Marriage and Divorce.
“You said that the occupations of women became varied and ceased to be
domestic in a majority of cases; what effect did that have on marriage
and divorce?” I enquired.
“Various causes tended to make marriage almost universal and celibacy
became the rare exception. The chief cause was the assumption by the
state of the care and education of the children. Another was the ability
of women to support themselves. Men did not feel it such a burden to
be married when they did not have to greatly exert themselves for the
support of either wife or children. Women did not feel it such a burden
when they were released from the care and responsibility of a household
of children and servants. Marriage moreover has become less of a lottery
than in your day, because men and women meet each other in business
relations in which they act their natural selves. Neither is obliged
to marry in order to live, and less art and deceit are used for the
purpose of entrapping a partner. The property of neither man nor woman is
affected by marriage, and neither acquires any rights over the property
of the other except, that each is bound to care and provide for the
other in case of sickness or disability. There are fewer conditions that
are liable to produce inharmony, because greater freedom is conceded
to the parties, and there are fewer points on which absolute unanimity
is essential. Marriage is on the whole much happier than formerly, and
although divorces are easily obtained they are much less frequent. These
conditions have had a marked effect on the increase of population as you
might suppose. There is no longer any temptation to avoid the natural
results of marriage, and those unnatural expedients women formerly
resorted to for that purpose, ruinous to health and morals, are now
almost unknown. The health and strength of women have vastly improved.
Women dress sensibly, and live natural hygienic lives, and the terrors
of childbearing have practically vanished. As Americans took upon
themselves the furnishing of native born citizens to people this country,
immigration from Europe fell off rapidly and practically ceased sixty
years ago. But notwithstanding this, the population has more than doubled
three times, and for the territory that formed the United States in your
day it is now over 600,000,000.”
“Six hundred millions!” I repeated. “What an enormous number! It takes my
breath to think of it. Is it possible so many people can be supported in
that territory? Nearly all the really valuable land seemed to be taken up
when the population was but 70,000,000.”
“Aye,” said he, “six hundred millions are easily supported, and supported
in greater comfort than when the population was but 70,000,000; and they
may even double several times more before the capacity of the country is
exhausted.”
“I am amazed at what you say,” said I, “but there must be a limit.
Let me see, if 600,000,000 are doubled three times it will amount to
4,800,000,000. Is it possible the land could produce food and clothing
for so many; and yet from what you say about the rate of increase that
enormous number of people will be in this country before the end of the
twenty-first century.”
“We will not cross that bridge till we come to it,” he answered, “we
will explain that when we come to look forward into the twenty-first
century. It is true we shall find a limit. The breeding instinct of any
race of animals, not excepting man, would if unchecked and unopposed in
the course of time absolutely fill up the earth till it could support
no more. Man has for many ages been the dominant animal of the earth.
Yet he has failed to stock the world to its capacity or anywhere near
it for reasons you can easily supply yourself. In the first place the
profession of arms or the art of keeping down the population by war has
always held the most honorable rank among human employments; second the
human race has been the absolutely helpless victim of pestilence and
plague. Hundreds of different kinds of microbes, vibrios, bacteria and
zymases have from age to age apparently whenever they saw fit, or thought
men were getting too numerous, unseen and unsuspected, planted their
colonies in their vital organs, and swarmed in their blood, living at
their expense and sweeping them to death by myriads and millions. Next,
men were at the mercy of the elements both on sea and land. Whenever a
crop failed from drought or flood there followed a famine, and millions
were periodically swept away by gaunt starvation, because there was no
way of conveying to a needy district, the superabundance that might
exist in another. But even where all nature was favorable, and nations
happened to be at peace there was always the native and hereditary
stupidity of the individual that blinded him to all rational ways of
taking care of himself or his dependents and made it impossible for him
to rear to maturity more than one out of five of his children. Thus many
causes conspired to kill people off almost as fast as they were born and
sometimes faster, and many times to prevent them from being born when
they ought to have been. These inimical causes have all practically been
eliminated. The destructive agencies supplied by nature for limiting the
increase of the population having been set at defiance by art, it is
evident that art must likewise find a way for limiting the increase of
population, or else sometime in the future that increase will by its very
success put a stop to itself, and the brutal methods of untamed nature
again assert themselves. After all, art is only a subdivision of nature.
It may modify the action of nature as to details, but cannot set aside
the principles that govern it.”
“You spoke a little while ago of the territory of the United States, as
it was in my day. This would appear to intimate that the boundaries have
changed since then, is that so?”
