"At nine o'clock of a gusty winter night," wrote Kipling at the beginning of the century, "I stood on the lower stages of one of the G.P.0. outward mail towers. My purpose was to run to Quebec by "Postal Packet 162." 

It was a dream story that he wrote, of a far away imaginary future, and he dated it 2000 A.D. To him, as to the rest of us old enough to be called ‘Victorians’, a century seemed little enough time for the gradual development of the strange new aircraft which were just then beginning to make themselves noticed, and to us there must always be something breath-taking about the sweeping changes which have occurred in our own short lifetime, and something almost terrifying in the way in which the change is never accomplished but continuously going on. It is, we find, impossible to be topical when discussing means of communication. To-day's news is stale by tomorrow, and we hardly dare allow ourselves to predict a year head let alone the fifteen years to the end of the half-century. 

When we look back the short period to 1900, we find ourselves ‘obliged to reconstruct a scene which already has the appearance of long past history. Trains were still the wonder of the day, the telegraph was established, but the telephone was only just making its way and had not entered the houses of the ordinary people. Internal travelling, where the railway was not available, was done by horse-drawn vehicle or by the still novel bicycle, though for foreign travel great strides were being made in the development of steamships. The first 'Floating hotels’, as they were sneeringly called by seamen, were already afloat, but the experiments being made by Marconi and his fellow~enthusiasts in wireless signalling had not yet progressed far enough to provide these hotels with a means of communication with the land once their voyage had started. 

The penny post was one of the prides of the country and letters were delivered to far corners of the world by a multitude of ingenious ways, many taking months on the way. The leisurely transport, the slow passing of letters and newspapers from one country to the other and the fact that travel was restricted to the rich, tended to make the world of 1900 a group of self-contained and self-sufficient units. To the average Englishman the world was Britain and "foreign countries” all equally unknown and equally suspect. The few might travel and bring back reports of men and women not unlike themselves carrying on peaceful pursuits of a like kind but the ordinary man thanked his Maker that he was not ‘a Rooshan, A French or Turk or Prooshan' and was content to demand from his paper only home news and to ignore the rest of the world. 

He was, it is true, anxious for news of a strange ~ far-off corner known as South Africa, where he understood that a war was being fought but this, like all past wars, was to him a scrap between two armies and his part in it merely that of a spectator. 

The century opened in an atmosphere of hope. The Boer War came to a successful end and there seemed every prospect of a long and prosperous era of peace. Their thoughts turned from war, the English people began to notice the experiments which were being made to accomplish two apparent miracles flight in the air and the sending of messages through it. 

It had been realised for a long time that airships -built on the lines of a balloon were possible and the developments in this direction, spectacular as they seemed, were not in themselves so great a novelty as either heavier-than-air flying or wireless communication.  There was, of course, great excitement in 1900 when Count Zeppelin made his first flight in a dirigible balloon, carrying five men, and it caused a wave of enthusiasm for airship construction, It seemed as if the future of air-travel lay with the dirigible, and it was this that Kipling visualised in his story "With the Night Mail" from which our opening extract is taken. But while the ordinary people were attracted by the great visible air-ship, the work going on behind the scenes proved later to have been of greater importance. 

For several years before the century opened, scientists had been following up the discoveries of Hertz and Maxwell and quiet research work had been carried on in the transmission of signals by electromagnetic waves. It had been shown that these could travel over short distances and the Post office had already had use of the method as an emergency measure. But it was not until Marconi took up the matter and attracted public notice by his astounding demonstrations that the possibilities of ‘Wireless' were realised, Its first and most obvious. use appeared to be the enabling of ships to get in touch with land and to send out calls for help in difficulties, and for this purpose a couple of experimental coast stations were put into operation and a contract was signed for the equipment of the Navy.  But in 1901 Marconi provided startling evidence that wireless had possibilities beyond these. With two assistants (Kemp and Paget), he set out for Newfoundland, having arranged that Poldhu -- the only high-powered station yet in existence -- should steadily signal him the letter S at regular intervals from Dec. 11th. On Dec. 12th his receiving aerial, raised by kites, clearly picked up the three dots and proved to an astonished world that oceans should be bridged by these as yet unfamiliar waves.

