A HASTY PROPHECY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 13 April 1908, Page 1

A HASTY PROPHECY.

I The "London Magazin-e" for March prints, apparently in bit.er earnest, ai. ; appeal very much on the same lines ac tli) serio-com.c picte^t against machine: in "Erewh.n." J_.<lucatiuii, machinery, and science are to be tho elements oi race-decay. By trains, motor-cars, and airships w e are moving to bankruptcy "in body, and soul, and brain." The future man is described as a puny creature, about 4ft high, with big head but withered limbs and flabby muscles ; lifts, motors, aeroplanes, moving pavements, revolving staircases, transport the wretched creature from one place to an-, other. "For generations man has not walked, and has hardly used his hands, His body has decayed because his body can no longer serve him in the fight for wealth. The battle of life is one of pure greed and intellect." Finally, a picture is drawn of the last man left forlorn amongst his machines, when by the gradual breaking down of the human brain, and the decrease of the b'rrth-rate, "the. march of progress has ended in. annihilation." Nevertheless, this helpless being, almost unable to crawl finds his lift in perfect order. He makes his way by this means to a handsome airship moored with cjips of steel to its landing-stage on the housetop ,and sustains life during a melancholy search for any fellow man, by the help of a few^ tabloids. So the question ris.-s, does Mr Burland suppose that machinery had learned, as the Erewhon philosophers foretold, to rutt' its.lf and reproduce its kind, or how else was this extinct world still provided with working lifts, and other luxuries? When man lost the use of his limbs. who went on making tabloids? If practical labour is the salvation of a race, why d*l this undesirable bundle of nerves out-last the builders of the airship? The "future man," before his extinction, we are told has -don© absolutely nothing for centuries? bxrt pull a lever or press a button. Tabfes set with food and wine ros© up before him when he required a meal. He even disdained to write. "The words of a !ett?r of a bcok were spoken and printed automatically en the paper." Yet for centuries there could have been no one to prepare the foods, instal the levers, or manufacture any paper for books. It is such a remarkable state of things, that the whitefaced dwarf who represents our last stage of decadence quite losses his imprc3f.iveners besides the more mysterious problem — what became of all the engineers?