“Well yes, you will think so, when you know that the United States of the
present day covers the entire Continent of North America, and embraces
besides, New Zealand, Australia, the English Colonies in South Africa,
Ireland, Cuba and most of the West India Islands, and numerous islands in
the Pacific ocean. I see this astonishes you and I will proceed to tell
you how it happened. If we begin at the beginning, it appears to have
been very largely due to the construction of railroads in Asia by the
Russians; that is it, would never have happened if these roads had not
been built. The great transcontinental Siberian road was completed from
St. Petersburg to Vladivostock on the Pacific ocean in 1904 and formally
opened with a great flourish by the Russian emperor. The Russians were
not entirely satisfied however with this road. It was essential as a
military road, and as a means of settling a vast extent of fertile
country in Siberia, but as a commercial line it did not meet their rather
sanguine expectations.
“Their ambition was to monopolize the trade between China and Europe. The
new road by going around the east side of Mantchooria instead of through
it to Pekin, imposed on that trade an unnecessary transportation of 1800
miles. They saw directly that they needed a line to Pekin and Teentsin,
from Irkutsk. They obtained a concession from the Chinese government
and built this line for commercial purposes. Then, later, they found it
desirable to build another line west of the first and reaching the ocean
at Shanghai. They also tapped the western part of the Chinese empire by a
line from Bokara.
“From these lines others soon grew, commanding the business of the
country and mostly owned by the Russians. In no long time jealousy
of the enterprising “foreign devils” on the part of some of the more
conservative and reactionary of the Chinese, led to outrages on their
part which furnished a good pretext for military occupation of the
country and finally to its conquest and annexation by the Russians.
These encroachments of the Russians had been bitterly, but ineffectually
opposed by the English. Their opposition provoked the Russians to place
England on the defensive with regard to her Indian possessions so
they pushed their railway line through Tartary to the very borders of
northwestern India and threatened it with a large army of invasion. The
Hindoos who had for years been waiting for such an opportunity to throw
off the British yoke now revolted. They had been taught the art of war by
their masters and now practiced it upon them, turning upon their teachers
the weapons they had put into their hands and taught them to use. The
very soldiers that were counted on to repel the Russians took their side
against the English. Between the Russians and the Indians the British
power in India was totally crushed, and several independent kingdoms were
set up under Russian protection. France also assisted Russia in this war,
especially on the ocean. British commerce was almost destroyed by Russian
and French cruisers. After the war was over these two nations almost
monopolized the Indian trade under discriminating commerce regulations,
the Russians by land carriage over their railway and the French by sea.
In the end the Russians became masters of almost the whole of Asia.
Turkey was dismembered, the city of Constantinople and all Asiatic Turkey
falling to the Russians.”
“Professor, in my day there was a great war between Russia and Japan,
which you have not mentioned. Was it not a factor in the settlement of
the Asiatic questions?”
“No, it did not assist in making a settlement, for none was made, its
only effect was to postpone a settlement. The events I have narrated
were greatly to the advantage of the United States. The destruction of
England’s commerce largely involved her manufacturers also, and in like
degree made room for and stimulated those of the United States. Her
trade with all the British Colonies soon eclipsed that of the mother
country herself. As the tremendous natural resources of the United States
became more and more developed under the energy and skill of the most
enlightened methods, the contrast between America and England enforced
itself on the attention of all.
“Treaties looking to the abolition of war, and the settlement of all
international questions by arbitration had already been adopted between
the United States and Great Britain and her Colonies, and there had
been a strong feeling and agitation for a closer political union of all
the English speaking people. The aggressive foreign policy of England
stood in the way of this. But to her, this aggressive policy appeared
essential. She had held India, Birmah and large territories in Africa,
by conquest, and her trade to these countries depended on her continued
military control over them.
