THE MAN OF BUSINESS
Whatever changes may take place in the organisation of society during
the present century, we may regard it as certain that the folk who
"Rise up to buy and sell again"
will be always with us. The man of business will possess many
conveniences denied to the city man of to-day. It is, for instance,
to be supposed that the inordinate defects of even the best
telephone systems will be eliminated. When wireless communication
of ideas has been perfected, of course the telephone exchange
will disappear. Differential "tuning"--the process by which any
wireless telephone will be able to be brought, as transmitter, into
correspondence with any other wireless telephone, as receiver--will
enable every merchant to "call up" every other merchant. Instead of,
as at present, looking up his associate's number in the directory,
and getting connected by the clumsy junction of wires at an exchange
office, the merchant will look up the tuning-formula, adjust his
own telephone to it, and ring a bell, or otherwise employ means
for attracting the attention of the man he wants to speak to. As
a great proportion of all the business transacted will be done
by telephones the frequent occurrence of disputes as to what has
or has not been said in a given conversation will have rendered
safeguards necessary. Consequently, every telephone will be attached
to an instrument, developed from the phonograph, which will record
whatever is said at both ends of the line. Precautions will have to
be devised against eavesdropping. After communication is established,
probably both parties to a conversation will retune their instruments
to a fresh pitch, which, in cases requiring special secrecy, could
be privately agreed upon beforehand.
The form which the records above suggested will ultimately assume
must be a matter of conjecture. It is quite possible that the written
word may in all departments of life lose some of its present vital
importance. We may imagine, if we choose, that instead of creating
records which can be read, we may find it advisable to create records
that can be listened to: and some of the apparent inconveniences of
this substitution may easily be supposed to be dispensed with. The
handiness of a written memorandum is largely a matter of habit. A
practised eye can "skim" a long document, and either through the
use of black-type headlines, or by pure skill, alight upon exactly
the passage required; and if it were necessary, in order to find
a given passage, to listen to the whole document being read over
by the recording phonograph, no doubt much time would be lost. We
shall not be so extremely intolerant of loss of time, perhaps, in
the new age, as some people imagine: but in any case, if the speed
of the phonograph be imagined as adjustable, it will be perceived
that we could then make it gabble parrotwise over the inessential,
and let it linger with more deliberation over what we wanted to
assure ourselves of. We could even "skip" useless portions--one can
do this with phonographs already in use. Probably such aural records
may be made capable of acceptance in courts of law, and the maxim
verbum auditum manet will take the place of a well-known proverb
of our day. Very likely business letters may some day take the form
of conveniently-shaped tablets, made of some plastic material, and
capable of being utilised by means of a talking machine.
Or if these changes seem too chimerical, we may essay the more
difficult task of conceiving a means by which the spoken word may be
directly translatable into print or typewriting. The waste of time and
energy entailed by the present plan of dictating what we want to say
to a stenographer or into a phonograph, for subsequent transcription,
renders some sort of improvement urgently needful; nor are these wastes
the only grievance, as the introduction of a second personality into
the operation of recording speech introduces a simultaneous possibility
of error, and an outrageous waste of time is caused by the necessity
of reading over what one has dictated laboriously to a stenographer or
into a phonograph, to make sure that it is correctly transcribed. It
is obviously a much more difficult matter to translate speech directly
into printed words than to translate it into something which may again
produce the sounds of speech. The first step would be the invention of
something which would print a phonetic representation of speech--as,
for instance, shorthand of the kind invented by Sir Isaac Pitman. Even
this requires us to imagine machinery of a kind whose very rudiments do
not at present exist. Indeed, we can only conceive such an instrument
by the use of the supposition that some entirely new manipulation
of sound-waves will be discovered; and if we conceive that, there
is no particular reason why we should hesitate before the notion of
speech directly translated into print such as we use in everyday
life. If we are going to limit the possibilities of the future by
the actual achievements of the present, we shall certainly fall short
of any adequate notion of what a hundred years' accelerated progress
may be capable of: and I do not see wherein the direct reproduction
suggested is any more inconceivable than, for example, telephony, or
even photography, must have been to a man of a hundred years ago. The
greatest danger attending our attempt to preconceive the amenities
of the next century is that we may limit our expectations too narrowly.
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, [4] 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.
There can be no doubt of the great social and political dangers
involved in so enormous an aggrandisement of the commercial and
manufacturing class as we shall most of us live to witness. What is
called the problem of the unemployed grows every year more difficult
and less obviously hopeful. Moreover, the concentration of great
wealth in a few hands is in itself a political danger, even apart
from the fact that it implies widespread impoverishment. There are
dangers of corrupt legislation, for instance, and other dangers too.
