rcumstances are more
largely dictated by economic forces? The mere diffusion of a large
proportion of the prosperous and relatively free, and the multiplication
of various types of road and mechanical traction, means, of course, that
in this way alone a perceptible diffusion of the less independent
classes will occur. To the subsidiary centres will be drawn doctor and
schoolmaster, and various dealers in fresh provisions, baker, grocer,
butcher; or if they are already established there they will flourish
more and more, and about them the convenient home of the future, with
its numerous electrical and mechanical appliances, and the various
bicycles, motor-cars, photographic and phonographic apparatus that will
be included in its equipment will gather a population of repairers,
"accessory" dealers and working engineers, a growing class which from
its necessary intelligence and numbers will play a very conspicuous part
in the social development of the twentieth century. The much more
elaborate post-office and telephone services will also bring intelligent
ingredients to these suburban nuclei, these restorations of the old
villages and country towns. And the sons of the cottager within the
affected area will develop into the skilled vegetable or flower
gardeners, the skilled ostler--with some veterinary science--and so
forth, for whom also there will evidently be work and a living. And
dotted at every convenient position along the new roads, availing
themselves no doubt whenever possible of the picturesque inns that the
old coaching days have left us, will be wayside restaurants and tea
houses, and motor and cycle stores and repair places. So much diffusion
is practically inevitable.

In addition, as we have already intimated, many Londoners in the future
may abandon the city office altogether, preferring to do their business
in more agreeable surroundings. Such a business as book publishing, for
example, has no unbreakable bonds to keep it in the region of high rent
and congested streets. The days when the financial fortunes of books
depended upon the colloquial support of influential people in a small
Society are past; neither publishers nor authors as a class have any
relation to Society at all, and actual access to newspaper offices is
necessary only to the ranker forms of literary imposture. That personal
intercourse between publishers and the miscellaneous race of authors
which once justified the central position has,