THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MAY 8, 1924. THE FUTURE IN THE AIR.

Wairarapa Age, 8 May 1924, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MAY 8, 1924. THE FUTURE IN THE AIR.

Futurist pen pictures have ceased to be any particular novelty in these days, but Sir Sidney Low’s circumstantial vision of the coming transformation of London is calculated to arrest passing attention. Everybody understands, of course, that we are only at the beginning of the “air age.” “What’s to come is still unsure,” but if the prophets are not misled, it is going to be somewhat revolutionary. Unfortunate man is to ±>e. dwarfed more and more by his very conquests. Aeroplanes arc to be common as the alerady übiquitous automobile. “Every alternate man will be able to keep one.” Blissful times should indeed be in store. The prospect of aeroplanes and motor cars dashing along independent of petrol is lightly glanced at, and realisation of that delicious dream the “aerial motor car” is boldly promised. The architectural doom of historic London, with its venerable spires and towers and monuments is sealed without a qualm. The time-honoured domestic architecture of the East is going to triumph, after all* over that of the West. The flat roof is to be supreme. In fact, everything is to be adapted to the requirements of the airmen, but as everybody will go a-flying doubtless nobody will complain. Sir Sidney Low' docs not apparently mention it, but it is .of course understood that all household supplies will be delivered from the air—milk jugs and letter-boxes will go on the roof-top instead of the doonstep or the kerb. The solution of present-day street traffic problems will no longer trouble the local authority, though the new traffic problems may drive it to distraction. Optimists may draw pleasant pictures of romantic, restful day when mankind takes to the air cn masse, the railway becomes a mere relic of barbarism, and pedestrianism is contemptible.