BRITAIN 1,000 YEARS AHEAD

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 October 1931, Page 9

BRITAIN 1,000 YEARS AHEAD

DEAN INGE CHEERFUL. A land without taxes, debt, disease, army and navy, crime and lawyers, a land, in which there would be only fit men and women, and where it would be necessary for Parliament to meet for only a fortnight every year, was the entrancing picture of Great Britain drawn by Dean Inge, of St. Paul’s, when lecturing at the Royal Institution, London, recently, on “The Future of the Human Race.” The country would be in an age of wonders 1000 years hence, prophseied the Dean. There would be no wars, no tariff walls, and a return to village life. He would not prophesy further ahead.

“Because,” he said, “I may remind you that 20,000 years hence London will probably be 100 ft under the sea. The subsequent proceedings interest us no more as Londoners, and it is mainly our our country I am thinking.”

He protested that his vision was “in self-protection, because there was a legend that he was finding fault with society without having anything better to suggest in place of it.” This is his prophecy foi' A.D. 3000: The population of Great Britain has been fixed at 20,000,000. This is far from saturation, but several questions besides food have been considered. It has been decided that people shall not live in crowds.

No persons are allowed to have children without certificates of bodily and mental fitness. But, since inheritable and bodily and mental defects have been almost eradicated, and since there is no reckless breeding by the submerged classes, there is very little interference with personal liberty in consequence. The death-rate is very low, for large families are neither approved nor desired. Most people live in villages or small towns. There are no large cities except London. Family histories are as much sought after as wealth and title were in the 20th century. War and all tariff walls have been abolished. The Central Government is almost nominal, since there are no wars, no army or navy, no national debt, no foreign politics, no unemployment benefit and no “class bribery by taxation.”

There is no equality of income, but likewise, there are no opportunities for making large fortunes and no motives for an ostentatious manner of living. Instead of peers, the Dean foresees a social prestige attaching to families who can show Al ancestors on both sides for three generations.

There are no lawyers. The municipality is the arbitrator. Medical assistance is communal. Crime is rare. There are reformatories for first offenders, but the incorrigible who proves anti-social is privately and painlessly extinguished in a lethal chamber. Newspapers are few, since party politics has almost ceased to exist.

All infectious and contagious diseases have been extirpated—except the common cold—under the regulation of the League of Nations, which, freed from war, is occupied chiefly with questions of public health.