“After the war with Russia and France in which she lost India, her
commerce, and her prestige, England still felt her only chance for
retaining her importance as an influential factor in the politics of the
world, to be in cultivating her interests in Birmah and Africa. She could
colonize neither of these countries to any great extent. All she could do
was to conquer and rule them and compel them to trade with her on terms
that turned all their surplus wealth into her coffers—as she had done in
India. Her misfortunes had soured her temper and made her more truculent
and bulldozing than ever. Her manner towards her colonies changed. They
had been of little or no assistance to her in her struggle with Russia,
and had but little sympathy with her foreign policy and the truculent
and aggressive bearing towards weaker nations that had made her to be
thoroughly unpopular in some parts of the world. England now began to
resent the cold attitude of the colonies toward her, and to talk of the
duty of the daughters towards the mother. She began to be sorely pinched
for money. The war had doubled her already enormous debt, and halved her
resources. The number of her unemployed at home had greatly increased
by reason of the diminution of her trade and the foreign demand for her
manufacturers. Taxation enormously increased and the rich were reduced to
poverty in providing for the poor. Millions emigrated to America and to
the colonies, generally people of the thrifty and productive classes,
thereby reducing the resources of the country without diminishing her
liabilities. She now proposed to the colonies to tax themselves for her
benefit. This they were not inclined to do. They were all comparatively
poor. They needed all the money they could raise for public improvements
in their own settlements. Most of them were heavily in debt. Canada was
hopelessly so, practically bankrupt in fact. Finally the colonies all
declined to be taxed for the benefit of the mother country. The condition
of affairs in the British empire gave a great impulse to the idea of
confederation with the United States. The plan gained favor rapidly with
the colonies. No nation on earth was so prosperous then, or possessed of
such vast resources as the United States. The country was out of debt and
enormously wealthy.
“Her army was small, but she had a powerful navy. She was respected by
all the world and had great influence, as much from her fairness and
justice to other nations as from her known reserved power and ability
to enforce justice to herself. The British felt the need of an alliance
that would place them in the front rank of nations again, and all the
branches of the empire appeared anxious for the consolidation with the
United States. This country was desirous of obtaining Canada, and this
made it the more ready to adopt the union, because it was supposed it
must be with all or none. As this country was by far the most populous
number of the proposed union, it was conceded that Washington should be
the capital of the new empire. The constitution of the United States was
taken as the basis of the new government with certain modifications. The
President and Vice President were to be elected by direct vote of the
people, a plurality to elect. They were to serve six years only. They
could not both be from the same continent or state. The President was
not to have the veto power. The Representatives were to be 600 in number
apportioned among the states according to population. The senate was to
consist of 100 members elected by the people. The term of office for
both houses was to be two years. Each natural division as a continent or
island or group of islands was to be divided into senatorial districts
following state boundaries when practicable, but throwing together
small states or fractions of large ones when necessary to give the
proper quota of population. All bills were to originate in the House of
Representatives, but were also to pass the senate before becoming laws;
but that body could not alter or amend—only veto or approve, and the
House could pass any bill in spite of the senate by a two thirds vote.
The President was to appoint his cabinet with the approval of the senate,
but all or any one was to be required to resign upon a vote of “want of
confidence” by the House of Representatives. Both the President and Vice
President could be removed from office by a two-thirds vote of both House
and senate and a new election ordered to fill the unexpired term.
“There was to be free trade amongst all the states under this
constitution and also between these states and foreign nations
except that a tariff on importations might be imposed when ordered by
a three-fourths vote of the Congress. The general revenue was to be
collected by the County Commissioners and Treasurers of the counties of
the several states, such officers being for such purpose, officers of the
general government, and levying such rate of tax as ordered by the law
of Congress in addition to the taxes ordered by the state, county, city,
ward, or school district authorities.
“Suffrage was to be restricted to men and women who could read and
write the English language. Foreign immigrants were not to be permitted
to settle in colonies in any of the states or to maintain public
schools—except high schools—in which any other than the English language
is used.
“No state could engage in aggressive foreign war, but might repel
invasion. Only the general government could engage in war.
“This scheme of government was prepared by a joint commission appointed
for the purpose, and submitted to the people of the several countries
interested, the British Colonies, each separately, England, Ireland,
the United States and Scotland. All the colonies, the United States and
Ireland voted for the plan; England and Scotland voted against it. They
were dissatisfied with the provision prohibiting them from going to war.
They had always enjoyed this luxury and were loth to be deprived of
it. They had hoped the plan of union would allow them to pursue their
schemes of settlement and annexation as before with the right to call on
the confederation for succor in case they were hard pressed by foreign
enemies. They argued indeed that actual active assistance would never in
any probable event be required, because with the mere moral support of
such formidable backing they felt sure that almost any nation would put
up with any amount of insult and injury rather than resent it against
such odds.
