PREDICTION OF EVENTS OF THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS.

Lyell Times and Central Buller Gazette, Volume VI, Issue 265, 20 March 1886, Page 3

PREDICTION OF EVENTS OF THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS.

[From the Times, Jan. Ist, 1935.J Let us review the events of the last fil'iy years. About 1890 the " Earth Currents " were discovered, and man first learned tliat the mighty forces at work in the earth's centre might be made to supersede his miserable round of mining and burning coal, bo ;,; ug 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 f.esh indefinitely discovered. Our present del : cious dunks took the place of the old " intoxieants." The process ot electrically producing steel and aluminium was pei fected. Slag wool took the place of fibre for garments and paper. The new cereal displaced the meagre, old-fashioned wheat, and the new roots the old, tiny, slow-growing J potato. Sewage is now " converted " at every central station, and our rivers are pure and abounding with fish. Smoke is abolished with coal. Heating and lighting, cooking, mills, smelling furnaces, and work of all sorts achieved by noiseless, cleanly, almost costless electricity. The Government waterworks are admirable, and the local authorities under direct control of the ratepayers. Wages have not risen, but the cost of living has decreased three-fourths. This, with our gigantic colony of Africa, and our teaproducing Buvmah, works to decrease our pauperism until it is cor fined to the old and sick, who are all provided for by the rates, now so very light. We have lost water and gas companies, heriditary legislators, war, complicated legal procedure, dut, smoke, and ill-health (London's death-rate being only ten per thousand). We have gained lighi, health, peace, arbitration, plenty, universal freetrade, cheap food and clo'b'ng, rapid transit, and national education. These are only a few of the si' ides in art, manufacture, commerce, and social science.

Abroad: Turkey lias disappeared, Ind'a is rapidly advancing on Siberia, and working its mineral wealth, Russia re--I.'eating to Europe to develop her Turkish resources. AH Africa is English; Australasia is rapidly becoming one of the Great Powers, France is a Monarchy, and Germany, Russia, is a Republic. The daily fast ships to Ameiica bring us very near our cousms there, and we aie, and are ! : kely to be for a long time, at peace with the world, and prosperous under our good k'ng and refoimed legislature.