Book Review: Canada: Conference across a Continent
| Author | Ronald S. Ritchie |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206401900223 |
| Date | 01 June 1964 |
| Published date | 01 June 1964 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
248
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
the
book-which
is
unimaginatively
produced
and
not
wholly
free
from
printer's
errors-do
not
seem
to
share
the
author's
view of
the
wide
interest
which
his
topic
should
command.
McGill
University
J.
R.
MALLORY
CONFERENcE
AcRoss
A
CONTINENT.
An Account
of
H.R.H.
The
Duke
of
Edinburgh's
Second
Commonwealth
Conference
on
the
Human
Con-
sequences
of
the
Changing
Industrial
Environment
in
the
Common-
wealth
and
Empire. Canada:
May
13-June
16,
1962. 1963.
(Toronto:
Macmillan.
521pp.
$5.00)
A
well
organized
conference
on
a
good
theme
can
often
be
an
exhilarating
experience
for
the
participants.
If
the
record
reported
in
this
volume conveys
an
accurate
impression,
H.R.H.
The
Duke of
Edin-
burgh's
Second
Commonwealth
Study
Conference,
held
in
Canada during
a
three
and
a
half
week
period
in
May
and
June,
1962,
must
have
been
just
such
an
experience
for the
280
young
men
and
women
it
brought
together
from
all
parts
of
the
Commonwealth.
Certainly,
it
had
the
setting,
for
these
young
people,
from
a
variety
of
industrial
settings,
had very
nearly
the
whole
of
Canada as
their
laboratory
and
their
conference
room.
Certainly,
too,
it
had
the
theme
in
its title,
"Study Conference
on
the
Human
Consequences
of
the
Changing
Industrial
Environment
in
the
Commonwealth
and
Empire."
Certainly,
too,
it
had
it
in
the
varied
backgrounds and
interests
of
the participants,
coming
as
they
did
from
some
thirty
different
coun-
tries
and
territories, from
both
management
and
labour,
and, as
the
Duke
of
Edinburgh
said,
"relatively
young
people
with
a
certain
amount
of experience
who
might reasonably
be
expected
to
have
increasing
responsibility
in
the
future."
The
peculiar
merit
of
this
conference
may
not
have
lain,
however,
in
the
exhilarating
effect
it
probably
had
on
its
participants.
Some
of
its
greatest
fruits,
certainly
for
Canada,
may
well
be
coming
from
the
hundreds, if
not thousands,
of
Canadians
who
inter-acted
with these
280
conferees-as
hosts
in
official
settings
and
in
their
homes,
as
dis-
cussants,
and as
objects
of
study.
It
seems
almost
a
certainty
that
many
Canadians
must
see
themselves,
their
communities,
and
their
country
in
new
and
revealing
perspectives
as
a
result
of
their
own
involvement
with
this
peripatetic
conference.
Whatever
the
peculiar
merits
of
the
conference
itself,
a
peculiar
merit
of
this
book,
which
reports
on
it,
is
its
success in
recreating
some
of
the
aura
of
expectancy
and
discovery
which
must
have
infused
the
members
of
the
conference. Indeed,
it
goes
beyond
this,
and
succeeds
in
recreating
some
of
the
enthusiasm
and delight of
those
Canadians
from
all
walks
of
life
who
took
the
conference
visitors
into
their
homes,
their
factories, and
their
schools,
and
into
their
own
self-analysis
of
the
effects
of
technological
change and
economic
growth
in
their
communi-
ties
and
their
social
relationships.
The
findings
and
conclusions
of
the
conference
study
groups and
commissions
are
reported.
Perhaps
it
is
not surprising
that,
in
three
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