented to do the ordinary household tasks, and others are promised that will provide plots fox' novels, act as bookmakers, and in course of time no doubt sit as judges and decide cases.

America is building houses without any windows whatever, lit entirely by mechanical artificial daylight. Still this will not cut out the buzz and upi’par of the machines, and America /and the rest of us will still have to face that music.

Unless, of course, as many think, piankind will be driven by the crowds in the aix - 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 an eligible property in many suburbs, through and over which a traffic of motoi - charabancs, lorries, and lowflying ail’ liners plies continuously.

This will only be reverting to an earlier civilisation when all oui’ 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 befoi’e oui* time, and it is, of course, possible that people used to fly and then gave it up as an over-rated amusement.

Dsedalus, 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 held the long-distance record of flight in his own generation for a “hop” from Crete to Sicily. I understand, however, that his claim is. not recognised by the modern 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 be carried about for even the shortest distances. This, following the evolutionary laws, can only end in one way.

Men and women, ceasing to use tlxeixlegs fox- the purpose of locomotion, will gradually be deprived of. legs as we now know them. They will become rudimentary like the claws and tails and fur of the animal man, of which little evidence remains. 1 If these tendencies of mechanical Qmprovements and hunian dependence On machines continue fox- another thousand years or so it would seem possible that this civilisation will disappear, as many more wonderful ones have done in the world’s history, and be gradually replaced by something better.

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 ; silvez jewels, beads, goblets, and lamps, a royal gaming board, vases in coppex- and silver, alabaster and clay, beautiful bracelets, earrings, and armlets.

And that these things belonged to an ancient and impoi’tant civilisation in the world’s history was clear from the extraordinary wealth of beautiful objects found in the 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 fox- 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, 1 could not help trying to imagine what would be known of oux- civilisation of to-day 5,000 years hence.

At a recent congress of librarians it was annoxinced, not, I thought, without a note of satisfaction, that in 50 ox- 100 years at most the newspapers and novels of to-day would have crumbled With theix- authors into dust.

This being so, 5,000 years lienee no une will be able to read our mechanical achievements. The whole wx-it-ten 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 artists who made fresco drawings on plaques of lapis lazuli inlaid with shells that enabled Us to visualise to-day the form of these carriages.

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 fs 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 find the taxicab off the rank as he has ticked off. the hansom cab and the “growler.” We must admire the ingenuity of (the engineei- who designs these modern marvels .still more the daring and the skill of the pilot. But the machine age will not last Jonger than the stone ago. the flint Jage, the bronze age oi’ the civilisation of the Cities of the Plain. ’ The only evolution of mankind is spiritual, not mechanical. An age of super-planes and super-cars is not necessarily heading for the Millennium. They will take the new generation. exactly where it wants to go to.