Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/59

 chandise in both directions. Elevators, suitably placed, will give access to it wherever needed. Probably the motive power will be electrical: and we may confidently anticipate entirely new sources of electricity. It is obviously clumsy to create power in the first instance, convert power into electricity (I use popular language), and then convert electricity back again into power. Much more hopeful than any idea of developing that method would be the conception of new ways of creating and applying motive-power directly. But, almost certainly, electricity, obtained in some new way, will do the work of the world for many generations yet—until, in fact, we devise or discover something more convenient.

It will have been perceived that nearly every improvement and innovation above sketched out involves, and will be indeed designed to effect, great saving of labour. With such economies, and an increased population, there is evidently going to be a difficulty about employment.

Moreover, the great facilities enjoyed by commerce will tend to make commerce extremely powerful. Already great organisers of business begin to evade competition by combining in vast "trusts," whose tendency is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. There is a further cause for the aggrandisement of the large trader and manufacturer at