MacDonough’s Song
Friendly Brook
The Land
In the Same Boat
‘Helen all Alone’
The Honours of War
The Children
The Dog Hervey
The Comforters
The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat
The Press
In the Presence
Jobson’s Amen
Regulus
A Translation
The Edge of the Evening
Rebirth
The Horse Marines
The Legend of Mirth
‘My Son’s Wife’
The Floods
The Fabulists
The Vortex
The Song of Seven Cities
‘Swept and Garnished’
Mary Postgate
The Beginnings
As Easy as A.B.C.
(1912)
The A.B.C., that semi-elected, semi-nominated body
of a few score persons, controls the Planet.
Transportation is Civilisation, our motto runs.
Theoretically we do what we please, so long as we do
not interfere with the traffic and all it implies.
Practically, the A.B.C. confirms or annuls all
international arrangements, and, to judge from its
last report, finds our tolerant, humorous, lazy little
Planet only too ready to shift the whole burden of
public administration on its shoulders.
‘With the Night Mail[1].’
[Footnote 1: Actions and Reactions.]
Isn’t it almost time that our Planet took some
interest in the proceedings of the Aerial Board of
Control? One knows that easy communications nowadays,
and lack of privacy in the past, have killed all curiosity
among mankind, but as the Board’s Official Reporter
I am bound to tell my tale.
At 9.30 A.M., August 26, A.D. 2065, the Board, sitting
in London, was informed by De Forest that the District
of Northern Illinois had riotously cut itself out
of all systems and would remain disconnected till
the Board should take over and administer it direct.
Every Northern Illinois freight and passenger tower
was, he reported, out of action; all District main,
local, and guiding lights had been extinguished; all
General Communications were dumb, and through traffic
had been diverted. No reason had been given, but
he gathered unofficially from the Mayor of Chicago
that the District complained of ‘crowd-making
and invasion of privacy.’
As a matter of fact, it is of no importance whether
Northern Illinois stay in or out of planetary circuit;
as a matter of policy, any complaint of invasion of
privacy needs immediate investigation, lest worse
follow.
