Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 9.pdf/129

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UTOPIAN ECONOMICS

shall admire its ingenious adaptation to the need of a district that is buried half the year in snow, the hard bed below, curved and guttered to do its own clearing, the great arched sleeper masses, raising the rails a good two yards above the ground, the easy, simple standards and insulators. Then it will creep in upon our minds, "But, by Jove! This is designed!"

Indeed the whole thing will be designed.

Later on, perhaps, we may find students in an art school working in competition to design an electric tram, students who know something of modern metallurgy and something of electrical engineering, and we shall find people as keenly critical of a signal box or an iron bridge as they are on earth of—! Heavens! what are they critical about on earth?

The quality and condition of a dress tie!

We should make some unpatriotic comparisons with our own planet, no doubt.

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