MARCONI AS A PROPHET.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 162, 26 November 1912, Page 4

MARCONI AS A PROPHET.

Mr. Ivan Narodny, who publishes an account of an interview with Mr. Cuglielmo Marconi in the last number of the Technical World, caught the inventor of wireless telegraphy in a communicative, confidential and . prophetic mood, and made the most of a rare opportunity, rare because Mr. Marconi hates being interviewed and seldom goes out of his way to help an interviewer by volunteering information or opinions. To Mr. Xarodny, however, he unburdencd his soul and expressed his views on the future of electrical science and the probable effect of scientific developments upon the social and political future of the world. He said that he was not a Socialist, having little faith in political formulae, but he believed that the progress of invention would create a state which would realise most of the present dreams of the Socialists. The principal aim of the Socialists, the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange, would be practically forced upon the world bv altered circumstances. Within tw'o generations the world would have, not only wireless telegraphy and telephony, but also wireless transmission of all power, wireless heating and light, and wireless fertilisation of the fields. In this wireless era of the future the government must necessarily control all the great sources of power, and railways, telegraphs, telephones, ships, mills and factories would have to be brought under public ownership. The coming of the wireless era would make war impossible by making war ridiculous. The power sources of the future would be water and wind, with a strong possibility that light might also be found capable of transmutation into energy. Power would become very cheap, so cheap that the State would give a certain amount free of charge as some municipalities nowadays give water. The concentration of the essentials of all industry in the hands of a democratic State would remove the economic friction caused to-day by the centring of the control of energy in the hands of privileged individuals.