The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 1930 ON GETTING TOGETHER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 916, 8 March 1930, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 1930 ON GETTING TOGETHER

WITH as much certainty as the mating instinct in birds and the " hibernating instinct in squirrels, the urge to get together in conference fills the breasts of certain classes of the community every year. New Zealanders are susceptible to it in a marked degree, but they are not alone in it, nor did they originate it. From the earnestness with which firemen, churchmen, builders, local administrators, doctors and librarians, to name only a few of those who feel this gregarious impulse, obey its summons and conduct deliberations among themselves, it might he supposed that democracy in its various and modern manifestations could not possibly proceed without these conferences and conventions. They are, as it happens, singularly a democratic trend. History records certain important gatherings like that celebrated one at Runnymede, and others which had a political or social significance. Then there were gatherings at little European towns, where treaties were signed that ended great wars or merely set in train the complications that led to the next. All these conferences, however, were dictated by the demand of the moment rather than by any concerted prearrangement. The bold, had barons did not meet in conference every year. Aidermen, yeomen and guildsmen all managed to sustain their businesses, public and private, without meeting annually to discuss their problems. Even the great libraries were built up through the years without any conference of librarians. It is a great tribute to the tenacity of the race that progress was possible at all under this handicap. The development of the conference as an aid to the conduct of trade, local government, and the business, social and professional life of the community in general, is one of those great debts civilisation owes to the United States. It was there that the getting-together spirt first became a demonstrable human instinct. Even now the American, as a gifted exponent of the convention habit, has a long lead on other races. Elks, Buffaloes, Rotarians, motor manufacturers, Knights of Columbus, Shriners, candy-makers and bootleggers all have their regular annual meetings, either in public or in private. To some extent the process of popularising the gatherings has been helped by modern transport arrangements. Possibly the excellence of the modern hotel has had a hand in it, too. At any rate, scores of people have come to regard a session at the annual conference of their trade, profession or other organisation as the ideal form of holiday. Just at this season of the year the conference habit flourishes vigorously in New Zealand. At the moment the Municipal Association is conducting a sort of second-grade Parliament at Invercargill. The firemen have had a party of their own at Whangarei, and in Auckland there have been assemblings of Congregationalists, librarians, builders and dairy farmers. Usually the location of the next gathering is determined by arrangement, hut if there is any choice about it the delegates in their wisdom manage to fix on a place which will offer some particular attraction. If conferences were to he held in the winter, a surprising number would coincide with important football matches. A fixture like an exhibition is guaranteed to attract dozens of conferences, but in the absence of these inducements a salubrious climate or scenic advantages exert considerable influence, just as the excellence of the State-controlled arrangements for the sale of liquor in Canada has, by an eminently logical process, led a wit to describe Montreal as ,: ‘the greatest conference city in the United States.” With the annual conferences of private organisations there can, of course, he no possible quarrel. More often than not they are largely social affairs, and in any case they are supported from private funds, if not from the pockets of the delegates themselves. But the annual conferences of local administrators and their servants cannot always be so immune from mild criticism. There are not one or two, but many of them—the Municipal Association conference, the Counties 5 Association, the Town Clerks’ Association, the Engineers’ Association, the Power Board Association, the Power Board Secretaries’ Association, and so on; and they run local bodies into a great deal of money, often without evidence of tangible result. Costs of local government these days are so high that even the most tolerant ratepayers must sometimes wonder if these conferences are justified by the amount of good they do. Sometimes, of course, there are pressing problems to discuss, and in the elucidation of these subjects the conferences are helpful. But before communications were so easy, and before the conference habit had become almost a national characteristic, local bodies managed to dispense with such aids. Perhaps in those days the serious legislators did not realise that their duties might occasionally be leavened by a little garrulous relaxation.