Experimenters were quick to follow up this achievement and so rapid was the progress made during the next year that by 1903 it was possible for the President of the United States to send a message to our King, and for ‘the Times’ to publish the first Radio Press message. 

It became clear to the British Government that this was not an internal matter but an international one and that, for the protection of naval and military secrets as well as to minimise interference of one station with another, there must be a centralized control of this new service. So in 1904, when Fleming's Valve experiments were opening up vast possibilities, Parliament passed the Wireless Telegraphy Act as a temporary measure. 

Like so many of our temporary measures, however, once passed it was forgotten, and remained on the books as a governing statute for all wireless. It provided for the registration and licensing of all wireless stations and apparatus and thus enabled the government, through the Post Office, to control stations and to arrange that private experiments were limited to persons having scientific knowledge and really desirous of doing useful work.

Meanwhile, the work of connecting our shipping with the shore by means of wireless went on, and new liners were fitted with apparatus and supplied with operators. But it was plain in this field too, that no country could work as a single unit, and a first International Radio-Telegraph Conference was held at Berlin in 1906 to draw up the first International Convention. This Convention arranged agreed wavelengths for ship and-shore working, laid down the necessary qualifications for operators and details of their work, and ~ an interesting little point-- established the well-known S.O.S. as the universal signal of distress. 

It was still, however, a matter of personal preference whether an owner had his ships fitted with this new apparatus or not, and many were disinclined to do so on account of the expense involved. But in 1912 came the sudden news of the loss of the ‘Titanic', the greatest British luxury liner of the day, Stories were told of the heroism of her wireless operator who, by sticking to his post, was able to call other ships to the rescue and save many lives, and it was brought home to the people that wireless was no longer a luxury but a necessity. 

An International Conference on Safety of Life at Sea followed, and the Convention it drew up made it compulsory for passenger vessels and for other shops above a certain tonnage to carry both wireless apparatus and one or more certified operators according to the size of the vessel. 

For the effective carrying out of the Convention, stations were established at suitable distances round the coast with a two hundred and fifty mile range; ‘then a larger station was built at Devizes with a limit of about fifteen hundred miles; and later a great station at Rugby with world-wide range. 

Meanwhile, communication by the old method of telegraph wires and cables went steadily forward, undeterred by the strides of the new-comer, The country was gradually threaded with telegraph wires to improve internal communication and the possibilities of long-distance signalling by submarine cable had already been realised. The cables were, however, in the hands of private companies and the Government, apart from its interest as licencors, was not concerned as owner until 1902. Then, the often discussed need for direct passing of messages from Canada to Australia across the Pacific suggested the possibility of laying a State Owned cable. No one country wanted to bear the heavy expense of this so an agreement was made between the interested Governments and a joint-owned cable stretched from Vancouver to Australia and New Zealand, the four countries concerned sharing the cost and appointing a representative body to manage it known as the Pacific Cable Board.

There was a great wish to follow this with a Trans~Atlantic cable and the matter had been discussed but held over on account of expense till suddenly the Great War provided for the Telegraph Service, as for so many others, an unexpected chance of expansion. 

But first we must go back to follow up the second line of miraculous achievement -- the conquest of the air. 

Though, as we have said, the majority of people believed that the dirigible was the future method of travel, undeterred enthusiasts were still convinced of the possibility of heavier than-air flying. Two lines of experiment were going on. In England and America Ader and Sir Hiram Maxim, among others, were trying to launch a ship driven by a small motor, while elsewhere and particularly on the continent, trials were being made with gliders: in imitation of ‘the flight of birds. 

At last the experiments bore fruits In 1903, the Brothers Wright produced a machine which did stay up in the air for an appreciable time. True, it only travelled in a straight line and that for a few hundred yards, but it had proved their point and paved the way for further efforts. Fired with enthusiasm, others took up the challenge and, only five years later, had made so much progress that Bleriot astounded Europe by crossing the Channel, while Farman demonstrated what could be done in distance and speed by flying one hundred and forty miles in four hours. 

