Institute of Pacific Relations - The War Years

The War Years

During the war the IPR organized two conferences, one at Mont Tremblant, Quebec, in December 1942 and the second in Hot Springs, Virginia in January 1945. One scholar noted that the non-official nature of these meetings meant that officials and influential leaders could join in the fray in an ostensibly private capacity, which "gave the I.P.R. a status well beyond its actual size." Colonial issues, economic issues and post-war planning were the major areas of controversy. The Americans demanded that European colonial markets be opened to American goods by the removal of preference tariffs while the British expressed concerns that that American economic might could be used as a "potential bludgeon." Another example was Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit of India, asserting that the conflict in Asia was a race war, and other members of the conference from Asia warned that too harsh a treatment of Japan would lead to anti-Western feeling throughout the Far East.

At the roundtables, there was criticism as well as doubt that British would follow the Atlantic Charter. The British pointed out that high-flown ideas were being pushed on them while American willingness to apply the same ideals within its own borders was questionable. Those in the International Secretariat, were suspicious and critical of the British, noting that the delegation from India was more British than the British. Americans repeatedly insisted that they were not fighting in order to reconstitute the British Empire; British replied that they would "not be hustled out of evolution into revolution" and that the US might "do well to look into her own Negro problem."

On the positive side, the conferences helped to focus on the political and social developments within Japan after the war, especially the question of whether to abolish the imperial throne. Edward Carter summarized Anglo-American differences and fears: "continuing imperialism as a threat to world peace," on the one hand, and of "anti-colonialism as a recipe for chaos" on the other, and of "imperial tariff protections as a barrier to world trade and of American economic might as a potential bludgeon." Some have suggested that Carter left the Secretary General position in late 1945 because of pressure from the European council leaders due to his increasingly outspoken anti-colonialism.

At home, the American Secretariat came under criticism.