“It was supposed by many that the failure of Great Britain to ratify the
general constitution would defeat the whole scheme. But the colonies
and Ireland had become very much in favor of it, and hated to be balked
by what they termed the selfish action of the mother country; and they
demanded her consent to the union, of as many as might choose to join
it without her. She was in no condition to resist their demands if they
should choose to enforce them. But it would have been folly to have come
to blows or even to words over such a question. The colonies had never
been a source of profit to England, but rather a bill of expense. She
traded with them, but did not possess a monopoly of their trade, and paid
their tariff dues the same as other people. The United States enjoyed a
larger trade with Canada than she, and had almost driven her out of the
trade with several of her own West India Islands. Whatever the position
might be that she held with reference to this commerce, it would not be
made worse by this proposed union, but rather better, for free trade
would take the place of tariffs. She would also enjoy free trade with
the United States, which alone was worth to her a dozen colonies. The
union of England with her colonies was chiefly one of sentiment. They
governed themselves according to their own ideas, and were practically
so many independent nations, which she was in sentiment bound to protect
when they got into trouble, but which had little or nothing to give her
in return for her maternal solicitude and worry. Their relationship to
her tended to make them impertinent and presumptuous in their intercourse
with other nations. Canada in particular by her bumptiousness had
more than once come very nearly involving her in ruinous war with the
United States, in which her loss would have been the destruction of her
commerce, and her only gain, the loss of her pert colony. All these
points were discussed by the English. It was urged that if Britain tried
to keep the Colonies against their will, the time would surely come
when she would have to give them up against hers. They recalled the
Controversy with the United States and reflected how much better it would
have been for England if she had permitted them to go off as friends
rather than enemies. And they averred that if she should give her cordial
approbation to the new union and send off the colonies with the maternal
blessing to join their big brother Jonathan, it would go far toward
curing the unfilial, but not entirely causeless feeling of bitterness he
had entertained for her since 1776 and 1812.
“As a result of all these reflections and many more of the same sort,
the conclusion was finally reached and the parliament gave its solemn
sanction to the new State, but with characteristic foresight exacted
one promise to which all the states acceded before the final act was
consummated, and that was, that the said new nation should forever
be the friend of Great Britain and in case her existence as a nation
were threatened it should be bound to interpose in her behalf, and if
necessary take up arms in her defense. The name proposed for the new
nation was the “Pan Anglic Union.” When England failed to ratify, “Pan”
was dropped, and the name became simply the “Anglic Union.” But it was
playfully nicknamed the “Lion’s Cubs,” the “Old Hen’s Chickens” etc.”
“When did these things happen?” I inquired.
“They were finished by the year 1950,” he replied.
“Did not the various states have to do considerable remodeling of their
forms and procedure to fit them for this consolidation?”
“Very little, their governments were all much like that of the United
States. Like this country, they had already turned over to the control
of the state all monopolies, such as railroads, and had reached the same
conclusions as to money, the suffrage, taxation and most other questions.
They had their legislatures and executive and judicial branches of
government, all about alike. Ireland had for a decade or more enjoyed
home rule. She came into the new Union as two states, Ulster and South
Ireland. These were soon afterward reconsolidated into one—Ireland—the
causes that led to their separation, viz, religious jealousy and the
teaching of religion in the schools having been eliminated by the
severance of all connection between church and state, which the new
constitution required.
“The new nation had hardly got settled down to business, before new
annexations and consolidations were proposed and after much hesitation
and reflection were agreed to. Mexico, Central America and Japan
proposed to come into the Union, and shortly after Chili and Argentine
made application for admission. The fact is that in forming the “Anglic
Union” the promoters were building far more than they realized. Time had
without their knowing it reached a new epoch, and was about to turn over
a new leaf. Men were becoming educated and mentally developed by strides
instead of inches, by moles instead of molecules. In forming the “Anglic
Union” they had given expression to a new feeling into which mankind was
just being born, a feeling of human brotherhood, a new instinct that
drew men together and acquainted them with the fact that they were all
the result of common natural causes and animated by common loves and
hopes and fears. It showed them they were not naturally and necessarily
enemies, but might and ought to be friends and mutually helpful to each
other. It was the beginning of the end of war, the epoch of peace and
good will.
“When they began to think of taking other than English speaking nations
into the “Anglic Union,” it was at once perceived that the name was
inadequate, and so was the constitution. The name was changed to “The
Great Union” and the constitution was amended in regard to the official
language so far as the non-English speaking nations were concerned.
English however was to be taught in these nations and it has gradually
superseded the other languages. Schools have everywhere been established,
and the church has been rigidly separated from the state. The state
protects the church, but contributes nothing to its support, nor does
it compel any unwilling citizen to contribute to its support by the
exemption of its property from its due proportion of taxation.”
“Have any other nations joined the Great Union up to the present time
besides those you have mentioned?”
