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THE WAR AND OPINION 69 irritants Jike this, if the basic realities o( the war and the comi ng peace are to be kept quite clear. l\1r Butler's book is on a high level from start to fillish. Once or twice, The Losl Ptace disappoints the reader. But every chapter is of value. T hat on the nations of Central and Eastern Europe should be studied in particular. On the topic of France the humanist and humanitarian in Mr Butler are one: Somehow or other a new France will emerge, perh aps before the struggle is over, again to become lhe partner of the British an~ American peoplĀ«=:5 in rebuilding a fre e and peacdul world, in which the ind ividual is .not at the mercy of the st ate, but the state at the service of the individual. Thill artcr all is the essence of the French spiri t and the r~al bond b~ tween them and oursdves. However different our habi ts and temperaments and outlooks-and they will alwa ys be profoundly different-we cannot forget wh at we have owed to Franee in the past or what we expect of her in the future. This is a truth too many forecasts of the post-war world are apt to exclude. And if on that and most other topics Mr Butler's voice is the authentic voice of Britain, his counsel, admirable in itself, will be even more welcome. III. PRlORITIES FOR PLANNERS CLA RlS EDWI N SILCOX DU R1NG the depression, we were offered for our delectation and inspiration a gee. at variety of plans. ~ever) perhaps, i ~ all human history, have so many peopJe done so much planning with so li ttle effect. The desire to plan was natural since we live in an age in which one of the keywords is rationalization, and in industry or business .you are considered more or less hopelessly incompetent unless yOll can produce a plan for evr:ry operation. This should preferably be reduced to a chart-form covered with radial lines leading to and from squares and circles which indicate various stages of control. Then, too, during the past twen ty years) Russia stirred us with one Five-Year Plan after another. ,"Vhat could we do but follow suit and make national plans for Canada? LaiJSez-ja jre, we were assured, was a thing of the past; henceforth, everything would be foreseen and arranged) and out of such plann ing would emerge social salvation. But i"t was easier for dictatorships to plan than for democracies. For time is needed if plans arc to be worked out, and the time ele- 70 THE UN IVERSITl: OF TORONTO QUARTERLY ment requires a stahle and continuing government, and electors are apt to be capricious. Again, democracies must take care not to violate the consti tution; [or, if they do, the higher courts .will impose their interdict on the prettiest plans, since the legal mind is apt to regard the constitution as more sacred than the life of the nation itself. At all events, our plans did not work out very well. If it had not been for the war, we might have still been in the trough of the depression, debating the pros and conSof the R owellSirois report, and hoping, like Micawber, for something to "turn up. " Nor has all this'planning done the world very much good; for not our own indeed, hut other people's, planning has only hurried us into the most terrible and universal of all wars. The difficulty seems to have been that the planning was attempted on toO na rrow a scale. Ours was, for the most part, only national planning in the days before September, 1939, and while national planning is all right as far as it goes, it does not go far enough. The plans of one nation ~re only too apt to conflict with the plans of other nations) and then war becomes possible. The lesson of the day seems to be, therefore, that we must begin to plan at the other end. \;Ve must start with international planning and, if we succeed in getting...

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