366 J.-A. PEMBERTON
been voted a grant of $50,000 dollars for the years 1941–1942 by the
Rockefeller Foundation with a further grant becoming available at the
close of 1942, were charged with preparing the great majority of the
department’s studies of post-war problems.^53
Neither the LON’s Economic Committee nor its Financial Committee
met in 1940 and 1941. However, as a result of consultations between
members of these committees and the secretary-general, it was decided
in early 1942 that the time was right to organise a meeting in the form
of a joint session of the two bodies. As it proved difficult in view of travel
conditions to organise a single meeting which could be attended by all of
the available members of these committees, it was decided that two meet-
ings would be held: ‘one in England and the other in the New World.’^54
The first of these meetings was held in London from April 27 to May
1, 1942, and the second in Princeton, New Jersey, on August 7 and 8,
- In a report to the LON Council on its work, the joint committee,
observed that the problem of relief and reconstruction would be much
vaster at the end of he present war that it was in 1918: the scale of the
field of battle was much vaster; the social upheavals it had caused were
much graver; and many more countries had had been invaded and occu-
pied. Moreover, the report noted, even before the war commenced ‘the
process of disintegration was already far advanced. We shall be faced with
the necessity of building a new system from the foundations.’^55
Having noted that relief operations, however efficiently organised,
were only a temporary response to the deep and widespread disruption
caused by the war, the report pointed out that the governments of the
United Nations had set forth the general principles which would deter-
mine the shape of their long-term plans for reconstruction in the social
and economic fields through endorsing the terms of the Atlantic Charter
of August 14, 1941, and in signing the Mutual Aid Agreements of
1942.^56 Both the Atlantic Charter and the Mutual Aid Agreements, the
report observed, were inspired by President Roosevelt’s pronouncement
(^53) League of Nations Economic and Financial Committees, Report to the Council on the
Work of the Joint Session London, April 27th–May 1st, 1942, London, April 27th–May 1st,
1942, Princeton, August 7th–8th, 1942, 12.
(^54) Ibid., 3.
(^55) Ibid., 5.
(^56) Ibid., 6, 8.