“None others have been admitted into full membership as equal states,
but all the states of South America have been taken under the protection
of the “Great Union.” They are being settled and developed by northern
people and the native population gradually educated up to the required
standard. The equatorial climate is naturally unfavorable to enterprise,
and development proceeds slowly. The church has been a serious obstacle,
claiming time and attention of the natives that ought to be devoted
to business and education. The country is being covered with railways
by northern enterprise. The most important of these is the great
international road extending from the city of Mexico through Central
America and the isthmus of Darien and traversing the whole length of
South America, even into Patagonia. Branches from this trunk diverge
toward all important points and enormous progress has been made in
agriculture and mining. The resources of this continent furnish a vast
support to the teeming population of North America.”
Mention of these railways led me to inquire of the Professor concerning
the progress of transportation, and commerce and whether any radical
innovations had been introduced.
“All the old methods of transportation,” said he, “have been greatly
improved upon, but none of them entirely superseded. Flying machines have
been brought to a reasonable degree of perfection at the expense of much
thought and many experiments, many fortunes and many broken necks. But
they cannot take the place of the freight car or the steamship. They are
more rapid, easily making 100 to 150 miles an hour, but they are as yet
of limited capacity carrying light letter mails, and a few passengers,
but at too great an expense to compete with the improved rail and water
carriage of the present. Besides most people would rather be near the
ground in case of accident. I mentioned to you the greatly reduced
cost of railway transportation in North America where all the lines
are operated by the state. In most of the South American states, the
roads are merely controlled—not owned—by the state and there is active
agitation in favor of the annexation of these states to the Great Union,
in anticipation in part of the advantage that will be obtained by the
state control of roads that will follow.
“The most beneficent service that the flying machine has rendered is
its potent contribution toward the abolition of war. Men have indeed
been rapidly educated out of the spirit and habit of war, but the
flying machine simply prohibited it. Without it, an age of peace would
undoubtedly have been reached in the future, with it, the age of peace is
here. International warfare is at an end and probably forever.”
“I don’t quite see how,” said I.
“It is very easy. One of these machines can carry enough dynamite, gun
cotton and other destructive explosives to devastate a city of 100,000
inhabitants. It can at will, fly over any place and drop its deadly stuff
precisely where it will do the most execution. It can select the palace
of the king, the houses of parliament or congress, the barracks, the
citadel, or the magazine, or the thickly peopled camp of a great army.
It can do this with little risk, deliberately, in broad daylight, poised
two or three miles above its victim out of reach of practical gunnery;
but in the night it can drop death upon defenseless and unsuspecting
sleepers without a moments warning. Battle ships are equally useless. A
charge of dynamite dropped from a flyer being able to reduce the greatest
ship to scrap iron and send it to the bottom in a moment. As personal
armor became a useless encumbrance, when gunpowder was introduced, so the
armoring of ships has entirely passed away in the presence of the flying
machine and naval warfare is no more practicable than war or land.”
“I should think,” said I, “that the “flyer” could be converted into
a dangerous instrument for criminal use. What’s the reason pirates
and robbers could not sail down upon a community small enough to be
overpowered by them, and then sail off again with their booty to some
inaccessible or solitary place?”
“That has been done,” he answered, “but it is no longer easy. Whenever a
fresh emergency arises in human affairs, a fresh remedy is found to meet
it. It often brings its own remedy. The flyer is as great an agent in the
hands of the police as it is in the hands of the criminal. As to solitary
places, there are very few left on earth that are habitable, and there
is not a spot that has not been seen by men, and that is not subject to
police surveillance.”
“Then,” said I, “they must have discovered the north pole.”
“Yes they have, and the south pole too,” he replied. “The first trip to
the north pole was made from Cape Prince of Wales in Alaska. The party
flew in a straight line from that point, in midsummer, north over the
pole and continuing in almost the same direction to the south, reached
Hammerfest in Norway a distance of 3,000 miles in forty hours without
stopping. Parties have gone from Minneapolis by way of the north pole in
an air line to the town of Tomsk in Siberia a distance of 5,500 miles,
stopping at the pole twelve hours, and finishing the journey within four
days. These trips have often been repeated and many similar ones made. It
is possible to make the circuit of the earth in twelve days by means of
relays at certain continental points and on some of the Pacific Islands;
but it can also be made by rail and water with only four changes, two to
rail and two to steamer in fifteen to seventeen days. Railroads run to
Alaska reaching Bering Sea and the Pacific at several points, and are met
by corresponding roads on the Russian side. The water carriage in summer
is only across Bering Strait, but in winter on account of ice the passage
is made further south and is longer.”
“Why don’t they tunnel Bering Strait,” I inquired, “or bridge it?”
