letter of Mr. E. H. Bliss in this week's issue, and Particularly to note that the writer sees the
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dilemma confronting the user of the small machine. Sdme of our reformers look to the decentralisation of the factory as the solution of all our ills in the realm of production. They see the kindly " grid " distributing power to every cottage, and they visualise the housewife and her husband working at their homely crafts for all the world like good old medievals except that they will have at their beck and call (to use an appropriate medievalism) the blessed power of electricity to turn the wheels, Thus they will avoid the degrading burden of physical labour and, more important, turn out the work with all the speed, in all the quantity and, therefore, with all the cheapness which is the main advantage of industrialism. (Though it might be well to note that in spite of industrialism, or even because of it, it costs several hundred pounds to kill a man to-day whereas in Julius Caesar's time it could be done for about tuppence.) These reformers, unlike your correspondent, never notice that the grid itself and the political power of it owners will be quite outside and beyond the control of its users and that, therefore, they will still remain at the mercy of a central authority. We should also note that there will still be needed a very extensive industrialism to produce the thousands upon thousands of miles of wire required for the grid and for electrical apparatus and to produce all the precious electrical machines themselves. ERIC GILL. Pigotts, High Wycombe.