MAN AND MACHINERY.

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17803, 30 August 1929, Page 6

MAN AND MACHINERY.

A question which comes to the thoughtful man after reading of the amazing exploits of man and modern machinery is: Has machinery reached the stage when it is getting beyond control of its inventors? Physically and instinctively man is the same as lie was in the days of Adam. Fundamentally lie is identical. His body has not changed the slightest, but his mind has undergone a complete transformation. It is the moving times and ttie ever-progressing world which have compelled man to keep in step. Often it lias been said that happy is lie who can l'or some brief moment transport himself back lo the days which have so often been termed old-fashioned. Nowadays, it is only natural that we look upon the Victorians as comparatively primitive. Yet there must be many who still have a sneaking regard for those days when speed was merely a passing phase and something lo be wondered at. This is an age of speed. We have become so accustomed to seeing and reading of man's latest device to annihilate distance and Lo kill time that we are apparently losing the element of surprise,. For instance, 20 years ago anyone suggesting that we

should be able to travel on land at 90 miles an hour or in the air at five miles a minute, would have been dubbed a visionary, perhaps a madman. Even across the atmosphere, nature’s forces have been harnessed and today it is possible to speak through the telephone over 10,000 miles. Our grandfathers in their early days of antiquated telephones would have scoffed at the suggestion of such a possibility. Cable messages conveying the news of the secret trials of British aeroplanes preparing for the Schneider Cup' race were a revelation. Even the experts keenly watching the tests had to gasp when the machine glided rapidly along the water, rose with equal swiftness and disappeared from sight like a bullet from a rifle. No official indication w r as given of what the pilot had done, but it was estimated that the machine 'shot through the air at over 300 miles an hour. It is a wonderful achievement, and the most outstanding point of all is that far-sighted scientists predict that thq day is not far distant when this achievement will come within the reach of all men. Sir A. V. Roe, head of the famous Avro manufacturing Arm, has prophesied that before very long an aeroplane will be built capable of cutting through the air at 1000 miles an hour. It seems an alarming vision and naturally we ask, will mankind stand the strain?