In the years that followed flying developed steadily, new records of height, distance and speed being made every year. By the beginning of 1914, Prevost had created a speed record for solo machines by reaching 126,59 mph. In a monoplane, and Garfaix had carried six passengers at a speed of 66 mph., at the same time establishing a distance record of 68 miles for a passenger-carrying aeroplane. But air-travel was still the concern of the few enthusiasts and its progress might well have followed the course of its predecessor the railway and been a slow steady improvement, had the Great War not suddenly erupted and blown the peaceful world of 1914 sky-high. 

All in a moment the world was not a collection of separate units unconcerned with one another, but a great group of allied, or enemy nations vitally concerned to know of each other's doings. It was then the countries realised the immense importance of every form of mechanical communication and the inventor ceased to be a crank and became a necessity.

It is strange to realise that, even in 1914, the army authorities saw no possibilities in the aeroplane other than reconnaissance work. The B.E.F. in France had only forty-four aeroplanes, mostly of French manufacture, none supplied with armaments and only two carrying cameras. The idea, apparently, was simply that they should fly low and observe the enemy's movements, an idea which was quickly proved unduly optimistic by the long-range of anti-aircraft guns. It was thus necessary almost at once to produce machines with more climbing power and more speed than had been thought possible. As each side retaliated with newer and faster types, an enormous impetus was given to the development of aircraft and to the improvement of the internal combustion engine. 

But other branches of communication had also been immensely stimulated - the outbreak of hostilities. In order to keep the constantly moving armies in touch with their bases, telegraph and telephone were invaluable, and field telephones were strung across the countryside linking up every unit, Men of the labouring classes who had never come in contact with the telephone in private life came to regard it as a commonplace, and it grew familiar to the peasants of the country through which it was strung. 

This, though, was only a part of the need created by the war. In every country there were governments needing to be informed of each development in every country there were families waiting anxiously for news of the men dear to them, and it was clear that the old slow transport of news, even had that been possible, would be inadequate. So, as from every seat of war news was cabled home and messages passed to and from the opposing armies and their leaders, telegraphy became of immense importance. By what must have seemed to the British authorities a great stroke of luck, as outbreak of war gave them the opportunity to take over the once the German cables in the Channel. Some of these were cut but there were two leading from Germany to New York via the Azores and, by agreement with the French Government, it was decided to take possession of these, Great Britain and France to have one each. The English cable was run into Penzance without much difficulty, but the ambitious scheme to cut it some six hundred miles from New York and branch it to Nova Scotia presented enormous problems. Not only were the usual handicaps of storm and bad weather encountered, but much of the work had to be done at great depth and amid constant menace of submarines. However, by skill and seamanship, the work was carried out and Britain's first Trans-Atlantic cable opened to the public by the summer of 1917. 

Meanwhile, to meet the needs of the armies, three new cables had been run across to Frances and a new one laid to Russia, thus linking up the Allies/

 There was still, in official circles, a certain suspicion of wireless communication over long distances as open to interference by atmospherics and the risk of leakage of information by unknown operators picking up the messages, but there was no doubt in their minds that the method was ideal for aeroplane work .

As the needs of the new armies necessitated the formation of large air forces, these could no longer work as individuals. In the early days, each pilot had been somewhat similar to a sniper on land, but by 1916 fighting squadrons had been formed, each split into groups of six, called a flight, and it was essential that squadron leaders should be in touch with the ground and with each other. For this, it was found that wireless telephony was possible and before long observers in the air and gunners behind the lines were able to talk freely by the new method. 

By the end of the war, with three thousand four hundred British aeroplanes in France, heavier-than-air flying and the use of wireless had become commonplace. 

During the next few years, every country passed through a difficult period of reconstruction. So firmly had the idea of aircraft become connected with aerial warfare that Governments did not at once see the full possibilities of civilian travel. Many aerodrome was dismantled in a haste which following years proved to have been ill-advised. Machines were scrapped, which could have been re-fitted and an enormous wastage of men and materials took place. 

In England, the confusion caused by the end of the war necessitated much reorganisation of the railways which, subordinated during the war to the needs of army transport, had become in many ways out-of-date. The Government interest exercised during the war could not suddenly lapse and it was clear that if British railways were to function efficiently there must be definite central control. The Ministry of Transport Act passed in 1919 created a central ministry responsible not only for railways but for road transport, inland navigation, ferries, bridges etc., and placed all the powers and duties relating to the public aspect of transport in the hands of one ministry.

