Jean nodded.
“I wish you could have been there. Newspaper men from all over the world, except from behind the Iron Curtain, attended it. It was marvelous! Journalism professors from midwestern universities in the United States rubbed shoulders and exchanged ideas with editors from Iran and Tasmania. Believe me, it was a conference of tremendous importance! I attended it, because I was in Paris to investigate crop production of central France, and a friend of mine invited me to attend.”
“You wrote something about the conference, I remember,” she said.
“Well, all these editors have the same complaint. There’s not enough wood pulp in the world to furnish the newspapers with newsprint. In a way, it’s wonderful, because that indicates that countries are printing more papers. And that new countries are insisting on better and bigger papers. Egypt, for example, has more newspapers than ever before. And, of course, one of the first projects Israel, as a new country, undertook was the establishing of fine papers.
“But we must have more wood pulp! As long as each of these countries, large and small, can have their papers, this world is comparatively safe. These papers can carry news ... facts of the world ... right to the doors of all the people in the world. Then, the people themselves can decide what is good and what is bad in this world.”
Jean sighed. “It sounds like a tremendous undertaking.”
“It is! And, Jeannie, if you could have seen those men! Arabians, who have been literate for only a generation, were demanding free press for their people. Mexicans pleaded for more newsprint to help educate their people. The Israeli, of course, put the need for communications, the need for stimulating the minds of their countrymen, above almost everything else.”
Jean nodded. “Now I begin to see.”
Ralph threw away the blade of grass. “Of course I can’t do much with the small forests I own. But I’ll do everything I can. When I get back to Saskatoon, I’m going to start the largest project of timber cutting and reforestation I can possibly undertake. You see, Jeannie, Canada and Norway are practically the only countries in the world who can produce wood pulp. If the job is up to us, then we’ve got to do it.”
Jean nodded solemnly. “Then that’s what you were doing in Norway,” she said.