GASOLENE 29 



can collect the children from a county and bring them 

 to a central school. The radius of a metropolitan area 

 is determined by the average time taken out of the day 

 in coming in to shop or office and going home again. 

 The extent of territory reached by a newspaper or a 

 store depends on the delay in delivery. Cutting the 

 time in half means multiplying the tributary territory 

 by four, for the area increases as the square of the 

 radius. One may almost say that the area increases 

 as the cube since we have by skyscrapers invaded the 

 third dimension and are building cubical habitations. 



Any new scheme of speedier intercommunication 

 tends to expand the boundaries of political divisions. 

 But it does more than that. It weakens the boundaries 

 themselves. Statesmen may cut up continents into 

 countries but science knows no nationality. Ideas will 

 somehow leak through from one language to another. 

 Print and pictures will penetrate anywhere. The map 

 may be coloured like a crazy-quilt, but nobody can put 

 up partitions in the ether. The frontier may be lined 

 with soldiers, the radio will overreach them. The three- 

 mile limit of the high seas has ceased to have meaning. 

 The self-propelled projectile, the auto-airplane, carrying 

 death in its bombs, has no limit to its range. No wall, 

 trench, or barbed-wire fence can shut out the molecules 

 of poison gas. The airplane soars over custom houses. 

 The submarine dives under blockades. The automo- 

 bile runs across tariff walls. 



Science erases the artificial barriers that the politician 

 erects. As the world comes under the sway of science 

 political divisions will be impossible to maintain. 