But there will be another great force at work in which may be foreseen
the solution of many difficulties beside this. When public education
becomes rationalised; when it is employed chiefly as a means of
character-making; when the universal education of mankind has the
effect of turning out men and women capable of thinking, and not
merely of remembering, the teeming population of the working class will
begin to exercise an intelligent influence on the legislature--which
at present it certainly cannot be said to do. And one thing which
the intelligently-elected Parliaments of the new age will assuredly
discover is this principle: that it is not good for the State that
any one man, or any one associated body of men, should possess an
inordinate amount of wealth. [5]
Once this principle is discovered and acted upon; once it is illegal
for any person or corporation to be seised of more than a certain fixed
capital; the dangers of inconvenient aggrandisement will vanish. Nor
is this principle in any way unprogressive or injurious to the
commonwealth. It is, in fact, not even injurious to the individuals
affected. No reasonably-enlightened being can pretend that a sensible
hardship would be inflicted on millionaires by being forbidden to
pile Pelion upon Ossa in their present insane manner. A very rich man,
compelled to desist from the accumulation of wealth, and consequently
driven to the task of finding out how to enjoy it intelligently, would
be almost infinitely better off for this constraint. The effect of the
ordinance for the limitation of wealth will be to remove all temptation
to concentrate manufactures in a few hands. It will open the doors
shut by trust companies on competition. It will multiply factories of
moderate and convenient size: and one other effect of it will be to
improve many manufacturing processes in themselves. There are a great
many things which can be cheaply turned out in uniform batches, every
article exactly the counterpart of every other, hideous in economical
uniformity, because they all emanate from one or two great factories,
which, if the manufacture of them were distributed over a number of
small factories, would, from this circumstance alone, and from the
stress of wholesome competition, be greatly improved. Probably many
industries, desirable in themselves, but driven out of successful
being by our present system of concentrated manufacturing, would
revive. Crafts of what we call regretfully the good old kinds would
spring up, rejuvenated: cheap uniformity would cease to be the
principal ideal of manufacture. The people would be able to afford
agreeable furniture, utensils, decorations, and household goods of
all kinds, where they now have to put up with horrible but cheap
makeshifts. For one great advantage of the ordinance just predicted
must not be lost sight of. When you restrain the rich from becoming
inordinately richer, you concurrently save the poor from being made
proportionately poorer. This ideal, it should be remarked, is in no
sense socialistic. It is, on the contrary, the natural development
of individualism.
Hardly less certain is it that before the beginning of the twenty-first
century all manufactures and all commerce will be co-operative, the
workers in every industry being paid, not by fixed wages, but by a
share in the produce of their labour. Instead of the profit of all
trade and manufacture being secured to the managers and owners of
lands, machinery, transport and other commercial utilities; while
labour, the equally necessary and indeed the preponderant element
of production, is reckoned as a mere element of cost, in the form
of wages; the profit will be shared all round. The more prosperous
the enterprise, the more money the workers will receive. No man
will be able to grow rich by sweating his workmen. Neither will
the present degrading temptation for every workman to perform his
task as perfunctorily and as lazily as he can, so long as he does
not get dismissed from work altogether, survive this reform. On the
contrary, it will be directly worth every man's while to do his work
as well as he possibly can. The dignity of labour--a phrase now justly
mocked--will become an elevating and delightful practicality. A great
many articles of everyday use will be better made than it is possible
to get them made to-day. The spectacle of the producers of wealth
herding in squalid cabins, clothed in the rags of cast-off clothing,
eating garbage, enjoying nothing but intoxication, will give way to
a more wholesome and natural state of affairs. Nor will the owners of
machinery, of factories and the like long oppose this development. What
are called labour-troubles will cease to exist when the interest of
employer and employed is identical. The problem of the unemployed will
solve itself. Leisure, and an opportunity to employ leisure wisely,
will have been bestowed upon the poor as well as we have seen that
it will be bestowed upon the rich. A man will have no need to spend
practically all the unfatigued hours of every day at the bench, the
loom, or the lathe. He will want recreation. While one batch of men
is seeking this there will be an opportunity for other batches to
work. And work itself, once it is work for an intelligent objective,
once it is work that there is a comprehensible reason for trying to
execute as well as it can possibly be executed, will lose much of
its irksomeness--to the vast improvement alike of the product and
the producer.