244 J.-A. PEMBERTON
analysis, that the ISC remained ‘one of the excepted processes of interna-
tional discussion and collaboration which still survives’.^9
In response to Kittredge’s question regarding the relation between
the ISC and the IIIC, the respondents from Britain and Europe were
‘equally unanimous’ that it was the ‘logical body’ to serve as the per-
manent secretariat of the ISC if the ISC were to continue in its present
form.^10 This point was not quite accurate. In a letter on the subject of
the conference sent to Kittredge, a letter which was by far the most elab-
orate in terms of its recommendations for reform of the ISC, Condliffe,
after having noted that he had seen ‘something of its origins in 1930’
and had, ‘as a member of the League Secretariat been aware of some its
political repercussions,’ stated that if he were considering ‘a new venture’
he would insist on the view which he had first put forward in 1930. The
view that Condliffe had expressed in 1930 when he was called upon by
what was then known as the Conference of Institutions for the Scientific
Study of International Relations to make recommendations as to how
the conference might go about transforming itself into a study confer-
ence on the model of the IPR, was that it would be ‘preferable to cre-
ate an ad hoc organisation.’ By ad hoc organisation, Condliffe meant an
organisation that was independent of any other organisation.^11 Condliffe
stated that he accepted that severing the ISC’s link with the IIIC, which,
he noted, had ‘brought the conference to its present development,’ had
established a secretariat for it and had ‘generously stressed its autonomy,’
would be at this stage impractical and ‘unwise,’ although he also stated
that consideration might be given to its severing at a future date.^12 At
the same time, Condliffe expressed the view that it would be necessary to
make ‘somewhat radical changes’ in the organisation of the conference’s
secretariat in order to place added emphasis on the conference’s auton-
omy and in order to divorce the ISC ‘from the political atmosphere and
League precedents necessarily followed’ by the IIIC.^13 In this regard,
Condliffe made the following recommendations:
(^9) Ibid.
(^10) Condliffe to Kittredge, 18 September 1937, AG-IICI-K-I-4.b, UA.
(^11) Ibid.
(^12) Ibid.
(^13) Ibid.