A Human Exchange Country places have often suffered from the
infliction of ideas that were bred in towns and from urban psychology. A good many villagers feel that the automatic telephone is one example. The telephone was a friendly business. If the doctor went out to dinner he told the kindly controller of the exchange where he was to be found. In future he will have to keep an extra servant. The villager in doubt rang up • the exchange and as often as not gave a name instead of a number. In one way or another everyone has blessed the human exchange for one piece of help or another. The roads are now being torn up, a great building is being erected, thousands of pounds are being expended, that a little community of about four score of persons may find telephoning a much more difficult job than it used to be. If the alternative were put to the vote the majority for the more human system would be at least a hundred to one. Is this an example merely of the common prejudice against change ?
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