27 OCTOBER 1967, Page 36

1.00 years on

Sir : What will readers of our press a hundred years hence find most surprising? I discussed this with some friends and we looked through some recent copies of a morning paper.

We agreed on the following: 1. That one man had the power to close a main waterway to the shipping of the world.

2. That the Russians were still looking west- wards, whilst the population of China was increas- ing by leaps and bounds and the Chinese had tested a hydrogen bomb.

3. That influential voices were being raised against birth control though it was beyond dispute that the efforts to increase the food production of the world would never catch up with the existing population explosion. 4. That a number of girls had swooned when four young men had sung to guitars something called pop music. 5. That every edition carried reports of major crimes and strikes. I suggest this is a good choice. If birth contrgl bad not long since become universal there woad be no one to read the old papers; pop music and the emotions it arouses will long since have vanished; a hundred years hence it will seem strange that the country's wealth was being squandered by disputes between managements and workers and that society was not able to protect itself against the criminal.

It would be interesting to hear your readers' views.