Book Review: Commonwealth of Nations: Labour in the Tropical Territories of the Commonwealth
| Published date | 01 December 1965 |
| Date | 01 December 1965 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206502000426 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
554
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
and
their
work
are
of
interest
to local
and
regional
historians,
but
have
rather
less
fascination
to
readers
outside
the country.
The
second
volume continues
the
swift
pace
and
high
standards
of
the first.
The
balance,
however,
is
substantially
different.
Only about
one
third
of
it
is devoted to
Australia
and
New
Zealand,
while
the
remainder
examines
the
northern
islands
and
Antarctica.
Again,
Grat-
ton
is
exact
and
stimulating
in
handling the
problems
of exploration,
economic
growth,
and
native
administration.
I
would
have
wished
that
more
space
had
been
devoted
to
the
foreign
policy
of
Australia
and
New
Zealand
after
World
War
I,
for
the
relationship
of
these
countries
to
Europe and
Asia
is
of
particular
interest
and
importance.
But
limitations
of
space
have
obviously
forced
the
author
*to
be
highly
selective.
Within
the
restrictions
imposed
by
this,
however,
Gratton
has
done his
task
with
admirable
skill.
There
have
been,
within the
past
few
years,
several
excellent
histories
written
of
the
Pacific.
It
is
a
pleasure
to say
that
these
two
volumes
have
more
than
matched
the
qualities
shown
in
these
books
and
have
added new
dimensions
to
our
under-
standing
of
the area.
University
of
Toronto
PATRICK
C.
T.
WmTE
LABOUR
IN
THE
TROPICAL TERRITORIES
OF
THE
COMMONWEALTH.
By
B. C.
Roberts.
1964.
(Durham:
Duke
University
Press.
Toronto:
Burns
&
MacEachern.
xviii,
426pp.
$9.75)
The
besetting
weakness
of
so
many
books
in
the
field
of
industrial
relations
or
collective
bargaining
or comparative unionism
is
the
in-
ability
of
the author
to
link
descriptive
detail
into
some
cohesive
body
of
principles.
This
is
so,
of
course, because
there
is
no
generally
ac-
cepted
conceptual
framework,
no
real
discipline
of
industrial
relations.
Attempts have
been
made
to
create
a
"general
theory"-most
recently
and notably
by
Professor
Dunlop-but
these
have
not
developed
far
beyond
the
taxonomical
stage.
Still,
taxonomy
is
better
than
masses
of
facts
loosely connected
by
vague generalization.
Such
is
not
an
accurate
description
of
Professor
Robert's
book
by
any
means,
but it
is
not
entirely
misleading.
The
ratio
of
facts
to unifying ideas
is
depressingly
high:
perhaps
a
more
rigorous
attempt
to
apply Dunlop's
classification
system
(it
is
just
mentioned
in
the
final
chapter) might
have
lowered
it a
little.
However,
there
is
a
good
deal
of
information
about
the
individual countries
surveyed
in
the
study,
and
hence
it
does
provide
a
useful addition
to
the
growing
number
of
source
books
for
the
student
of
comparative
industrial
relations
systems.
Professor
Roberts
traces
the
growth
of
trade
unions,
labour
law
and
bargaining
practices
in
the
West
Indies,
East,
West
and
Central
Africa,
Aden,
Mauritius,
Malaya,
Singapore,
the
Borneo
territories,
Hong
Kong
and
Fiji.
The
countries
share
two common
characteristics:
they
are
all
members
of
the
group
now
known
as
"the lesser
developed
countries"
(familiarly,
the
L.D.C.'s),
and
they
were
formerly
part
of
the
British
colonial
empire. But
they
are
extremely diverse
in
other
respects-size,
racial
composition,
industrial structure,
political
orienta-
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