PREDICTION OF EVENTS OF THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS.

Kumara Times, Issue 2915, 3 March 1886, Page 3

PREDICTION OF EVENTS OF THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS.

[From the Times, Jan. Ist, 1935.]

Let us review the events of the last fifty yea vs. About 1890 the, ' Earth Currents' were discovered, and man first learned that the mighty forces at work in the earth's centre might be made to supersede his miserable round of mining and burning coal, boiling water, and driving machinery. Then, in '95, chromatic photography almost beat painters out of the field. Then, in a few years, the moon's inhabitants were first seen. The Simplex Calculating Machine, by which we supersede one-half the clerks, was invented, and the means of preserving meat, and vegetables fresh indefinitely discovered. Our present delicious drinks i<x>k the place of the old 'intoxicants.' The process of electrically producing steel and aluminium was perfected. Sia» wool took the place of fibre for garments and paper. The. new ceieal displaced the meagre, old-fnrhioned wheat, and the new roots the old, tiny, slow-growing potato.. Sewage is now 'converted' at every central station. and our rivers ate pure and abounding with fish. Smoke ia abolished with coal. Heating and lighting, cooking, mills, smelting furnaces, and work of all sorts achieved by noiseless, cleanly, a 1 most costless electricity. • The Government, waterworks are admirable, and the local authorities under direct control of the ratepayers. Wages have not risen, but the fcost of living has decreased three-fourths. . This, with our gigantic colony of Africa, and our tea-producing Burmah, works to decrease our pauperism until it is confined to the old and sick, who are all provided for by the rates, now so very light. We have Inst water and gas companies, hereditary legislators, war, complicated legal procedure, drink, dirt, smoke, and ill-health (London's death-rate being only ten per thousand). We have gained light, health, peace, arbitration, plenty, universal freetrade, cheap food and clothing, rapid transit, and national education. These are only a few of the strides in art, manufacture, commerce, and social science.

Abroad: Turkey lias disappeared, India is rapidly advancing on Siberia, and working its mineral weath, Russia retreating to Europe to develop her Turkish resources. All Africa is English ; Australasia is rapidly becoming one of the Great Powers, France is a Monarchy, and Germany, like Russia, is a Republic. The daily fast ships to America bring us very near our cousins there, and we are, and are likely to be for a long time, at peace with the world, and prosperous under our good king and reformed legislature.