Following this, a White Paper was issued, outlining a plan of reorganisation for British railways, and the planned grouping of them into several big systems instead of many small ones which followed, has made for increased efficiency in working. 

At first confined to the more effectual working and speeding up of train services, it has led to the Linking of rail and air by the formation of Railway Air Services for inland travel, and to an experiment in the construction of train ferries for the Channel crossing. This experiment, at the time of writing, is not yet complete, but it is hoped that before the end of 1935, through sleeping-cer services will operate between London and Paris using a Dover~Dunkirk train ferry. 

This move towards international linking-up has been one of the most noticeable developments of the post-war period. It was quite impossible for countries who had passed through the experience of 1914 to 1918 to return to their old conception of remoteness, Europe, at least, knew that for the future it must regard itself as one body, the doings of any part of which would vitally affect the whole. It is not surprising then that, in the years that followed the war, while Peace Treaties were being signed and while the League of Nations was being established, that international communications improved by leaps and bounds. Here again the most striking improvements were in the air and by wireless , though, less spectacularly, the unremitting work of the Post Office and the Cable Companies was bringing telegraphy to a pitch of perfection hitherto undreamed of.

It came as something of a shock to the nation, whose eyes were fixed on the developments of wireless when, in 1924, the Post Office showed the results of this work at the opening of the Wembley Exhibition. By careful and elaborate organisation between the Post Office, the Pacific Cable.Board and the Eastern Telegraph Company, a message delivered by the King: 

"I have this moment opened the British Empire Exhibition. George RI." 

Was sent right round the world, the operator at each link sending on the first word as received at such speed that before the last word had left London the first had reached Cape Town via Halifax, Vancouver, Fiji, Auckland, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Durban. From Cape Town the message flashed through St. Helena, Ascension, St. Vincent and Madeira back to London, where it was handed up to the King on the dads only eighty seconds after it had been dispatched.

 This achievement set the crown on many years of steady evolution of the telegraph system in which many inventions had played a part -- the introduction of high-speed machine telegraphs; the superseding of Morse by what is known as the ‘five unit code’ by which the message, signalled on a keyboard like a typewriter is received in ordinary characters on a strip instead of requiring to be decoded; the substitution of underground for overhead wires; the: linking up of these with submarine cables; and, above all, a willingness of all nations to cooperate in perfecting the means by which they can talk one to the other. 

This same spirit of internationalism was also to be found in the discussions which led to the founding of the first air-routes. It was clear from the performance of aircraft during and after the war that there were practically no limits to the distance which a machine might ultimately be able to travel, and land boundaries paled into insignificance in comparison with the vast realms of space. It was obvious that, for instance, French machines must have liberty to land at an English port and vice versa, and that time-tables must be arranged to be of advantage to both countries. In order that this might be done most effectually, the four British air-lines which had begun to operate (Handley Page, Instone, Daimler and British Marine) were, in 1924, merged into one statesized company, Imperial Airways which, in the eleven years since its formation, has developed into a world-wide concern and is announcing wider developments almost daily. 

| In 1924, the thought of a London to Paris flight in a comfortable saloon was miracle enough; but before the end of 1930, the company was running daily passenger flights not only to Paris but to Basle, Zurich, Brussels and Cologne, and weekly services to India and Central Africa. 

During the summer of 1931, they extended the Africa service from Tanganyika to the Cape, creating in a moment, as it were, the ‘all~red' route of which former generations had dreamed. 

So successful were these services, so reliable in timekeeping and so free from accident, that more and more use was made of them for the carrying of mail ‘Though in 1924 only 15 tons of mail were carried, to-day (1935) the air-mail service is a definite branch of the Post Office. as it sheaves of blue-printed literature and its special blue mail-boxes testify. To all European capitals there is delivery daily and the organisation has reached such a height of efficiency already that a letter, say, for Prague, posted in London by 8pm. one evening will be delivered the following afternoon, a time approximately equal to that usually allowed from London to the provinces by ordinary transport. Routes extend as far as Australia and there are big branch services in Canada. Linking up with the Canadian Pacific Railway. 

In the matter of passenger routes and air-mails, it is impossible to be up-to-date. A typical announcement in the Press in April 1935 reads as follows: 

New Services for Passengers. 

