3 CONFERENCES AT PRAGUE AND BERGEN AND THE LOOMING WAR 295The discussion of nutrition at the Sixteenth Assembly was launched by
Bruce on September 11.^189 Echoing McDougall who was with him in
Geneva, Bruce maintained that from both an agricultural and public
health standpoint, underconsumption was the problem that needed to be
addressed. Bruce told the assembly the following:
Increased yields are being regretted and abundance is often officially
deplored. At the same time Ministers of Health and their official and med-
ical advisers are realising, more and more, that public health demands an
increased consumption of many of the very products about which the
Departments of Agriculture are so unhappy. Millions of pounds are being
spent annually in subsidies, bonuses and other forms of assistance to agri-
culture. Side by side with that expenditure millions of pounds are being
devoted to combating disease. Is it not possible to marry health and agri-
culture and, by so doing, make a great step in the improvement of national
health and, at the same time, an appreciable contribution to the solution of
the agricultural problem.^190A full discussion of the problem of nutrition ‘in relation to public health
on the one hand, and social and economic organisation on the other,’
then ensued.^191 According to Astor, who as noted was appointed as chair
of what was informally known as the League’s Nutrition Committee,
the striking interest shown by delegates to the Sixteenth Assembly in
the problem was largely due to the realisation that major improvements
in public health and social betterment could be achieved through bet-
ter nutrition. According to Astor, the interest shown by delegates in the
question of nutrition was also attributable to the conviction that through
improved nutrition, ‘it should be possible to contribute first, towards a
solution of national and international agricultural problems, and secondly
towards an improvement in the world’s economic situation.’^192 Following
discussion at a plenary meeting and as result of a motion supported by
Argentina, Australia, Austria, Britain, Canada, Chile, Denmark, France,
Italy, New Zealand, Poland and Sweden, the problem of nutrition was
(^189) Passmore, ‘Obituary Notice: Wallace Ruddell Aykroyd,’ 246.
(^190) LON, special supplement, OJ, no. 138 (1935), 42.
(^191) League of Nations, Interim Report of the Mixed Committee on the Problem of
Nutrition, 7.
(^192) Ibid., 5. See also Loveday, ‘The Economic and Financial Activities of the League,’
796.