2 PARIS, 1937: COLONIAL QUESTIONS AND PEACE 135tHe ‘HAve-not’ stAtes At tHe 1937 internAtionAl
studies conference
The Tenth International Studies Conference was held between the June
29 and July 3 and was more than welcomed by official France. A recep-
tion was held for delegates at the Quai d’Orsay subsequent to which Zay,
in his capacity as minister of national education, hosted a lunch in their
honour. Delegates were also treated to visits to the Paris exposition.^173
It is noteworthy that the ISC’s peaceful change conference was the first
in the series of activities that the ICO had scheduled to take place dur-
ing the Month of Intellectual Co-operation. As further testimony to the
importance attached to the ISC, certainly within the context of the ICO,
coinciding with the Paris conference was the publication by the IIIC
of a booklet which had been compiled by Chalmers Wright in 1936 in
Bucharest in which was given an account of the history of the confer-
ence. The booklet provided a list of the publications that had emanated
from the conference; the names of the participants in each of its con-
ferences; and information concerning the twenty-eight national commit-
tees and five international institutions that comprised the conference’s
membership.^174 Chalmers Wright told Gross that the section in which he
sketched the origins and development of the conference had given him
‘a lot of trouble’ because of the difficulty of striking a balance between
‘accuracy and window-dressing, particularly as regards the earlier years of
the Conference when much confused thinking enabled the Conference
to spend a great deal of time doing exceedingly little.’^175
Chalmers Wright did not attend the 1937 conference but remained
in Bucharest to where he had relocated from Paris in 1936 in order to
establish, with the aid of the IIIC and the Rockefeller Foundation, what
he called a Romanian version of Chatham House: the Centrul de Înalte
(^173) International Studies Conference (Tenth Session), AG 1-IICI-K-I-3, UA.
(^174) International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation: League of Nations, The
International Studies Conference: Origins Functions Organisation (Paris: International
Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1937). For the role of Chalmers Wright in compil-
ing the booklet on the ISC, see ‘Note’ in League of Nations, International Institute of
International Co-operation, The International Studies Conference: Origins Functions,
Organisation.
(^175) Chalmers Wright to Gross, 24 September 1936, Conférence permanente des hautes
études internationales, publications (préparation): Brochure de propaganda sur la con-
férence, AG IICI-K-II-6, UA.