AN ARMCHAIR MILLENNIUM

Evening Star, Issue 19804, 1 March 1928, Page 5

AN ARMCHAIR MILLENNIUM

WHAT THE FUTURE PROMISES “A bright millennium (why do we thus limit our expected felicities to periods of a thousand years?) seems to bo rapidly approaching. It is to be a millennium of comfort and ease—an armchair millennium ” (writes Miss Rose Maucauiay, in the ‘Forum’). “ What preachers have, for the last several centuries, called ‘ this age of hurry and unrest ’ is drawing to a close. Already we need not leave our happy homes in order to hear music. ... “ Nor is it necessary to sally forth in search of oratory (if we chance to have a taste for this pleasure), for ever and anon, and quite often enough to suit most of us, the sonorohs voices of eloquent speakers declaim into our drawing rooms. Nor need Sunday’ evening services any more be attended in person, for those of us who have a fancy for these can join in prayers, hymns, psalms, and sermons, sitting on our own sofas. Many persons, indeed, do this who never dreamed, nor ever would dream, of being found within a church. “As to the drama, the arrangements for its transmission to an armchair audience are not yet completed; at present they can only hear it, which is unsatisfactory, if economical and comfortable. But one understands television before long will give ns quite a good view of the stage and performers. That, for many of us, will bo the millennium. “To see and hear a play every night, without further trouble and expense than one’s own wireless set entails, without’ the tedium of going out and coming back and the discomfort of being surrounded by other people as noisy and tiresopio as ourselves (for those in our homes wo should bo able, with a little firmness, to keep jn order) —here, indeed, is bliss, only a little marred by the fact that we cannot choose what play we see, but must accept what is given us.” After developing this theory Rose Macaulay concludes her contribution in the ‘Forum’ by writing;—

“ Yes, everything should he done for ns. Why not? It is rumoured that ye may soon ll.'J ve rushing into our homes over the vires all kinds of domestic help. Unseen power will come at our need and will clean our rooms, wash our dishes, oook our food, run up meals to our armchairs on electrically-pro-pelled tables, make our beds, turn on our baths, divest us of our clothes and dress us again, shave us, wash us, do our hair, and fling us into bed. . . . “I hold that there has always been ton much action and initiative in this world, where all things travail together. Wo have made of it a restless, untranqnil place, in which created beings, human and other, hurtle about from snot to spot, hectically intent on their private ends. Why, for instance, go forth to see doctors, dentists, osteopaths, and other healers, when the same treatment could bo so much more restfnlly meted out to us as we sit at home? We should be able to press a button and be—-well, not healed, for to heal human ills is usually beyond the skill cither of human or electrical physicians and can only be done by the processes of time—but, anyhow, treated. “ I contemplate starling a Society For Not Taking Any Trouble. Most societies seem rather to have been started with some other end in view than this; it is quite time that mine got going. As to most of the societies now functioning, a short and convenient way with them has been suggested, which would suspend their activities and hasten the advent of the armchair millennium; they should each pair with some society of opposed tendencies, as do Members of Parliament on opposite sides of the House. “ Thus, the Anti-Vivisection Society should pair with the Society for Anatomical Research, the Vegetarians Guild with the Butchers’ Union, the Birth Controllers with the More Men for the Empire League, Facists with Socialists, the Miners’ Federation with the Coal Owners’ Association. The newspapers might do a little pairing, too. And as to that, and while we are on the subject of pairing, and not wishing to he in the_ least offensive, what about a little of it among private persons? We all know some people who would he better paired than actively functioning; perhaps most of us would. “ But here we are on delicate and controversial ground.”