300 J.-A. PEMBERTON
aspects of the problem of nutrition, these aspects having been treated
only in brief in the interim report.^210 Like its interim report, the Mixed
Committee’s final report was received extremely well by public opinion
as evidenced by the fact that a second edition was published a few weeks
after its initial release and that, owing to private efforts, it was translated
into a variety of languages thus making it accessible to those not versed
in the two official languages of the League.^211 Frank P. Walters, who had
been Drummond’s chef de cabinet, wrote in his history of the LON that
‘in spite of its cumbrous title and official character, the Nutrition Report
enjoyed wide and immediate success. It became the best seller among
League publications in both the official languages...[and]...its popular
appeal was proved by the space devoted to it in the daily press of many
countries. This, indeed, had been the ambition of its authors.’^212
In June 1938, at a meeting at Chatham House chaired by Condliffe,
Loveday gave an address in which he explained the evolution of the
League’s activities in the economic field, dwelling at some length on the
impact on those activities of the growth in interest in the question of
nutrition. Loveday stated in his address, albeit somewhat inaccurately,
that the League’s work on nutrition ‘naturally began as a health prob-
lem and nothing more.’ He then pointed out that ‘when the movement
in Great Britain acquired considerable impetus, the whole question of
nutrition in its widest aspects—social and economic—was submitted by
the Australian delegation to the to the League.’^213 Loveday observed
that the national nutrition committees had been of invaluable assistance
in the production of the Mixed Committee’s final report through col-
lecting evidence about local conditions and providing information on
national policy. He noted that the League’s Economic and Financial
Organisation had helped arrange the meeting of some of these commit-
tees in February 1937 and that he had ‘sent an official round Europe’
to consult with representatives of the European nutrition committees
(^210) Ibid., 1.
(^211) Loveday, ‘The Economic and Financial Activities of the League,’ 796.
(^212) F. P. Walters, A History of the League of Nations (London: Oxford University Press,
1952), 754–55. Frank P. Walters points out that ‘[w]hen Bruce laid his plan before the
Assembly, nutrition committees existed in only three States; four years later, there were
thirty’ (ibid., 755).
(^213) Loveday, ‘The Economic and Financial Activities of the League,’ 795–96.