4 INTELLECTUAL COOPERATION IN WAR-TIME AND PLANS ... 383In editorialising on Perham’s contributions, the Times stated that it
would be delusional to think that when the tide of battle turned in the
Pacific that a return to the status quo of 1941 was possible or desirable:
the cataclysmic events that had unfolded in the region since that date
had left their mark and the aim of future policy must be that of progress
towards independence for colonial territories in the Pacific. Further to
this, the Times observed that the joint nature of military action in the
region rendered the question of its future organisation a matter of com-
mon concern. It stressed the importance of the American people taking
an interest in and sharing responsibility for the process of transition lead-
ing to independence. Like Perham, the Times warned against minimis-
ing the significance of ‘advanced American opinion’ on British colonial
policy, noting that a leader of this opinion, namely, Wilkie, ‘had stood
out courageously in the ranks of the Republican party as the champion
of full American participation in the risks and responsibilities of the post-
war world.’^126
The other opening address at the conference at Mont Tremblant was
delivered by the head of the British delegation, Lord Malcolm Hailey, in
the context of which he defended current British colonial policy. Hailey
was a former governor of the Punjab and of the United Provinces, direc-
tor of the Africa Research Survey from 1935 to 1938, a former member
of the LON’s Permanent Mandates Commission, head of the Economic
Mission to the Belgian Congo in 1940, and chair of the governing
body of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of
London.^127
Outlining the British view of a settlement in Southeast Asia, Hailey
noted that with the exception of Thailand, all of the countries in that
region were dependencies of either European powers or of the United
States. He observed that an ‘indirect result’ of the Japanese aggression
was that the position the colonial powers occupied in relation to their
dependencies was now subject to scrutiny and severe questioning.^128
He noted that the demand for the liberation of subject peoples was then
being dramatically and emphatically expressed in America and that it had
(^126) ‘A Colonial Debate,’ Times, November 21, 1942.
(^127) International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations, War and Peace in the Pacific,
157–58.
(^128) Lord Hailey, ‘A British View of a Far Eastern Settlement,’ in International Secretariat,
Institute of Pacific Relations, War and Peace in the Pacific, 8.