70 J.-A. PEMBERTON
of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Indeed, Akami notes that
against a background of the growing political crises in Asia and Europe,
there had emerged a greater alignment between all the IPR branches
and their respective states. She further points out that the heads of a
number of the national IPR delegations were by this time well-known
political figures both past and present, as evidenced by Sarraut’s role as
leader of the French delegation. While this development was spurred
significantly by the desire of Carter to see the IPR enjoy a higher profile
in political circles, it was also spurred by governments themselves: they
recognised the IPR’s standing and wanted to exploit it for their own
purposes.^216
Yosemite was not the first time the theme of peaceful change had been
addressed at a conference of the IPR. For example, Lasker and Holland
noted the following in concluding their introduction to the proceedings
of the Banff conference:
[A]s Japanese members have pointed out (not only at Banff but also at for-
mer Institute conferences), the great need is not for treaties guaranteeing
a fixed condition in political or economic relations, but for new machin-
ery permitting a periodic review and adjustment of existing conditions to
national economic needs and opportunities. As long as there is a class of
‘have nots’ in the community of nations, the mere maintenance of the sta-
tus quo will never be a workable principle for diplomatic machinery.^217Indeed, according to Henry Forbes Angus, a professor of econom-
ics at the University of British Columbia and a member of the Canadian
unit of the IPR, namely, the Canadian Institute of International Affairs,
the general topic of peaceful change had had a bearing on the research
work sponsored the IPR from the very beginning. Angus illustrated this
point about the research work of the IPR in naming a book he authored
(^216) Akami, Internationalizing the Pacific, 201–3, 207. For Edward C. Carter’s role
at Copenhagen, see Conference of Institutions for the Scientific Study of International
Relations: Fourth Conference held at Copenhagen, June 8–10, 1931, Appendix 1B:
Fifth Meeting of the British Coordinating Committee for International Studies, June 17,
1931 and Appendix 1A(1): Institutions for the Scientific Study of International Relations:
Fourth Conference at Copenhagen, June 8–10, 1931, Quartrième Conférence des insti-
tutions pour l’étude scientifique des relations internationales (aprés la Conférence), 1931,
AG 1-IICI-K-VI-1, UA.
(^217) Lasker and Holland, eds., Problems of the Pacific, 1933, 13.