Meanwhile, the clerk was manipulating an empty elevator platform in the down-going shaft to the ship's deck. When the frame had been securely placed in the up-going shaft, he guided the elevator into it and down to the bottom of the ship. Then, propelling it out, from this frame to a large loader of four units on the platform within the ship, he skillfully loaded it on the elevator. The loaded elevator he now moved back into the temporary frame, up the elevator shaft, and on to its floor. He neatly unloaded it at its appointed place. All that maneuvering was accomplished quickly without hitch or man power by buttons and two-inch levers on the desk. The clerk certainly had complete control of his elevator platforms.
I could not help calling out, "Bravo! Bravo!"
At the adjoining desk another clerk was loading an underground subway freight car and speeding it to its distant destination.
Addressing myself to Mr. Amony, I asked, "These clerks seem to have great responsibility. Do they have the authority to give their orders to the producers or factories supplying the merchandise under their control?"
"Of course," he answered. "Not only that, but the manager at the factory has that floor where his goods are kept constantly under his vision; therefore, he knows when the floor is under or overstocked. After daily consultation, he and the clerks here on duty manage to keep the supply sufficient. Samples of the merchandise in these units are always mailed to this office for inspection before the merchandise is shipped. We have only one factory for every individual article, with its branches on all our continents. They work together and compete with each other to produce the best of a single material thing or article allotted them. Executives for our industries are appointed solely for their experience, and efficiency, and not through political or other influences. It is the same in personnel.
"This system of remote control, with few exceptions, is used by us on vehicles, locomotives, passenger airplanes, and machines doing heavy duty work, such as those you would call bulldozers, plows, or other farm machinery. In fact, we use it for almost all laborious work and engineering projects, on stationary and mobile engines, and on machinery used on dry land, marshes, and on the fertile floors of the sea."
Addressing Xora, he said, "Let us give our visitor a look into one of our mechanical factories across the river. I will meet you outside factory No. 100 in half an hour."
We landed in a large open parking ground where Mr. Amony was waiting for us. As he guided us into a large building, he said, "I am surprised you Earth men don't go in for similar manufacturing and improvements and reforms. They have the idea, which we hope will soon be also in operation. Look!" Meeting our sight was a
"Factory as clean, spacious, and continuously operating as hydro-electric plant. The production floor is barren of men. Only a few engineers, technicians, and operators walk about on a balcony above, before a great wall of master control panels, inserting and checking records, watching and adjusting batteries of control instruments. All else is automatic. Raw materials flow in by conveyor, move through automatic inspection units, fabricating machines, sub-assembly and assembly lines, all controlled from the master panels, and arrive at the automatic packaging machines a finished product."[19]
"We have machines that see better than eyes, calculate more reliably than brains, communicate faster and farther than the voice, record more accurately than memory, and act faster and better than hands. These devices are not subject to any human limitations. They do not mind working around the clock. They never feel hunger or fatigue. They are always satisfied with working conditions."[20]