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To encourage the ongoing transformation of the UN system by conceptualising leadership challenges within a cybernetics/systems paradigm.

A grounded theory methodology was used to explore the “paradox of plenty” within the UN system in Southern Africa – how the system can more effectively metabolise the considerable latent creative synergic potential within it, to respond to the challenges of HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Statements from UN leaders call for a new paradigm of humanitarian assistance if the challenges of HIV and AIDS are to be met. However, conversations with a wide range of people both within the UN system and closely connected to it suggest a disconnect between what the system does and what the system espouses – a bias toward “doing things right” rather than “doing the right thing”. Drawing on the writings of Berry (eco‐spirituality), Beer (VSM), Argyris and Schon (double loop learning), Hock (chaordic organisation) and Ackoff (corporate planning) the sub‐optimal organisational performance is interpreted as an “autistic” condition, whereby organisations become “so locked up inside themselves that nothing and no one can get in”. Interactive dialogue with primary health care workers in Swaziland generated five interconnected principles for developing a systemic response to HIV and AIDS. These are proposed as “antidotes” to counteract autistic tendencies within the UN system.

The principles are offered for discussion and refinement through further research by cyberneticians and systems thinkers.

If internalised by UN leadership the perplexing challenges that HIV/AIDS is posing could be met with renewed confidence and hope.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

Merchants and manufacturers have it in their power to minimise in some degree the extent to which we are becoming indebted to foreign countries in respect of the large excess of imports over exports, by obtaining, as far as possible, their imported supplies of food products and raw materials for industries from countries within the Empire. Take, for example, meat and cheese. The prevailing high prices are no doubt encouraging the home production of these commodities. Nevertheless a large quantity must necessarily be imported. In 1914 meat to the value of 62 million pounds was imported, and cheese to the value of 8 million pounds. Of the imports of meat 26 per cent. came from within the Empire, and of cheese 82 per cent. Clearly it is better under existing circumstances that we should buy meat from Australia and New Zealand than from Argentina, and cheese from Canada and New Zealand rather than from Holland and the United States. Many other examples may be mentioned of products which can equally as well be obtained within the Empire as from foreign countries, such as maize from South Africa, where a large increase of production is expected this year; oats from Canada rather than from Argentina and the United States; barley from Canada; peas from New Zealand; butter from Australia and New Zealand; canned salmon, of which 2½ million pounds' worth was imported in 1914, from Canada rather than from the United States; apples from Canada and Australia; wine from Australia; tea from India and Ceylon rather than from China and Java; cocoa from the Gold Coast and the West Indies; copra from Malaya, India and Australia; rubber from Malaya and Ceylon; fibres from New Zealand, Mauritius, Ceylon, etc.; wood pulp from Canada and Newfoundland; wool from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Falkland Islands rather than from Argentina, Chile and other foreign sources; tanning materials from India, Natal, Australia and British East Africa; dyewoods from the West Indies; timber from Canada; hardwoods from India, West Africa, the West Indies and Australia; copper and copper ore from Australia and South Africa; tin and tin ore from Malaya, Nigeria, South Africa and Australia; manganese from India; plumbago from Ceylon; hides from India, Africa and Australia, and so forth. It has been stated that the result of the war may ultimately depend largely on financial strength. In that case the country which is to the greatest extent self‐supporting as regards supplies of the necessaries of life and materials for the manufacture of munitions of war will be in a position to carry on the longest. Undoubtedly the British Empire contains within itself the power to produce all such materials, and the Dominions, Colonies and Dependencies are in fact already supplying a large proportion of the food products and raw materials for industries, which are imported into the United Kingdom. There are a few notable exceptions, e.g., for our supplies of cotton and sugar we have always been largely dependent on foreign countries, but Uganda and the Soudan are capable of producing in the future very large quantities of cotton of the quality required by Lancashire spinners, and sugar production in our Colonies could, with proper encouragement, be expanded so as to meet the whole of the requirements of the Mother Country. If the British capital and energy which have in the past gone every year to the development of enterprises in foreign countries had been devoted for a tew years exclusively to exploiting the resources of the Dominions and Colonies, the British Empire would, by this time, have become practically self‐supporting, and the bulk of our imported foodstuffs and raw products required for our manufacturing industries would now be obtained from within the Empire and paid for by increased quantities of our own manufactures. It may be hoped that one of the lessons which we shall learn from the war will be definitely to encourage the development of the vast resources of our overseas Empire. — The Chamber of Commerce Journal.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

We have observed in the reports of those engaged in the administration of the Acts several references to the practice of milking so that a portion of the milk is left in the udder of the cow, this portion being removed subsequently and not included in the milk sent out to customers. The inspector for the southern division of the county of Northampton reports that on a sample of milk being found deficient in fat to the extent of 17 per cent., a further sample was taken at the time of milking when a milkman was found to be not properly “stripping” the cows. He was warned. The analyst for the county of Notts writes: “The first strippings obtained before the milk glands have been normally excited by the milking are very low in fat yet are “genuine” milk in the sense that nothing has been added to or taken from it. It is nonsense to talk of genuine milk in the sense that everything that comes from the udder of the cow is to be taken as genuine milk fit for sale.” In a case tried before the Recorder of Middlesbrough, one witness said that among some farmers it was a common practice not to “strip” cows until after the milk was sent away.

The great difficulties which attach to the fixing of legal standards of composition for food products have now to be grappled with by the Departmental Committee appointed by the Board of Agriculture to consider and determine what regulations should be made by the Board, under Section 4 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1899, with respect to the composition of butter. As we predicted in regard to the labours of the Milk and Cream Standards Committee, so we predict now that the Butter Committee will be unable to do more than to recommend standards and limits, which, while they will make for the protection of the public against the sale of grossly adulterated articles, will certainly not in any way insure the sale of butter of really satisfactory, or even of fair, composition. Standards and limits established by law for the purposes of the administration of criminal Acts of Parliament must of necessity be such as to legalise the sale of products of a most inferior character, to which the term “genuine” may still by law be applied as well as to legalise the sale of adulterated and sophisticated products so prepared as to come within the four corners of the law. It is, of course, an obvious necessity that official standards and limits should be established, and the Board of Agriculture are to be congratulated upon the manner in which they are endeavouring to deal with these extremely knotty problems; but it is important that misconception on the part of the public and the trade with respect to the effect of the regulations to be made should be as far as possible prevented. All that can be hoped for is that the conclusions at which the Committee may find themselves compelled to arrive will not be such as to place too high and too obvious a premium upon the sale of those inferior and scientifically‐adulterated products which are placed in such enormous quantities on the food market.

In order to succeed in an action under the Equal Pay Act 1970, should the woman and the man be employed by the same employer on like work at the same time or would the woman still be covered by the Act if she were employed on like work in succession to the man? This is the question which had to be solved in Macarthys Ltd v. Smith. Unfortunately it was not. Their Lordships interpreted the relevant section in different ways and since Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome was also subject to different interpretations, the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.

ELSEWHERE in this number we list libraries which have Esent us copies of their annual reports which we are glad to have. Now and again we are able to elaborate on these, but in the present issue that has not been possible. We would say, however, that these reports are deserving of the attention of librarians generally, and of students at the library schools. They are records of work in progress, and they do suggest the development of library policy. The best of them are of textbook value.