458 J.-A. PEMBERTON
meetings, some delegates gave speeches prepared in advance in which
they repeated what had been stated in the national memoranda.’^105
In regard to the defects in its organisation, Mayoux noted in what was
the first item in his report to the meeting the following criticism: that
the subjects of the conference’s study cycles had been ‘too extensive and
improperly controlled’ and that as a consequence of this the memoranda
submitted to the conference sometimes amounted to a ‘heterogeneous
mass of documents of widely varying quality.’^106 Mayoux’s suggestion
as to what should be done to overcome this problem was that the role
of the general rapporteur should be transformed into that of director
of research and that this director should be granted wider powers than
those possessed by the general rapporteur. He further suggested that the
director of research should have an office within the conference’s secre-
tariat and ‘a staff of one or more assistants to help him in his scientific
work.’^107 There was general agreement at the meeting that the subjects
chosen for the conference’s study cycles were of an unwieldy nature and
that, as Kirk put it, there should be within the conference a ‘“screening
device”—a system whereby the papers could be reviewed, to ensure what
is submitted is of the highest possible quality.’^108
There was some apprehension in regard to Mayoux’s proposal that
the general rapporteur should be transformed into a director of research.
Arnold Plant, who had formerly been a member of the BCCIS but
who represented the South African Institute of International Affairs
at the meeting, pointed out that it was in order to obtain ‘more preci-
sion’ that a general rapporteur had been appointed in the years before
the war. Referring to Bourquin’s role as general rapporteur in the years
1934 to 1937, he added that ‘this remote control broke down’ because
it appeared that ‘certain committees found it difficult to conform to the
instructions of this rapporteur, particularly the British committee. We
tried very hard but we could not always conform to his wishes.’^109
(^105) Annex 2: Report of the Secretary General on the Criticisms of the Work of the
Conferences, ibid., 2–3.
(^106) Ibid., 1–2.
(^107) Ibid.
(^108) International Studies Conference, Verbatim report of the XIIIth Administrative ses-
sion, December 16 and 17, 1946, at the Centre d’études de politique étrangère de Paris,
IICI-K-XIV-12, UA, 38–9.
(^109) Ibid., 39.