A Hundred Years Hence: The Expectations of an Optimist

by T. Baron Russell

On this ground, perhaps, I may be thought too cautious in assuming that the present form of alphabetical writing and printing will survive at all. But there are two things which seem likely to give it permanence. The first, of course, is literature. If we adopt an entirely new form of writing and printing for general use, we must either set to work to translate all our literature into it, thereby probably losing some formal beauties which the culture of the world will not consent to sacrifice; or we must make up our minds to use (as the Japanese do at present) two kinds of writing concurrently; and the difficulty of overcoming the vast inertia of the human mind (which alone still suffices to exclude from English commerce so obviously convenient an innovation as decimal coinage) will probably negative this. This inertia is the second consideration likely to give permanence to our present form of English alphabetical writing.

However this may be, the convenience of direct wireless telephony will certainly, when supplemented by records of whatever kind, greatly facilitate commerce. The tedious process of writing a letter, posting it, and awaiting the reply, at present persisted in chiefly because it is so necessary to have some sort of documentary evidence of what has passed, will be largely dispensed with when we can secure an automatic record of what we say. Nearly everything will be done by word of mouth.

The great inconvenience, apart from the absence of record, which attaches to transactions or negotiations by telephone at the present day, is that a telephonic conversation is not nearly so satisfactory as a personal interview face to face. Gesture, attitude, the language of face and eyes, all do so much to elucidate communication in the latter way, that we lose a great deal when we meet an associate at the other end of a telephone wire. Well, the telephone of the new age will remove this drawback, or rather it will be supplemented by something which will do so. This invention, not at all difficult to imagine, I will call provisionally the teleautoscope. It will no doubt have some name equally barbarous. The teleautoscope can be explained in a single sentence. It will be an instrument for seeing by electricity. Whatever is before the transmitting teleautoscope will be visible before the receiving teleautoscope wirelessly en rapport with the former. Thus by telephone, by phonograph, and by teleautoscope, a wireless conversation will combine all the advantages of a personal interview and a written correspondence.

No doubt the post-office system of this country, despite occasional lapses, is as nearly perfect as any human institution, in the present state of society, can be reasonably expected to be. But it is equally certain that in so far as postal communication is required at all in the new age it will have to be vastly improved both as to speed and precision, compared with what we now, sometimes rather thanklessly, enjoy. For instance, that impatient age will certainly not tolerate the inconvenience of having to send out to post its letters and parcels, or the tardiness of having these articles sorted and passed on for delivery only at intervals of half an hour or so. We may take it for granted that every well-equipped business office will be in direct communication, by means of large-calibred pneumatic tubes, with the nearest post-office. And however rapidly and however frequently the trains or airships of the period may travel, the process of making up van loads of mail matter for despatch to remote centres, and redistribution there, is far too clumsy for what commerce will demand a hundred years hence. No doubt the soil of every civilised country will be permeated by vast networks of pneumatic tubes: and all letters and parcels will be thus distributed at a speed hardly credible to-day.

Already every bank of any importance probably uses calculating machines. It is not likely that the fatiguing and uncertain process of having arithmetical calculations of any sort performed in the brains of clerks will survive the improvements of which these machines are capable. Account books, invoices, and all similar documents will doubtless be written by a convenient and compendious form of combined calculating machine and typewriter, which we may suppose to be called the numeroscriptor. It will, of course, be capable of writing anywhere—on a book or on a loose sheet, on a flat surface or on an irregular one. It will make any kind of calculation required. Even such operations as the weighing and measurement of goods will all be done by automatic machinery,[1] capable of recording without any possibility of error the quantity and values of goods submitted to its operation.

Naturally transport will be the subject of something like a renascence. So far as inland communication goes, the chief difficulties to be overcome already call loudly for amendment. We cannot for more than a decade or so make do with the present railway tracks, and either (as already hinted) by means of some invention to enable trains to run one above another, or by some entirely new carrying device such as I will now try to suggest, the new age will certainly supersede or supplement the transport of to-day.

The device most likely to be adopted, in the near future at all events, is something in the nature of elevated trottoirs roulants for goods. If we can conceive all the cities of a country to be linked-up by a system of great overways, we have at all events a feasible solution of the difficulty. There could be a double row of tall, massive pillars, between which could run a wide track, always in motion at considerable speed. It need not be a lightning speed. Most of the tardiness of railway transportation does not, in this country at all events, arise from slowness of trains, but from congestion at goods stations, and this in turn is due, partly to insufficiency of rolling stock, but much more to insufficiency of permanent way. The latter evil is very difficult to cope with. But the system of moving ways, providing a rolling stock equal in length to the line itself, will be a great saving. Returning upon itself the endless track will continuously transport merchandise in both directions. Elevators, suitably placed, will give access to it wherever needed. Probably the motive power will be electrical: and we may confidently anticipate entirely new sources of electricity. It is obviously clumsy to create power in the first instance, convert power into electricity (I use popular language), and then convert electricity back again into power. Much more hopeful than any idea of developing that method would be the conception of new ways of creating and applying motive-power directly. But, almost certainly, electricity, obtained in some new way, will do the work of the world for many generations yet—until, in fact, we devise or discover something more convenient.

It will have been perceived that nearly every improvement and innovation above sketched out involves, and will be indeed designed to effect, great saving of labour. With such economies, and an increased population, there is evidently going to be a difficulty about employment.

Moreover, the great facilities enjoyed by commerce will tend to make commerce extremely powerful. Already great organisers of business begin to evade competition by combining in vast “trusts,” whose tendency is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. There is a further cause for the aggrandisement of the large trader and manufacturer at the expense of the petty retail dealer. More and more every year the unprogressive methods of small shopkeepers foster the success of large multiple retailers. But it is likely that retail businesses, whether great or small, will ultimately tend to be eliminated. Manufacturers and trust companies will supply the public directly. What, then, will be the solution of the great social difficulties about to be created?

The answer is, that these difficulties, and especially the developments above confidently predicted for a future comparatively near, are probably transient in their nature. It is not yet the time to discuss political questions: but the problem here directly raised demands a few words of reassurance from the professed optimist.