Banff Round Table

A score of U. S. citizens led by Newton D. Baker, and including Physicist Robert Andrews Millikan, Geologist Charles Kenneth Leith, Col. Hugh (Dnieprostroy Dam) Cooper, Frank Cooke Atherton, Hawaiian tycoon.

A score of Britishers, led by Sir Herbert Samuel, and including Labor Baron Snell of Plumstead, Sir John Power, Economist Theodor Emanuel Gregory, Cambridge's brilliant Philosopher & Critic Ivor Armstrong Richards.

A dozen Chinese, led by Philosopher Hu Shih.

A dozen Japanese, led by browbeaten Liberal Peer Inazo Nitobe, and including an intransigent retired Major-General named Yasunosuke Sato.

A few keen Dutchmen representing a Pacific empire of 60,000,000 people; two Frenchmen speaking for 20,000,000 French subjects in the Pacific; a strong delegation from Canada, the last led by Sir Robert Falconer; separate delegations from Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines.

Throughout, a predominance of economists and other "experts"--

Altogether 150 famed and near-famed serious students of large human affairs completed last week at the Canadian Pacific's magnificent hotel at Banff, Alberta, a fortnight's "roundtable" study of the Pacific--the fifth biennial conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations.

The subject set for discussion was "Economic Conflict and Control."

As the deliberations progressed, it seemed clear that economic conflicts do not in themselves cause war. Taboo was any open discussion of the violent Sino-Japanese emotional and political hatred. But in the corridors war was talked and especially titillating was "the coming war between Japan and America." Japan's peace-loving Inazo Nitobe, who might be assassinated back home if he said the wrong thing, forced the Canadian press to deny that he had ever predicted a Japanese-Russian war.

Delegates were divided into four "round tables," at which deliberations were secret. The Press was permitted to quote directly only a few public speeches which were really a side-issue of the conference. Most newsworthy point in these speeches was the prediction by London's famed Economist Gregory, that only inflation could make the NRA succeed and that the aftermath of that might be world chaos.

The round tables were mainly notable for the wealth of fundamental fact which was distributed by experts to each other. Thus:

P:Geologists are now certain that Asia does not possess sufficient raw materials (iron & coal) to make possible a Western type of industrialization. Textiles and light industries will grow--but great steel plants can never grow up in Asia as in the U. S. P:Population of Japan is now over 60,000,000, will be 90,000,000 in 30 years and then will probably stabilize. What to do? Birth control is not encouraged by the Government but neither is it discouraged. Contraceptives are widely advertised. But Japan bases her policy on the proposition that the world must make room for her unborn millions.

P:Great Britain and Japan are currently in a deadly struggle for the textile markets of Asia and Europe, with India as the immediate battleground. Wages in Japan are about one-quarter of wages in Lancashire. Currently a conference is being held at Simla, but, over the long pull, there seems little hope for Lancashire.

P:Most hopeful outlook for the world was found in this idea: that nations are organizing their industries internally; and that when an industry becomes fully organized within a country it makes possible a control-agreement between the same industries in various countries. Example : oil. When internal U. S. oil conflicts are settled, there is good prospect that the world oil problems may be settled. Different is the case of Agriculture, but see p. 14 for an account of the world's first Wheat Agreement which would not have been possible if the U. S. Government had not taken control of U. S. wheat production.

Edward C. Carter, secretary of the American Council of the Institute, was elected to the newly created post of Secretary General, to spend his days traveling the Orient coordinating all the various groups. His headquarters: Honolulu. Next conference: in 1935 in Baguio, Philippine summer capital.

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