“They will in the future tunnel it part way and build a dam or embankment
the rest of the way,” he replied, “and utilize the enormous power of the
current passing through there to drive the trains 1,000 miles on each
side of the strait, but the time has not yet arrived. A bridge would not
stay there, it would be swept away by the ice.”
“Isn’t there danger of collision between these flying machines?”
“Many fatal collisions took place when the flyers were first introduced.
It was found necessary to regulate them by government supervision. The
routes between all points have been carefully laid out and the going and
returning paths separated by a wide and safe space.
“You mentioned the abolition of war. I hardly see how it could be while
there were any uncivilized nations on earth,” I observed.
“I said international warfare was abolished.” he returned. “After Russia
had taken possession of Asia and settled its ownership, and Africa had
been divided up amongst the western European nations, the governments of
all nations were civilized. The regulation of such barbarous subjects
as they might be responsible for, was simply a question of policing, not
war. An insurrection by them could not succeed against the destructive
weapons held by the government. But as international affairs are now
settled, there is no excuse for any responsible body of men to resort
to force. The principle of arbitration first adopted between the United
States and Great Britain was subsequently extended to all civilized
nations. Later there was framed for the guidance of Arbitrators of
international questions, an international constitution or law of nations
agreed to by treaty between the principal nations and finally ratified by
all. This constitution described the boundaries of all nations, which it
was agreed were not to be disturbed except on consent of all the parties
concerned, thus doing away with wars for conquest.
“A criminal code was enacted, by which all crimes between subjects of
different nations were to be tried, and an international court was
established, composed of Judges from every nation. When a suit is brought
before this court, those judges appointed by the nations parties to the
suit, are excused from serving, and the case is tried by the others.
Questions of damages by one nation and its decrees when finally reached
are acquiesced in without hesitation, because it is keenly recognized
that any settlement even when not entirely satisfactory, is preferable
to war. In fact war is not recognized as a practical method of settling
anything.”
“If war is at an end, what have the European Nations done with their
great armies,” I inquired. “In my day most of the surplus wealth of
those nations went to support their vast armies, and the masses of the
industrial classes were kept in poverty, because their earnings were so
largely diverted to that purpose. And yet there appeared to be too many
workers, for their wages were very low. If the soldiers were set to work
at peaceful occupations and married and raised families, the population
must have increased and the wages gone still lower. How was that?”
“Well, not quite like that,” he replied. “The more workers the more
wealth, provided they have plenty of raw material to work on. The
abolition of war gave a great impetus to the production of wealth in
Europe. A great demand was created for raw materials, such as wool,
cotton, timber, iron and other metals and for food stuffs. A large
part of these supplies had to be furnished from other countries. The
United States furnished vast quantities. This increased commerce, and
as the population increased, emigration was stimulated. As the United
States filled up, the emigration was diverted from this country to South
America and to Africa. The products and exports of these countries
correspondingly increased. The equatorial regions are most prolific
in all the products of the soil. The temperate zones furnish the most
vigorous people for consuming these and turning them into wealth. The
relations between these two regions are reciprocal and complemental
rather than competitive. Free trade was first established in those
directions and it soon forced itself in others, until it became the
rule the world over. The history of western Europe during the twentieth
century, is bound up with the development and settlement of South America
and Africa, especially the latter. Modern Africa is as much a child of
Europe as America is, and the native races and tongues are being rapidly
displaced by the European. Population in Europe naturally increases in a
more rapid ratio than ever before, due to the suppression of the ravages
and waste of war, the more scientific treatment of disease, and control
of epidemics, the greater comfort and prosperity of the people. But
with their increased possibilities for comfort have come, an increased
standard and expectation of life, so that it cannot be said that the
people are any better satisfied with life than they were before. The
struggles are as intense and the disappointments as stinging as ever. The
incentives to emigration have not diminished while facilities inducements
and flattering prospects to the immigrant are vastly greater than ever.
“Europe is the great breeding ground for Africa, as it was formerly for
North America. And the human inundation that formerly poured itself into
the United States is diverted chiefly to Africa, but in four fold volume.”
“Surely,” said I, “the capacity of the earth for supporting the human
family must be almost exhausted. It is sickening to contemplate the
suffering that will be entailed in the struggle for existence that it
seems to me must inevitably come soon. Evidently from what you say,
Europe must be about as full as it will hold. I suppose the great
migration you speak of represents the surplus crop of folks that the
continent must get rid of in order to let those that remain live in
tolerable comfort. When Africa and South America get to be as full as
Europe and the United States, so that they can no longer receive this
tide of emigration, then what is to be done? For anything I can see
famine will have to sweep away some of the race in order that the rest
may exist, and after all is that any better than war?”
