Reviewed by SIR WILLIAM CARRON
The Rules of Work by Michael Fogarty (Geoffrey Chaiman, 30s.).
THIS is the House that Jack built. How many of us can remember all of those strange facts that have connection with this unusual house: the sack that held the malt, the cow with the crumpled horn, the dog that worried the cat and the insignificant string that tied the sack? In a peculiar kind of way, this is a form of analysis. On the other hand, did we know why string was used. why a sack and not a box? Were we aware of the motives that drove the huntsman, with his hounds and horn, to set in motion the events that lead us to the priest all shaven and shorn?
Did we know why the milkmaid married the beggar, or even why the dog worried the cat or. for that matter, why Jack built the House in the first place?
Professor Michael Fogarty could have revealed the last psychological and physiological detail.
* * If you find yourself thinking, after thirty or forty pages of this book, that the author is attempting to settle the old problem of how many angels can dance on the point of a needle then lay this book aside, it is not for you.
This book has been expertly and painstakingly created in order to till the need of the serious-minded investigator who seeks to know
the "whys" and the "wherefores" of day-to-day industrial coexistence.
While this work is seemingly directed towards the university student or the more advanced sections of technical education, it is, at the same time, not beyond the comprehension and understanding of the intelligent layman. The style in which it is written makes it abundantly clear to any individual who has an average ability to read his own language and to understand what he has read.
The principles and deep analysis contained in this work will appeal to progressive management and to the knowledgable trade unionist. It is not an easy hook to read and it demands the whole of your concentration if you are to get the value from the pages as you turn them.
The author does not content' himself with slipping easily over the surface of human relationship in industry hut remorselessly dissects every facet and integral part of such relationship, sometimes bringing into the hard and merciless light fundamentals, or prime factors, of human conduct which, to many of us, have hitherto been hidden or unsuspected.
Not among the least of the advantages enjoyed by the reader of Professor Fogarty's book is the all-embracing nature of his annotation. Nowhere have I seen a treatise, on Industrial Relationship and kindred subjects, which has such an all-embracing bibliography revealed page by page as you progress further and further into the book.
It is a veritable paradise for the research worker and the student. Obviously, one is forcibly impressed by the profound depth of knowledge and the results of fantastically wide research which Professor Fogarty is offering to all who care to expend the time and trouble to read his book.
* * The fact that the author, in places, apparently abandons some of the basic rules of classical composition emboldens me, also, to take liberties. I shall borrow a word that has come to mean so much to the film industry and I say, categorically, that, for all who appreciate the "spectacle" in abstract, this book is a "must".