4 Engined Air Liners. Daily (mew open) 

Prague in 6 hours 

Vienna in 7 ½ hours: 

Budapest in 9 hours.

Weekly (beginning 13th April) Australia in 10 ½  days. 

The important part that the air now plays in daily life is proved by the fact that already there are Air Ministries and Air Conventions; that already laws have been drawn up for the international regulation of aircraft; and that more and more the ordinary citizen is realising the possibilities of air-travel. 

"Fly to Paris while you lunch", suggests Imperial Airways Laconically, and the London business man finds that he can now deal with his important business in the morning, cross to Paris lunching on the way, arrange in a personal interview matters which might have taken days of written negotiation, and be back in time to sign his letters the same evening. 

“Bathe and dine in Brighton" suggests the Brighton Council and not to local inhabitants or even to Londoners, but by advertisements in France, heralding a small services which will operate in the summer of 1935.

Women, taking a solo plane, hop casually to India or across the Atlantic; one speed record made, it is broken almost before it can be acclaimed, Amy Jolmson, Sir Alan Cobhan, “Lindy", Bert Hinkler, they are names of a day and then superseded. And while individuals are almost weekly proving that where distance and speed are concerned there can yet be me talk of a limit, the big companies are quietly preparing for greater and more astonishing expansion. 

Across the Sahara round the great plains of Siberia routes have been mapped and stations opened by the French and Russians; the United States is crossed and re-crossed by regular passenger and mail services which, by reason of their long over~land hops attain a regular speed unequalled elsewhere. But this is only the beginning. As far-off Greenland and round the poles planes are reconnoitring, surveying, gathering information of value, geographical, geological, climatic. America has planned the conquest of the Pacific and a large steamer chartered by Pan-American Airways is even now on its way to establish depots in the midst of the sea. 

A quaint touch of romance invests this venture, for two tiny coral islands of the type that set the pre-war boy dreaming of pirates end castaways, have been chosen as stopping-places, and from the ‘desert islands’ of fiction they are to be transformed into self-contained airports, complete with repair station and canteen for passengers. ‘Desert’ islands they are in truth, for on Wake and Midway Island there is neither soil nor drinkable water. Everything necessary to support the little community of wireless and repair experts from meat to cigarettes, from books to baseball, from huts to handkerchiefs, is being sent from America. It is hoped later to transport even loads of soil so that the ‘bit of garden’ which is so often a lonely men's salvation, may be possible. 

While the depots strung out across the ocean are being prepared s special giant four-engine seaplanes are in course of construction for the service, and pilots are training for the long distance flights which will be necessary.

 The summer of 1935 will probably see this route opened, an achievement which will cut the time taken from San Francisco to Canton from three weeks to four days. So used is the general public now to miracles — that it will be only a day's wonder and then an accepted thing. 

It is in just this way that wireless, now styled radio, has entered the common life of the people. A miracle in 1990, an experimental science in 1914, it is, in 1935, almost a necessity to millions. The introduction of Broadcasting in 1922 broke down all barriers of distance; ‘people in remote Villages, miles from railways; people in lonely forms, in far off islands and distant parts of the empire found themselves able to tune in and pick up the entertainment of London and other capital cities. Though the main purpose of Broadcasting has always been interest and entertainment, it can, and will, play a tremendous part in establishing communication between peoples. 

Not only is it able to bring the foreign country to the man unable to travel, but it enables news to be passed from one country to another; it has been used to trace peoples by its S.O.S. messages it has been able to get in touch with those whose addresses are unknown; and by its series of talks by important or learned people it is able to spread knowledge in places where books are difficult to obtain.

Perhaps one of the most successful pieces of work was the arrangement whereby the King broadcast to his empire on Christmas Day and messages were received back from its farthest limits. It required elaborate organisation, but it is difficult to estimate the value to the country of this personal message received by men and women in all parts of the empire as a means of continuing the loyalty to the throne which has been in the past and to-day is uniquely a feature of the British people. 

Six and a half million licences for receiving sets were taken out in England alone in 1934, yet this is only a small part of the work that wireless is doing for the nations to-day. The difficulties of long-range transmission which were so hampering in the war period were overcome shortly after by the introduction of Beam Wireless, which at once made possible direct communication with all parts of the world and rendered obsolete much of the old organisation for receiving and transmitting. 

