3 CONFERENCES AT PRAGUE AND BERGEN AND THE LOOMING WAR 315tHe institute of PAcific relAtions’ study meeting
At virginiA beAcH
The position and policy of the United States in the Far East was much
discussed at an IPR study meeting which was held between November
22 and December 2, 1939.^260 The general nature of this meeting was
decided at a meeting of the Pacific Council in Princeton, New Jersey, in
January 1939: first, it was decided that the conference should be smaller
than previous conferences, such that it would be limited to ten members
from each National Council, and second, it was decided that the focus of
the institute in 1939 should be the IPR’s Inquiry: a study on an interna-
tional scale of the problems arising from the conflict in the Far East.^261
Reflecting on the origins of the Inquiry, Holland recalled that in
the autumn of 1937, he had received word from Carter ‘that the
International Secretariat was thinking of starting a large research pro-
ject on the consequences of the Japanese invasion of China and the
issues that might be discussed at a subsequent peace conference.’^262 The
research project in question was launched in early 1938 under a heading
that was doubtless intended to bring to mind the research group called
The Inquiry which had been established by Wilson in September 1917
on the prompting of his close adviser Colonel House with a view to the
peace negotiations that would follow the war’s end.^263 Holland also
recalled that during most of 1938, he alongside Jessup, who at that time
was chair of the American unit of the IPR, had worked on developing
‘the research proposal for the Inquiry project, something which lead to a
large supporting grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.’^264 As stated in
all the reports issued in its name, the purpose of the Inquiry was
to relate unofficial scholarship to the problems arising from the present
situation in the Far East. Its purpose is to provide members of the Institute(^260) Mitchell and Holland, eds., Problems of the Pacific, 1939, v.
(^261) Ibid.
(^262) ‘The Memoirs of William L. Holland,’ in Hooper, ed., Remembering the Institute of
Pacific Relations, 21.
(^263) Akami, Internationalizing the Pacific, 219–20, and Mitchell and Holland, eds.,
Problems of the Pacific, 1939, v.
(^264) ‘The Memoirs of William L. Holland,’ in Hooper, ed., Remembering the Institute of
Pacific Relations, 22.