THE WAR AND THE PEOPLE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 521, 17 June 1949, Page 19

THE WAR AND THE PEOPLE

THE AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY IN WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION. By _ Ronald Walker. Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford Uni- _ versity Press. Issued under the aspices vf the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Price, £1/10/-. HE Institute always seems to choose topics really worth discussing when it puts in motion its celebrated round-

— table discussions. Similarly, when it commissions a book the subject will be important and the author much more than competent. Thus it is with this work. It traces the manner in which Australia undertook a great industrial expansion parallel with her military commitments. There is much to excite the admiration of New Zealanders, even when it is noted that the overseas commitments were proportionately less than ours. The author was in an excellent position to evaluate the effort he describes: he was Deputy-Director General of the Department of War Organisation of Industry. And he brings a sound sense of balance to his task. In a little more than 400 pages he has described the war economy as a whole, reviewed the more important particular war-time changes and entered upon a lengthy discussion of the problems associated with reconstruction. The first section is a history of the steps, legislative and administrative, whereby Australia organised her. war economy. We are shown the inside of the industrial scene as it existed prewar and the system of "checks and balances" of State versus Federal power is outlined. Then came total war. Controls, rationing, labour problems, politics and planning all raised familiar heads. The author has something worth-while to say on all of them. But his most intense interest for us will be found in his analyses of particular changes. The farming community may~find special interest in the chapter on agriculture, but the attempts at "stabilisation" will have more general interest. Wartime banking controls are so carefully examined that one can almost see the genesis of recent Australian banking legislation. On another tack, excess purchasing power and price control remind one of this side of the Tasman. Post-war reconstruction meant, in Australia as*in New Zealand, "the reestablishment of servicemen and munitions workers, together with a measure of social reform." Neither country seems to have realised how the war had altered the whole of the discernible future. The alteration will be more marked in Australia. Her war-acceler-ated heavy industrial development has an air of permanency lacking here: Labour problems are one key. The whole chapter on "Fuil Employment at Home and Abroad" will repay study. This is a history. Walker seldom permits himself the indulgence of planning any portion of Australia’s future, He contents himself with commenting, with clarity and forthrightness, upon the plans of others. His opinion of the present crop of Australian politicians is nowhere directly stated, but is nowhere in doubt. The role of the economist is equally searchingly examined. Walker is factual without being dull. He understands how to use footnotes to’ convey references without disturbing the flow of the reasoning. He correctly uses graphs and charts for the tools they are and subordinates them ‘accordingly. But an index of fewer than six pages can give only a skeleton service. Our author is quotable, as witness: " .... a commercial society is inherently pacifist;" "industrialisation of warfare weighs the scales against the hero;" And, on advertising, "The department (Continued on next page)

| BOOK REVIEWS (Cont'd)

impiously insisted on regarding soap as merely soap and toothpaste as toothpaste." The great pity about this book is that the author did not make a more positive contribution in a field where our need of guidance is so urgent. Perhaps it is to be the subject of a future book. His last chapter encourages this hope. And he ends, "Australia needs .... a more intelligent mastery of social eneineering. The road is hard hecanuse it

leads uphill."

J.D.

McD.