2 PARIS, 1937: COLONIAL QUESTIONS AND PEACE 183(presumably because of Ribbentrop’s recent appointment as ambassador
to Great Britain), and because he had been visited in Berlin by his fellow
GRC colleagues, namely, Whitton and Davis, and by Shotwell in view of
the forthcoming conference on peaceful change.^339
The compromise in regard to the distribution of the German mem-
oranda that had been proposed by Bonnet, who planned to discuss the
matter with Berber at a meeting of the advisory council of the GRC
which was scheduled to take place in Geneva on December 14, was that
the German materials would not be distributed by the IIIC but would
rather be placed by the ISC’s secretariat at the disposal of the conference.
If Berber agreed to this, Gross told Christophersen on Bonnet’s behalf,
then any reference to the LON or the IIIC or even to the ISC could be
omitted from the German materials.^340
Berber and Christophersen met again in February 1937, this time in
Paris. Berber had come to Paris in order to attend the annual meeting
of the executive committee of the ISC, Berber having been co-opted to
this committee at the 1936 session of the ISC. After his meeting with
Berber, Christophersen wrote to Renvers pointing out that Berber had
(^339) Christophersen to Bonnet, 28 and 29 October 28 1936, AG 1-IICI-K-I-18.d, UA;
Gross to the Christophersen, 4 November 1936; and Berber to Bonnet, 26 November
1936, AG 1-IICI-K-I-18.d, UA. In the course of a speech given at the American Academy
of Political Science in May 1937 in which he sought to counter the impression that the LON
was dead and after having remarked on his recent visit to Berlin, James T. Shotwell pointed
out that the Committee on Intellectual Cooperation with which he was associated had
called ‘an important conference this summer for the study of the most difficult of all prob-
lems in international relations, that of peaceful change.’ Elaborating on this point, Shotwell
explained that the conference would address, ‘under the auspices of the League, not the
problem of status quo, but the way in which we can, in a world that is dynamic, adjust the
conditions of peaceful life to these changing situations.’ Shotwell recommended to his
American audience cooperative action backed by the LON ‘to deal with those peoples whose
lands are held in trust as well as with the raw materials of the world’ with a view, in the
first analysis, to correcting two grave errors: that ‘colonies are to be thought of as profitable
property, and materials can best be secured for strong nations by giving them full opportu-
nity to seize the raw materials themselves.’ Shotwell’s more general concern in proposing
cooperative action to deal with the raw materials of the world was the prospect that the raw
materials that the earth possesses in limited quantities might one day be exhausted. He told
the American Academy of Political Science that such materials should be placed under ‘some
kind of general control, otherwise they will be used up forever by a civilization that is una-
ware of what it is doing.’ James T. Shotwell, ‘Mechanism for Peace in Europe,’ Proceedings of
the Academy of Political Science 17, no. 3 (1937): 15–24, 19, 22–3.
(^340) Gross to Christophersen, 4 November 1936, AG 1-IICI-K-I-18.d, UA.