Melbourne and Mars/Chapter 8

I HAVE not previously mentioned in these diaries the fact that electricity is supplied free to everyone who uses it on our planet. There is no attempt to measure the consumption and no stint placed on its use. For the supply is inexhaustible, and even the use does not diminish force; it merely makes it serve our purpose in passing. When we release the electricity it just runs back into the down current, and may be in our hands again in a few seconds later.

There was, therefore, no difficulty in getting a wire laid into a carefully prepared garden plot. In this I had planted a few common vegetables. I passed the current through a regulator and then laid coils all over the plot just beneath the soil. My object was to raise the temperature of the soil a little higher than that of the surrounding air, and to keep it night and day in the same condition.

I had another plot of the same size planted in a similar manner, and fertilised with the same ingredients. In ninety days the plants had attained the ordinary maturity, but I allowed them to remain thirty days more and they reached quite double size. The crop sown in the same way, and grown in the ordinary way, was as far advanced in one hundred and eighty days as the other in ninety. On analysing the soil from the two plots I found that the quicker growing and bulkier plants had taken little, if any, more out of the soil than the ordinary plants had absorbed, I therefore came to the conclusion that the gentle stimulus of a little warmth in the soil had caused a more rapid absorption of water and atmospheric constituents.

We, father and I, sent an account of our discovery to the Minister of Agriculture in the Planetary Executive. He advised further and more extended experiments. He said we must find out if the extra crop paid the extra cost in labor and material involved by the laying of wires and attention; that we must have the bulkier productions analysed to see if their nourishing qualities were increased in proportion to their increased bulk, for there would be no gain in causing a plant to swell by the absorption of fluid.

We made the experiments as advised, and found that the invention could be advantageously utilised if the wires were laid in tubes at a depth of from twelve to fourteen inches, and made a permanent fixture, that the best results ware produced by turning on the electricity at nightfall, that pound for pound the new plants were as good as the old ones; that it would not pay to run the wires into the soil each time the ground was planted.

All our experiments were submitted to experts appointed by the Minister of Agriculture, and when at the conclusion they were pronounced satisfactory, my father and I each received the Order of Freedom, the outer insignia of which is a badge and a gold medal, and the significant meaning of which is that the wearers are free to visit all workshops, mines, and places of interest in any part, to work when and where we chose, and to call on anyone to assist in making experiments, removing plant, and, in short, doing anything to assist in furthering useful projects; to travel by underground lines, by canals, by sea or by air ship just when we please and as far as we choose; to make use of any hostel or caravansary as long as we like; in short, to have no expenses charged to our debit, to have all that the planet can afford as free as air.

We cannot have a patent right, cannot sell our invention, cannot give it any monetary value; but when once recognised as of great public utility an inventor, or signal benefactor of humanity, receives this order, which practically places all the resources of a civilisation that has been growing for one hundred thousand years at his disposal. What millionaire could have so much?

The wearer of this badge has no account to render of his work. He might retire from active pursuits for the remainder of his days, and pass the time enjoying himself and travelling at will, for the privilege extends to his wife and family. But this has never been known to happen: the men who have the Freedom are generally active and enterprising, and by their labors the most profitable members of the human family. For my own part, as I am only just over eight years of age, I will spend a year in learning to make electrical machinery. Five hundred days is reckoned a working year. Our actual year is six hundred and eighty-seven days, of twenty-five hours each. Of these each fifth day is a rest day, our Sabbath, but not wholly devoted to public worship. This leaves us five hundred and forty-nine working days. Of these five hundred are claimed for work, the odd days are used for travelling and recreation, if you see fit. Married men will generally take their families for an outing twice a year. The working hours of a day are five, and even these could be reduced, for owing to the great skill of our highly trained population, and to the extensive use of machinery and the unlimited electrical power at our disposal, our productions are so abundant in all directions that every person on the planet, is supplied, and yet we have orders at times to cease producing and manufacturing for a while.

We have no armies, no police, no aristocracy of a nonproductive kind, and no middle men to live on the labors of the producer by the processes of buying, selling and making a profit. Thus it comes to pass that everyone has all needs supplied, and out of the general abundance has many luxuries.

Another reason for the general abundance is that no one wastes or wantonly destroys anything; nor does anyone wear or use anything for purposes of ostentation or display. All this is useless in a land where there is no personal wealth, and no means of using riches if specially possessed. All who can work do so for the general good, and working five hours daily causes a rate of production much in advance of consumption. The probability is that the hours of labor will have to be reduced to four, or even three. This would have come about long since had not many millions of men been employed on public works for centuries.

All our magnificent railways are carried under ground on wide, well ventilated, brilliantly lighted roads. This had to be done in order that the land occupied by them might be used for agriculture. Of our rainfall none is wasted. It is stored in thousands of reservoirs, and utilised for irrigation in dry seasons. The failure of a crop would be such a terrible disaster that we provide for it by building and filling immense storehouses. All stores being so preserved and sealed as to ensure their sweetness and nutritive qualities whenever they may be required. These and a thousand other public works, efforts that have made our whole planet a smiling and fertile thing of beauty, have absorbed a vast amount of labor. As it is, each worker follows his occupation about one-seventh of his time, and the number of workers engaged in productive and manufacturing industries are about one-eighth of the population.

One man, tilling the soil, can grow food for fifty, another weaving cloth, can dress three hundred, and four men making boots or hats can cover the extremities of a thousand fellow mortals. Hence it comes that we have to work so little and are yet so well supplied.

To-morrow I begin the ninth year of my life, and the first day of my five-hundred days of self-imposed mechanical training. When this year is finished I will travel, and working in various parts perfect my education."

This brief chapter covers about three years of our diarist's records. By Earth time he is a little over seventeen years of age; by that of Mars he has finished his eighth year. All that is of any importance to the narrative and much of what he has learned of the actual life of the Martial Humans is included in the chapter.