WELLS'S PLAN

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 3, 5 January 1932, Page 3

WELLS'S PLAN

A WORLD STATE

COLLECTIVE OWNERSHIP

"OLD SYSTEM MUST GO"

H. G. Wells is again visiting the United States. The author of half a hundred books that range from histories to novols, that recount the past and prophesy the future; tho man who from, teaching turned to writiug, and, beginning with a scientific treatise, transformed scionce into rornanco and romance into science,l has returned after an absence of nine years to get a view of economic conditions in this country, writes S. J. Woolf in the "New York Times." ' In. a publishing plant in a suburb, where lie was going over the final proof of his latest book, I called upon him. Though the rod brick buildings are surrounded by wooded walks and gardens, and though t>>.e roonii in which ho sat, its walls filled with books and pictures, looked more like a library than an office, there came to us from below the constant roar of machinery. Errand boys interrupted him with cable messages; publicity women Waited upon him,1 and sales managers conferred with him. He appeared as out of place as a spinning wheel in a modern factory. Inadvertently I thought of Chcsteiv ton consuming countless cups of tea in his disordered office in Essex street in London, and of Shaw lolling back on his cretonne-covered sofa, in Adelphi Terrace. Both of them, fitted into their places'perfectly, but around' Wells in America there is a jarring note. For there is something old fashioned about him. Somehow he Tecalls parlours with overstuffed furniture and antimacassars. He brings forth memories of flowered wallpaper and vases filled with cat-tails. And all this despite the fact that, like Jules Verne, but with greater literary skill, he predicted years ago many of the innovations of to-day. In his ivy-covered rambling houso in Dunmow, among tho sleepy flat-lands of Essex, he is at home. There this small man, with his thinning brown hair plastered flat on his head, with his dreamy blue eyes shaded by bristling brows, with his scraggly moustache and a voice that is low in tone but high in pitch, melts into his background. As he sat at his desk in tho publishers' office marking proofs with a short fountain pen minus its cap so that it looked like a stubby pencil; as ho bent his head over the galleys and the light from tho largo windows threw shadows under his eyes and accentuated tho cleft above his nosej as he jotted down notes, he might have been a merchant writing an orilor. RAPID CHANGES. lnor some time ho was so engrossed in his work that I could not get him to talk. Occasionally,as I drew I would catch him giving me a side-ways glanco through the pince-nez which he had substituted for shell spectacles. Most of my questions were answered by monosyllables and it was not until I asked him what the next chapter of the "Outline of History" would be like that he at last forgot the work that was before him. "It's going to be very tragic uuloss we take" care," ho said. His manner is slow. Theie is a deliberation about him that ho probably acquired at the Eoyal College of Science where, after he had decided not to become a draper, he studied under Huxley and received his 'degree. It is a manner which he cultivated when he taught biology for two years at the University Tutorial College in Ecd Lion Square. There was a slight nervous cough. Then he continued: "Things are changing so rapidly these days that there is no -way of measuring the increasing swiftness. Those changes have been brought about by a man here and a group there who have made inventions and discoveries which have effected an upheaval in our life. At first wo did not realise what was happening; wo are.not quite clear even now about those changes." Ho stopped and turned back to the all-absorbing proofs. For a time he worked, then, as if nothing had interrupted his conversation, ho began again: "The thing that marks the beginning of 'tho twentieth century is what has been described as the abolition of distance. For a hundred years previously thoro had been a continual increase 'in speed and safety in travel, as well as new methods in the transmission of communication. With the development of railways, steamships, and the telegraph, towns grew larger, places once inaccessible became populated areas, and industrial centres began to live on imported food, while news from remote places was carried to the furthermost corners of the world. But while, these things came along, they were regarded as only improvements in existing conditions and their real import and their effect upon tho daily lives "of the people were not recognised. A NEW (WORLD. "In the latter part of tlic nineteenth century there were a few prophets, a tow men more observing than the rest who began to see that this abolition of distance was but one aspect of much moro far-reaching advances. It suddenly began to dawn upon them that there had been a stupendous progress in obtaining and using mechanical power, and with this had coino an enormous increase in the substances available for man's use. Vulcanised rubber, modern steel, petro -*urn, margarin, tungsten, aluminum were discovered. To most people "these things appeared to be lucky finds happy chance discoveries. The tremendous change they were bringing with them was not foreseen," He removed his glasses and turned to look at me, while the presses on the floor below appropriately, kept up their steady grind. It was a fitting acC°?!E?v. lUmellt t0 what Ilc had to say. "These so-called lucky finds," he continued, "increased the amounts and the methods of production, and bic business made its appearance. You know what, tho result of that has been, ihe small producer and the small distributor have been driven out of the market; old factories have been swept away and now and larger ones have taken their places; the face of the countrywide has changed. A world in which there had never been enough becarao ono of potential plenty, and '■with' these things camo developments in biological science and medicine. Theoretically, man could now live without any great burden, toil, or fear, wholesomely and abundantly for as long.as the desire to live was in him." He smiled. It was a repressed smile and a repressed chuckle went with it. "I said theoretically," he added, "for all this freedom of movement, this power, and abundance remain for most of us no moro than possibilities. Hard tasks, want, and money worries are still our lot, while the threat of war, armed by all the discoveries of this modern science, hangs over us." HABITS OF THOUGHT. "Because," ho replied, "we are not able to shake off old traditions. Although every one. is our nextdoor neighbour and commerce is continually breaking nationalistic boundaries, we still distrust and even hate foreigners and we stiffen up like wooden soldiers for pur national anthem, and.jjce-

