The subject of industrial relations was never of more vital importance than A at the present time, not alone to those directly involved but possibly to our whole economic and social life. It requires but a glance at the daily newspapers to indicate to thinking people that something is wrong, very wrong, with the human relationships in too many phases of North American industry. I am not suggesting that the blame should fall on any one group in industry. Good industrial relations are a joint responsibility, a two-way affair, just as any friendship. Happy industrial relations are just like happy marriages. Success in either of these two important fields of endeavour depends on how sincerely we want success, and how hard we are prepared to strive to attain that objective. Good industrial relations, like happy marriages, are no accident.

Industrial relations have been in a state of flux and evolution in recent years. Interest in that field was greatly stimulated during the war. In the war period we largely submerged our differences in our concentration on the job in hand, the forced fellowship of a nation in peril. Now, in the critical period of adjustment, the accumulated strains of the war years are coming to the surface. Our collective failure to anticipate, and adequately solve them is not only threatening to blot out our vision of a better post-war world, but is preventing our recovery and delaying our return to the higher standards of living which we all seek.