296 J.-A. PEMBERTON
referred to the assembly’s Second Committee.^193 Within the framework
of this committee, the mandate of which concerned the League’s technical
organisations, the problem was the subject of a three-day debate in which
twenty delegations participated.^194 In this forum too, the discussion was
introduced by Bruce who emphasised the following:
[T]he necessity for marrying agriculture and public health in the interests
of the latter; of increasing the consumption of protective foods as a remedy
for malnutrition and the agricultural crisis, and of changing the incidence
of State protective subsidies so that they should serve to increase consump-
tion rather than to restrict production. He pointed out the necessity for
reducing the wide gap between wholesale and retail prices and of reducing
the costs of distribution.^195Following consideration of a report issued by the Second Committee,
the assembly, ‘having considered the subject of nutrition in relation to
public health and the effects of improved nutrition on the consump-
tion of agricultural products,’ adopted the proposal of the Australian
delegate: it invited the Health Organisation to ‘continue and develop’
its work on nutrition and instructed the technical organisations of the
League, in consultation with the International Labour Office and the IIA
to ‘collect, summarise, and publish information on the measures taken in
all countries for securing improved nutrition.’^196 At the same time, the
Assembly decided to establish a so-called Mixed Committee. The com-
mittee was named as such in order to emphasise the diversity of interests
tied up with the problem of nutrition and, accordingly, was composed
of experts in a diversity of fields: it included experts in the fields of agri-
culture, economics and public health. The committee had as its mandate
the preparation of a report for the benefit of the next assembly on the
problem of nutrition in its public health and economic aspects.^197
(^193) League of Nations, Interim Report of the Mixed Committee on the Problem of
Nutrition, 7, and Way, A New Idea Each, 168.
(^194) League of Nations, Interim Report of the Mixed Committee on the Problem of
Nutrition, 7.
(^195) League of Nations, Report on the Physiological Bases of Nutrition, 6.
(^196) League of Nations, Interim Report of the Mixed Committee on the Problem of
Nutrition, 7, and League of Nations, League of Nations Health Organisation: Report to the
Council on the Work of the Twenty-Fifth Session of the Health Committee, 12.
(^197) League of Nations, League of Nations Health Organisation: Report to the Council on
the Work of the Twenty-Fifth Session of the Health Committee, 12, and League of Nations,
Interim Report of the Mixed Committee on the Problem of Nutrition, 8–10.