132 J.-A. PEMBERTON
latter by Sydnor H. Walker, the acting director of the foundation’s Social
Sciences Division.^162
The GRC was not the only forum in which the topic of peaceful
change was addressed in view of the forthcoming session of the ISC. In
the early months of 1937, a series of lectures on the topic was given at
the LSE by several of that institution’s staff members, the result of which
was a publication which appeared in April.^163
The first in the aforementioned series of lectures was delivered by
Webster who in that context gave voice to his scepticism in regard to
the policy of peaceful change. Webster objected to the idea of diverting
the ‘activities of Strong Powers’ away from certain objects and towards
others: he objected to the notion that the weak should be sacrificed in
order to preserve peace among the strong. Such an expedient seemed to
him ‘dishonourable.’ In any case, Webster doubted whether peace could
be preserved by such expedients for very long. As with others sceptical of
peaceful change, he invoked the following French proverb: l’appétit aug-
mente en mangeant.^164 Webster observed in his lecture that just as the
idea that the peace treaties concluded at the end of the Great War were
unjust had energised those demanding change, so too had it impaired
the ‘resistance to their aggression even when it was most unjustified,’
adding that in Britain there was a great need for moral and not just phys-
ical rearmament.^165
In a similar vein, Manning stated in his lecture after having noted that
the enthusiasm for peaceful change was based largely on a desire to avoid
an ‘anticipated warlike change,’ that his preference was for ‘a big enough
instalment of physical, and above all, moral rearmament’ in the right
(^162) Persons Participating in the Conference on Solutions, May 21 and 22, 1937, AG
1-IICI- K-I-16.a. See also League of Nations, International Institute of International
Co-operation, The International Studies Conference: Origins Functions, Organisation,
- The Konsularakdemi was the direct Austrian member of the ISC from 1929. The appli-
cation for membership of the conference by the Oesterreichiches Koordinationskomite für
Internationale Studien applied for membership was approved by the tenth session of the
ISC in 1937.
(^163) C. A. W. Manning, preface to Manning, ed., Peaceful Change, v.
(^164) Webster, ‘What is the Problem of Peaceful Change?’ in Manning ed., Peaceful
Change, 8–10.
(^165) Ibid., 23.