“At any rate,” said he, “we have not reached that yet. We have now
reached the beginning of the twenty-first century. The population of the
earth has reached the very considerable number of 4,000,000,000 or almost
three times what is was in your day. Yet we concede a three fold increase
of that figure before starvation or some other repressive agency will be
necessary to stop the increase of the population and that will only be
reached by the year 2070.”
He here pulled out a pencil of curious make and with his middle left
hand dashed off some strange looking characters on a blank space on the
profile. He was evidently figuring, for in a moment he went on to say
that he found that when the 40,000,000 square miles of habitable land on
the earth were divided equally between 12,000,000,000, of people they
would have about two acres each.
I ventured to say, I did not think two acres enough to furnish an
individual with food, taking his chances of bad seasons from droughts,
floods etc. Besides men could hardly live without timber and they could
have none if all the land were cultivated. Moreover, they must have
animals to furnish leather, wool etc., and land would be required for
their sustenance.
Land must be also devoted to cotton, flax hemp and so on for clothes
etc. When you allow for such things as these, I said, I thought the area
devoted to the production of food would not be much over one acre to the
individual by the year 2070, if he was right about the number of people
there would then be.
“You are only thinking of the crude methods people had in your day of
getting their food from the earth,” said he. “They were at the mercy of
the uncontrolled action of natural forces and accidents. The rain and
sunshine naturally falling on an acre of land enabled them to raise so
many bushels of wheat or beans or carrots or beets. But if the rain did
not fall or the sun failed to shine or there was too much rain or too
much sunshine or the weather was too cold or the wind too boisterous, the
farmer was at the mercy of the fickle elements and his crop a failure. In
a few places irrigation was practiced, men got a partial control of the
conditions, but these places were limited, and the control incomplete.
“If you will call to mind the information I have given you of the
artificial production of food and other necessaries of existence among
the Lunarians, you will readily see that the resources of the earth to
sustain its population do not depend altogether on the amount of land
surface that men can cultivate to beets and potatoes—the amount on which
the sun shines and the rain falls. Surface you must have of course for
people to live and to move on. But when you learn how to utilize it there
is material under every acre on an average, more than sufficient for the
sustenance of all the people that could stand on it. The soil in which
you plant your seeds is nothing but the disintegrated rock of a thin
layer of the surface of the earth. Below it are rocks of the same sort in
quantities enough to make millions of such soils. If you knew how, you
could make your food products out of the soil directly instead of waiting
for the growth of plants in it, and if the soil should give out you could
make them from the rocks below.”
“Yes,” said I, “but will mankind ever find out how to do this? Will you
wise and experienced Lunarians show us?”
“No, it is not necessary that we should. You will find it out fast enough
yourselves. Your chemists even in your day had begun to take lessons in
chemical synthesis, and as time went on, and the necessity increased,
their efforts were stimulated and constantly became more successful until
now they can produce a number of artificial foods from the original
elements without the necessity of raising vegetables or animals by the
action of natural growth. Looking over into the twenty-first century, we
see that they will easily be able to produce food from the elements as
fast as required. Their abilities and facilities will keep pace with the
population. This implies that the race will not have to be checked in its
expansion by lack of food. The feature of evolution and selection of the
fittest by means of a struggle for food will be entirely eliminated. The
matter will be entirely in the hands of the people themselves.”
“How about clothing,” I asked, “will they produce that too by the aid of
chemistry?”
“Yes they will. Sheep will not be required for their wool any more than
their flesh. A substitute will be found for leather as well as beef.
Better and more durable clothing will be made directly from minerals than
were produced in your time from vegetable and animal substances. Metals
and artificial mineral products began early in the twentieth century and
even before, to supplant wood in buildings and many other structures.
So at present the use of wood is greatly reduced and during the coming
century it will be almost discontinued; a great many things are now made
of Alumina that were formerly made of wood, and that metal has become
cheaper and more abundant than iron. Glass is also very much used, and
methods have been discovered of giving it any desired temper, so that it
is made flexible and tough like pewter or firm and elastic like steel.
It can also be made fibrous and soft as cotton and can be spun and woven
into textile fabrics.”
“But what are they going to do for power and fuel?” I asked. “If there
is to be such an increase of population, an enormous consumption of fuel
and power will follow. Of course they will use the coal while it lasts,
but the supply of that limited, and if that is the only dependence, all
industries will sooner or later be brought to an end.”