pare to follow the little fellows in spurs and feathers to destruction. .

"Can't you see that our old ideas of patriotism are no longer tenable?" he asked. "We do these things because we are . hoodwinked and bamboozled by those who trade upon the old traditions, and the worst part of it is that.these inherited defects and malformations are not confined to our political life. Our everyday life, and by that I mean our eating and drinking, pur clothing, and housing, and our going about, is also cramped, thwarted and impoverished. AH about us we have unemployment and a dislocation of spending power. The entire economic machine is creaking and is held back by ideas that are out of date. Unless there is a reconstruction, it must undoubtedly stop." It is wrong to describe Mr. Wells as a crusader. There is nothing flaming about ih'inr. In any group of people one would pick him out as a type; of conservative Englishman. "With his pink complexion, his almost hesitating manner, one would expect to hear from him, as he' sipped, a cup of tea, reactionary opinions instead of radical proposals. . ' -■■"■':

It was the war, he told me, that made him realise,the possibilities of a better order of things. ""'..

"There must be no more wars," he said, "which means that we must.be cosmopolitan in ; our politics.' Nobody with any intelligence can believe, however, that destructive stupidities. can be eliminated until some common political control dominates the earth, a control not only of armed force but of the production and main movements of commodities as'well as of the drift and expansion of population.

"A religious spirit," he continued, 'fin the light oil modern knowledge can lift mankind out of certain of its difficulties. But the' reconstruction of this world depends upon a political, social, and economic unification as well as a religious one. Instead of a patchwork of governments there must be one extending in new directions and with a new .psychology. The psychology 'of economic co-operation is only ; dawning. Our libraries are filled with ponderous and; dreary volumes on 'rents,' 'surplus values,' and unworkable and out-of-date, theories. ;"We must begin our attack-with •-a proper' survey .so that the staple needs of mankind may be satisfied." '■'..- ---; His plan. ";/- ■'";:■ Mr. Wells went' on to describe a system for work and production designed to entail the least labour and produce the greatest satisfaction, and in which the modern community .would, be ,a great, encyclopedic .organisation which; would supervise. all the material activities of mankind. The; primary consideration in: arranging the new economic, biological,'..and mental organisation .of : his new world' community would be the greatest freedom with the /least suppression. The ocean, the air, and rare wild animals, would -be the collective property 'of all; raw iriaterials. would not be monopolised •■; by an acquisitive individual nor withheld from exploitation-for the general b'enofit by any chance claims. ' iV ;

"In the, new world State," hoi explained, "a highly organised form of collective ownership, subject to free criticism and responsible to tho whole republic of humanity, will replace individual private ownership. With this will go the maintenance of a money■; system by a central world authority that will make money keep faith with the worker who earns it. Credit will be administered adequately in the general interest by a centralised banking organisation; social psychology will assure us that the best work will be done for the world by individuals' free to exploit their abilities as they wish. Individual landowners will be replaced by tenants with security of tenure and by househqldcrs and ■by licensees under collective proprietors, but it will' be tho practice to allow the cultivator to benefit by his productivity and the householder to fashion; hiß house and garden after his own desire."