International > Report by the committee on the work of its ... plenary session > Twenty first plenary session

to the study of contemporary problems. But the Conference has also stimulated useful beginnings
of co-ordination on the national plane, within each country; it has helped to add to individual
research—ultimate source of progress in all the products of the mind—the leaven of co-operation,
which is indispensable to-day. The Conference has also played a part in strengthening these
ties across political boundaries, thus stressing the universal character of the problems and the
common ends which men in all countries engaged in the careful study of those problems seek to
attain.
For there can be no doubt that the system whereby all the groups of the Conference have
been engaged on the study of a common subject has been the chief factor in its development.
There is no enterprise of intellectual co-operation in which the combination of international
collaboration and national research has been more fruitful.
Finally, it must not be forgotten that the object of the Conference in calling attention to
the problems which are the most urgent for the future of the international community and its
members, in devoting to the examination of these problems the methods and the resources of
science, is to contribute effectively to the organisation of peace. Not that it seeks to intervene
in the relations of Governments with one another, or to work out technical or political agreements;
it is by the study of reality, by the verification of facts and of their underlying significance, that
it tries to act. But it is not necessary to demonstrate that, in view of the complexity of modern
life, the need to place the power of thought at the service of world relations, its capacity for
discovery and foresight, is daily more clearly evident.
3. Development of the Conference
During the past year, the membership of the Conference has increased: the Mexican Committee
for the Scientific Study of International Relations and the Chilian Institute of International
Studies have been admitted to membership; and scientific committees have been formed in
Bulgaria, Japan and Yugoslavia to take part in the study of Economic Policies in relation to
World Peace. Belgian, Brazilian and Argentine scholars have continued their association with
the work of the Conference; a Committee has recently been created in Greece, and negotiations
have been opened with the Turkish university circles for the creation of a permanent Committee;
and Turkish economists have already taken part in one of the enquiries—exchange control—
organised in connection with the coming session of the Conference.
4. Twelfth Session of the Conference
The twelfth session of the International Studies Conference will be held at Bergen from
August 27th to September 2nd, 1939, at the invitation of the Norwegian Co-ordinating Committee
for International Studies, and thanks to the generosity of the Christian Michelsen Institute for
Science and Intellectual Freedom. Since the death of Christian L. Lange, the Norwegian
Committee is presided over by Professor Frede Castberg.
(a) Documentation of the Conference. — For this session, which will deal with economic
problems in relation to peace, the basic documentation has been prepared, as usual, mainly by
the national groups of the Conference. This documentation is very abundant. Each group
having made a scientific study of the economic policy of its own country in recent years, it will be
possible, upon the basis of data collected in a spirit of objectivity carefully verified, to hold discus¬
sions on controversial subjects, which are reflected in opposing doctrines, and to compare
experiments based on different conceptions concerning the nature of economic relations and the
best way to organise them. Many of these national studies constitute full-sized volumes. They
represent in themselves the collaboration of various branches of scholarship. While they deal
with national economic systems, they throw light on the consequences of external economic
relations on each of these systems. Studies of this kind are being prepared in the following
countries: the United States of America, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria,
Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway,
Poland, Roumania, Sweden, Switzerland and Yugoslavia.
In addition, an international enquiry on exchange control has been conducted by one of the
secretary-rapporteurs—M. Andre Piatier—under the direction of Professor J. B. Condliffe.
The results will be published in the form of a synthesis of studies carried out by experts in the
following countries: the Argentine Republic, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece,
Hungary, Poland, Roumania, Turkey and Yugoslavia. A meeting for the purpose of bringing
about a preliminary discussion of this documentation, and of supplementing it if necessary, was
held at Geneva on May 12th, under the auspices of the Geneva Research Centre.
In addition to the studies on the economic policy of each country, which constituted the
minimum programme of documentation for the Conference, several groups, notably those of the
United States of America, France, Hungary, Norway and Sweden, and also the Geneva Research
Centre, will present additional contributions on particular aspects of the economic problem:
the methods of indirect protectionism; international loans as instruments of foreign policy;
exchange control in South America; the political factors in economic policy and their practical
application; the new economic policies and the changes in the direction of international currents;
economic regionalism; the Oslo Convention and its effects; international capital movements; the
depreciation of the currencies in the Northern countries and its effect on the foreign commerce
and on the international economic relations of the Northern countries; the repercussions of modern