“None others have been admitted into full membership as equal states, but all the states of South America have been taken under the protection of the “Great Union.” They are being settled and developed by northern people and the native population gradually educated up to the required standard. The equatorial climate is naturally unfavorable to enterprise, and development proceeds slowly. The church has been a serious obstacle, claiming time and attention of the natives that ought to be devoted to business and education. The country is being covered with railways by northern enterprise. The most important of these is the great international road extending from the city of Mexico through Central America and the isthmus of Darien and traversing the whole length of South America, even into Patagonia. Branches from this trunk diverge toward all important points and enormous progress has been made in agriculture and mining. The resources of this continent furnish a vast support to the teeming population of North America.” Mention of these railways led me to inquire of the Professor concerning the progress of transportation, and commerce and whether any radical innovations had been introduced. “All the old methods of transportation,” said he, “have been greatly improved upon, but none of them entirely superseded. Flying machines have been brought to a reasonable degree of perfection at the expense of much thought and many experiments, many fortunes and many broken necks. But they cannot take the place of the freight car or the steamship. They are more rapid, easily making 100 to 150 miles an hour, but they are as yet of limited capacity carrying light letter mails, and a few passengers, but at too great an expense to compete with the improved rail and water carriage of the present. Besides most people would rather be near the ground in case of accident. I mentioned to you the greatly reduced cost of railway transportation in North America where all the lines are operated by the state. In most of the South American states, the roads are merely controlled—not owned—by the state and there is active agitation in favor of the annexation of these states to the Great Union, in anticipation in part of the advantage that will be obtained by the state control of roads that will follow. “The most beneficent service that the flying machine has rendered is its potent contribution toward the abolition of war. Men have indeed been rapidly educated out of the spirit and habit of war, but the flying machine simply prohibited it. Without it, an age of peace would undoubtedly have been reached in the future, with it, the age of peace is here. International warfare is at an end and probably forever.” “I don’t quite see how,” said I.