New stations were erected and by 1930 two pairs were in operation - Bodmin and Bridgwater sending to and receiving from South Africa and Canada, and Grimsby and Skegness dealing with India and Australia. The larger Dorchester Somerton pair followed to deal with messages for the United States, Argentine, Brazil, Egypt, China, Japan and Syria. All these stations were, of course, in direct communication with Radio House, London. 

So to-day, we have messages in every form flashing round the world. How can they go? By telegraph and cable in a time that makes Puck's girdle round the earth of forty minutes sound slow and tedious; by long-distance telephone; by wireless telegraph; by wireless telephone. One's voice can be transmitted; one's picture can be transmitted by the recently discovered system of photo-telegraphy; and, more than that, the actual image of one's living self can be transmitted by the still experimental television. 

If one wishes to travel, not only are railways and airways available but the internal combustion engine,which has so quietly superseded the horse that its development has scarcely been noticed, offers endless possibilities. The motor car, the rare luxury of the rich when the century opened, is now available to millions, rendering them independent of outside help for all inland travel; motor-buses have threaded the country linking up areas untapped by the railway and connecting villages with their market towns; motor coaches run on trips too long for the buses to tackle and the moter-cycle penetrates the lanes too narrow for either. On sea it has given us the motor boat, the speed boat and the sea~plane; beneath the sea it operates the submarine. 

It is a time of daily miracles and it would be a bold man or women who to-day would claim to look into the future, as Tennyson did and see “the Vision of the world and all the wonder that would be." 

In so far as one can predict, it is only that nothing is impossible. Scarcely had we ceased to wonder at the height records of our aeroplanes when Professor Piccard brought us news of the stratosphere beyond. Not only did he prove it possible for man to reach this strange level of comparative calm, but opened up the possibility that, relieved from the pressure of atmosphere, he might be able to travel in it at a speed hitherto -unimagined. 

Speaking recently on the need for air disarmament, Philip Noel Baker said:

 “There is no reason at all why in the next fifteen years a should not have machines carrying hundreds of passengers and travelling at a thousand miles an hour." 

Hardly had he spoken the words before news was in the Press that the Russians were already experimenting with a machine for stratosphere flying, and that Germany was planning to construct a five hundred passenger aeroplane. 

Such Conquest of space makes all petty barriers of country seem childish, and it is almost certain that by 1950, some form of internationalising of air-crat will have come owing to the impossibility of preserving barriers and customs against machines able to travel out of sight and drop like a bird where they will. (‘The experiments in the use of the gyroscope give every hope that the difficulties of landing in a small space will be overcome within the next few years.) 

Television which for several years has been in the experimental stage bids fair to have conquered its difficulties, both technical and economic, within the next few years, and by the end of the half-century will no doubt be a commonplace. So far, however, it is impossible to Predict what uses will be made of it apart from entertainment -- in which “at present it has two strong rivals in radio and the cinema. With the latter there has been no space in this short essay to deal adequately, but it might truthfully claim to be one of the principal means of communicating ideas from one country to another. 

Let us end as we began with a glimpse at the story which Kipling wrote at the beginning of the century, a story written with his eyes on the distant future, As appendix, he gives us some imaginative advertisements from the fictitious journal in which his story is supposed to appear and a series of ‘Answers to Correspondents. ' One reader has’ evidently asked for the date when the Aerial Board of Control was founded. This body (called briefly the A.B.C,) Kipling visualised as being, in 2000 A.D. in virtual control of the whole planet, though its function officially is to take responsibility for traffic and all that implies. It has managed to outlaw war not by prohibiting it, but by only allowing it if it does not interfere with traffic and all that implies. From his peaceful, well run world of 2000 A.D., the inquirer looks back to our chaos and asks when we began to organise ourselves as a whole world. The answer given is brief: 

"The A.B.C. was constituted in 1949," 

May we hope that, in this case, Kipling may prove not only a master of story teller but a true prophet, and that 1950 may dawn on an intelligently planned world, concerned with the peaceful organisation of itself as a whole community, with the equitable distribution of its products among all its inhabitants and with the orderly moving of its peoples from one place to another upon their lawful occasions.

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