2 PARIS, 1937: COLONIAL QUESTIONS AND PEACE 189the demographic argument for a right of territorial expansion and had
come to rely instead on economic arguments, although as Berber indi-
cated through his contribution on the subject of colonies in Paris, the
German government at least was retreating from economic arguments as
well.^358 In other contexts, it did not go unremarked that the complaints
about demographic pressure and congestion emanating from Germany
and Italy sat rather oddly alongside the ‘unusual methods,’ such as dis-
couraging celibacy, adopted by the governments of those countries in
order to increase their population numbers for the proclaimed reasons of
national renewal at home and a greater presence abroad.^359
Mussolini had once stated in regard to Italy that it was a case of either
‘[e]xpansion or explosion.’ Yet he had also stated that the ‘fate of nations
is bound up with their demographic power’ and had boasted of the viril-
ity of the Italian nation. Similarly and irrespective of the talk of seeth-
ing cauldrons and caged birds, Goebbels had stated that Germany, in
order to fulfil its ‘great national and international tasks’ needed not only
‘power, living-space and technical means’ but also ‘hands’.^360 Generally,
the claims to colonies of the so-called have-not states were seen as ‘partly
contradictory, partly hypothetical and largely inconclusive,’ stemming
less from material and more from psychological factors: a desire for hon-
our, prestige and equality with their great power peers.^361 Some argued
that even if they were only psychologically driven, the claims of the dis-
satisfied states should be taken seriously; against this, others argued that
it would hardly make for a ‘rational system of international relations’ if
territorial revision were deemed the appropriate ‘cure for a psychological
ailment’.^362
Whatever was the attitude of bulk of the membership of the ISC
towards the claims of the soi-disant dissatisfied powers in the summer
of 1935 when the conference decided to embark on a two-year study
of peaceful change, within the forum which was the 1937 session of the
(^358) Ibid., 466, 470.
(^359) Lord Lugard, ‘The Basis of the Claim for Colonies,’ International Affairs 15, no. 1
(1936): 3–25, 6. This paper was read at Chatham House on December 3, 1935.
(^360) Chalmers Wright, Population and Peace, 146–47.
(^361) Ibid., 25n., 27n., 57. See also International Study Group: Note (in absentia) by Lord
Lugard March 13–14, 1936, Conférence permanente des hautes études internationale:
Groupes internationaux d’étude, 1936, AG 1-IICI-K-I-18.b, UA.
(^362) Chalmers Wright, Population and Peace, 129.