TWO years ago in New Orleans, business leaders of the Americas met under sponsorship of TIME-LIFE International to consider a problem of great moment to the free world: how to accelerate the flow of investment capital to areas in the Western Hemisphere where it would do the most good. The conference was so successful that TLI Director Edgar Baker began at once to plan a meeting focused on another geographical area. On a trip to Asia to test the idea on businessmen and bankers there, Baker found widespread interest.

Back home, he learned that California's Stanford Research Institute had similar ideas and would be a willing partner in a meeting to stimulate international investment. S.R.I., a corporation founded by Western U.S. businessmen to research industrial, economic and scientific problems, was an ideal cosponsor. Baker and S.R.I.'s Dr. Weldon Gibson agreed that TLI and S.R.I, together might arrange a conference encompassing the whole world.

This week in San Francisco, on the eve of the International Industrial Development Conference, 600 business leaders from 60 countries are signing their distinguished names in hotel registers. For five days next week, they will discuss needs, techniques and potentials of a growing partnership of world business. Among specific subjects they will examine: the world population explosion; the future demand on industrial production; the high cost of money; national markets, common markets and free-trade areas; labor's role in economic development; the challenge to private capital. In short, the agenda adds up to this resounding objective: how to raise standards of living for the peoples of the world through increased capital investment and economic growth.

Although they are from many countries, the conferees share a common belief: the prosperity and strength of the free world are chiefly products of the initiative and resourcefulness of the individual working through the institutions of private enterprise. A few of the men who share this belief: Canada's Gordon Graham, India's G. D. Birla, Belgium's Paul Van Zeeland, Iran's A. H. Ebtehaj, Brazil's Walther Moreira Salles. Conference chairman will be TIME'S Editor-in-Chief Henry R. Luce.

This week from San Francisco, Mr. Luce wrote me this about the meeting's prospects:

"The timing of the San Francisco conference turns out to be just right. At this moment the economy of abundance (in the U.S. and elsewhere) and the revolution of rising expectations (in Asia and elsewhere) are both running into trouble. These troubles can be overcome by a wise public policy and energetic private enterprise. The fact that 600 business leaders from every country in the free world are meeting together is in itself striking evidence of the vitality of private enterprise and its determination to open up the way to decades of tremendous economic advance."

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