90 J.-A. PEMBERTON
idea of peace without assuring its defence, amounts to an abdication of
pacifism.’^9
At the conclusion of its meeting, the Sixth Committee unanimously
resolved that in times of armed conflict, the integrity of artistic and cul-
tural monuments should be respected: they constitute the ‘treasures of
civilisation’ and as such the world has a duty to preserve them. However,
in regard to Li’s point concerning the defence of peace, it would appear
that the committee remained silent.^10
Donald S. Birn notes that the IPC represented itself as being ‘non-
political,’ nonetheless, as he also notes, following its launch the regimes in
Berlin and Rome quickly swung into action, attacking the movement as
a stalking horse for the Communists.^11 Certainly, a large part of the sup-
port base of its European wing, most notably in France, was Communist
(as well as explicitly anti-Fascist) and it was because of the Communist
taint that it was viewed with caution by figures from both sides of British
politics.^12 Winston Churchill, who had by 1936 had become a staunch
supporter of the LON, had agreed in June 1936 to share the pres-
idency of the New Commonwealth Society which had been established
by David Davies (or 1st Baron Davies of Llandinam as he became in
1932), in October 1932 against the background of the Japanese inva-
sion of Manchuria.^13 An organisation dedicated to the promotion of
international law and order, the two specific policies which the New
Commonwealth advocated from the outset were as follows: the creation
of an Equity Tribunal and an International Police Force (IPF). Explaining
(^9) ‘La Coopération Intellectuelle à la XVIIIe Session de l’Assemblé de la Société des
Nations,’ Coopérational Intellectuelle, nos. 82–83 (1937): 520–42, 540–41.
(^10) Ibid., 542, and League of Nations, International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation,
1937 (Paris: Intellectual Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, 1938), 171.
(^11) Birn, ‘The League of Nations and Collective Security,’ 149.
(^12) Ibid., 151. For the anti-Fascist dimension of the RUP, see Mazuy, ‘Le Rassemblement
Universal pour la Paix,’ 40–2.
(^13) Michael Pugh, ‘Policing the World; Lord Davies and the Quest for Order in the
1930s,’ International Relations 16, no. 97 (2002): 97–115, 109. Donald S. Birn observes
that Churchill ‘began to advocate for an increased reliance on the League shortly after
Hitler came to power.’ He also observes that Churchill ‘had doubts about League sanctions
against Italy and it was only in 1936 did he emerge as an unhesitating champion of the
League ready to join the...[League of Nations Union]...in a “united front” for collective
security.’ Birn, ‘The League of Nations and Collective Security,’ 145. For the establishment
of the New Commonwealth, see J. Graham Jones, ‘The Peacemonger,’ Journal of Liberal
Democrat History, no. 29 (2000–2001): 16–23, 22.