Book Review: Academic Freedom in Our Time
| DOI | 10.1177/002070205601100411 |
| Published date | 01 December 1956 |
| Author | Frank H. Underhill |
| Date | 01 December 1956 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BooK
REVIEWS
299
here
and
overseas;
"extravagant
use
of
men"
for
the
wrong
purposes,
born
of
the
idea
that
"there
are
plenty
more
where
the
first
lot
came
from."
It
is
in
his
recommendations
for the
future
that
General
Burns
makes
his
most
striking
contribution
to
defense
and
political
thinking;
also
where
he is
most
vulnerable
to
criticism.
We
can
gladly
accept
his
future
divisional
"slice"
of
fifty
thous-
and,
against the
wasteful ninety
thousand
slice
of
World
War
II.
We
will
freely
grant
his painstaking
manpower
calculations,
and
their
high
ratios
of
combat
troops.
We
may
even
agree
that
"the
political
authority
would
. . .
plan
for
maximum
national
mobilization
from the
beginning,
with
all
its
implica-
tions."
His
estimate
of
a
future
Canadian
army
field
force
of
fourteen
divisions, however,
is much
too
optimistic.
It
rests
on
the
ques-
tionable
assumption
that
the
strength
ratios
of
the
three
Ser-
vices
will
in
future
be
the
same
as
they
were
at
the
end
of
World
War
II:
Army-60%;
Air
Force-27%;
Navy-13%.
These
ratios
are
more likely
to
approximate
40%,
40%
and
20%
respect-
ively,
in
any
future
war.
A
Canadian
field
Army
of
nine
or
ten
divisions,
in
three
corps,
operating as
a
single
unit
overseas
is
thus
a
wholly
realistic
and
realisable
object.
The
non-military
reader
will
find
much
to
interest
him
in
the
skillful
treatment
of
civilian
manpower
requirements
for
peace
and
war.
When
one
reads
the
foreword
by
the
Hon.
Charles
G.
Power,
it
is
possible
for
us
to
visualize,
from
Burns'
latest
work,
a
much
clearer
area
of
agreement
in
retrospect,
on
this
most
controversial
of
wartime
issues,
between
such
diverse
political
personalities
as
the
late
great
James
L.
Ralston,
"Chubby" Power,
and
the
Prime Minister
of
that
day.
For
the
manpower
mistakes
of
the
past,
the
late
Lieutenant-General
Kenneth
Stuart,
chivalrously
acceped
the
blame;
but
the
record
shows
that
the
real
faults
lay
in
our
Canadian political
and
military
staff
systems.
The
latter
are
fully
alert
to
their
problem
now.
The
former
still
offers
the
same
question
mark as
in
two
past
great
wars.
Toronto, Canada.
W.
WALLACE
GOFORTH
ACADEMIC
FREEDOM
IN
OUR
TIME.
By
Robert
M.
MacIver.
1955.
(New
York:
Columbia;
Toronto:
Oxford. xii,
329pp.
$5.25.)
At
Columbia
University
in
1951
there
was
set
up
an American
Academic
Freedom
Project.
Professor
R.
M.
MacIver,
recently
retired
from
the
Lieber
professorship
of
Political
Philosophy
and
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