“The coal,” said he, “was an excellent makeshift for temporary use until
a more enduring supply of power was discovered to supersede it. But even
now it could if necessary be almost entirely dispensed with and yet there
are still vast deposits of it untouched. In the long distant future the
time will come when the coal will be regarded as a deposit of food for
your race as it is now with ours, but it will not be consumed for its
heat or its power except in that way.”
“Have our people then learned how to get power as you do from the use of
the principle of the repulsion of gravitation?”
“Indeed they have not,” he answered, “and they are very unlikely ever to
find out how to do it unless instructed by us; and that will never be
till the Lunarians become lunatics. The new power that has been developed
and already brought into considerable use and which will soon become a
substitute for all others and endure as long as the earth is habitable
is simply sunlight; and the discovery that is to prove by far the most
valuable ever made by your race is the direct conversion of its force
into electricity, which can as you know be conveyed hundreds of miles and
applied to any sort of machinery required. When coal is used to produce
electricity, the process is after all an indirect way of utilizing the
force of the sun’s rays. Ages ago these rays created the vegetation that
afterwards became coal, and in burning the coal now, the force of the
sun’s rays consumed in its production is again brought into action in
heating the water, that expands into steam that drives the engine, that
turns the dynamo, that creates the electric current. It was seen long ago
that if some process could be devised by which the force of the sunlight
could be consumed in the creation of electricity directly, the suns rays
of to-day could be utilized in the production of power instead of using
up the coal that was produced by them in former ages. It was discovered
in your day that sunlight falling upon the metal selenium is turned in
part into electricity. Acting on this hint your scientists experimented
with that metal and others, and tried hundreds of combinations and
alloys. They have discovered many compounds that possess this property,
which is found to depend on the sizes and shapes of the spaces between
the molecules of the metal. The impact of the undulations of the ether
that give rise to light, striking into the ether confined in these
peculiarly shaped spaces impart to it the sort of motion these shapes
make it competent to take, which is the new form of motion, electricity.
They were largely assisted and guided in their investigations by spectrum
analysis. The apparatus for the production of electricity in this way is
necessarily of large dimensions presenting large surface to the sun, and
as yet is rather expensive, but once made, it lasts forever and produces
electricity whenever the sun shines. Improvements are constantly being
made that reduce the cost and increase the efficiency. These machines are
arranged to turn automatically, a certain face to the sun, revolving on
a horizontal plane diurnally and changing their declination vertically
to follow the north and south movement of the sun through the seasons.
The electricity is transmitted to storage batteries and a surplus thus
accumulated during sunshine to be used at night and in cloudy weather
or carried off to be used elsewhere. These machines yield especially
good results in tropical latitudes and in localities where clear weather
predominates, such as southern California, Arizona, northern Mexico, the
Sahara desert, Egypt, Arabia, Tartary, Central Australia, etc. In all
such countries railroads are operated at nominal expense.
“Stations at intervals transmit the power several hundred miles on
either side. As there is practically no limit to this power it has come
to be used for the accomplishment of undertakings that were hardly
dreamed of before. The irrigation and development of deserts by means of
artesian wells and by streams brought from a distance, followed by the
construction of roads, settlement and cultivation are being vigorously
prosecuted in all parts where the climate is not too cold. Large tracts
notably in the Sahara and Gobi deserts and in Arabia and Tartary, have
already been made productive and populous. This power can be conveyed to
great distances from the point where it is developed, and made to do work
in places practically inaccessible to any other form of power. Excavation
of canals, railway cuts, tunnels and mines with the transportation
of materials for embankments is prosecuted with tremendous energy.
Innumerable mines are being pushed far into the bowels of the earth and
the interior explored and honeycombed in many directions. This work is
however destined to be of vastly more importance in the distant future
than at the present. But I think you can now see that with practically
unlimited power and unlimited raw materials for the construction of the
human race placed in the hands of the race itself your fears that the
increase of population will ever press uncomfortably on the means of
subsistence are not well founded.”
“Yes I do begin to see that,” said I. “It is all very wonderful. What a
career the race has before it! Why it has hardly got out of its cradle
yet. What a misfortune that I was not reserved to be born two or three
centuries later so I could see some of these future glories!”
“Nay, nay,” he replied, “that is a vain wish. You may be as happy in your
own time as you could be in the future. In all the ages of the past,
people have been found expressing a poor opinion of their own times,
extolling the golden age that was past or the millennium that was to
come; and it will be so in the future. If you were to live two centuries
hence you would see as many defects and shortcomings, and anticipate as
many still future improvements and achievements as you did in your day.”
“Well, I suppose, that must be so; and yet with such an apparently
absolute control over the earth it would seem that mankind might make
themselves comfortable and contented.”