The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 32 (2021)
Copyright © 2021 Yoshie Takamitsu. All rights reserved. This work may be used, with thisnotice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of this work may be distributed,
electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without permission from the author.

Interwar Transnational Network and the British
Commonwealth: The Institute of Pacific Relations
and Transformation of Relations among the United
Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, 1942– 43

Yoshie TAKAMITSU*INTRODUCTION
In this article I will examine what role the Institute of Pacific Relations(IPR), a network of nongovernmental transnational organizations, played in
British Dominion Canada’s search for its position in international politics in
1942–43. The Anglo-US-Canadian trilateral relationship has been describedas the North Atlantic triangle, particularly in terms of Canada’s international
relations.1 In the past few decades, however, the question of whether such a
relationship actually existed in the 1940s has been reexamined by Hector
Mackenzie.2 The conclusion is that the relationship between Canada and theUnited Kingdom and the United States was an asymmetrical one in which
Canada’s presence was overestimated. Mackenzie does not deny, however,that Canada influenced both Britain and the United States in thisrelationship. While the United States and Britain did not perceive therelationship as a North Atlantic triangle, Mackenzie acknowledges theimportance of Canada’s influence on both countries. In this article I focus on
the IPR conference at Mont Tremblant, near Montreal, in December 1942
and indicate how Canadian intellectuals from the nongovernmental*Associate Professor, Chiba University

91

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Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA) along with the Canadian
Department of External Affairs tried to influence the United States and theUnited Kingdom in the formation of the postwar international order.
The relationship among Canada, the United Kingdom, and the UnitedStates gradually changed in a major way during the interwar years. The
British Canadian colonies were granted responsible government in the
1840s. This move was prompted by Britain’s change in imperial policy, thegradual withdrawal of British military forces from North America, and theadoption of free trade policies. This policy change led the Canadian colonies
to pursue greater self-reliance and, as a result, to seek autonomy, including
in foreign policy.3 Thus, by the time of confederation in 1867, in otherwords, by the time of the formation of the Dominion of Canada, Canada was
self-governing and, to some extent, had also begun to assume responsibility
for its foreign relations and foreign policy.4 In 1880, it appointed a highcommissioner to London, and it established its Department of External
Affairs in 1909.5
After the First World War, Canada’s international position was enhanced
by participation in the 1919–20 Paris Peace Conference and representationin the League of Nations. The prime ministers of the Dominions wereinvited to the Imperial War Conference held in 1917. As of that date, theygained access to the informational resources of the British Foreign Office.
The 1917 Imperial War Conference resolved that a full recognition of the
Dominions as autonomous nations within an imperial commonwealth should
be readjusted after the First World War.6 Canadian representatives were
subsequently granted recognition by the international community at the
League of Nations.7 Shortly after his appointment as Canadian prime
minister in late 1921, the Liberal Party’s William Lyon Mackenzie Kingbegan to advocate for significant autonomy in the formation andadministration of Canada’s foreign policy.8 At the Imperial Conference of1926, the radical demands of Ireland and South Africa established equalityof status between Britain and the Dominion.9
For Canada, relations with the United States had been important long
before it acquired foreign-policy autonomy. Therefore, Canada’s first action
after the Imperial Conference of 1926 was to establish a legation in
Washington, DC. Vincent Massey became the first Canadian minister to theUnited States in 1926. The United States soon opened a legation in Ottawa
and sent William Phillips as the first minister to Canada. Shortly after
Canada established its mission in Washington, it opened diplomatic missions
in France and Japan in 1928 and 1929, respectively.10 Furthermore, based on

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93

discussions at the Imperial Conference in 1930, the British Parliament
passed the Statute of Westminster on December 11, 1931, granting Canada
full independence, including in diplomatic relations, if it so desired.
Subsequently, Canada remained legally bound to Britain for a long time,11
but in the early 1940s, it sought to play some role in the post–Second World
War international order.
As Canada’s international position was enhanced, the IPR was established
as a transnational network for intellectuals interested in the international
affairs of the Asia-Pacific region.12 At the time, a rash of international
nongovernmental organizations were being established focused oninternational politics.13 The first IPR conference in Honolulu in 1925 wasattended mainly by Americans, Japanese, Chinese, Canadians, Australians,
and New Zealanders. John Nelson, a Canadian journalist in Vancouver, was
one of founding members of the IPR.14 In Australia, Canada, and New
Zealand, the Institute of International Affairs was created from a merger
between the London-based British Institute of International Affairs (BIIA)
and the IPR. Therefore, the CIIA was founded as the Canadian branch of the
BIIA, though the IPR members were deeply involved in its creation. The
IPR was a US-led international nongovernmental organization, and the CIIA
became involved in Canada-US relations through the IPR network.
Most research about the IPR has been published in Japan and has mainly
focused on the prewar period, while most of the few studies in the UnitedStates have focused on whether or not the IPR was involved in Communist
spying. Research has not flourished in the United States because the IPR
was embroiled in the US “red scare,” and it was forced to dissolve in 1960.
Therefore, the number of studies about the Mont Tremblant Conference islimited, and the studies have been conducted primarily with reference to thesummaries of the conference published by the IPR. There has been much
focus on the American Council of the IPR and the International Secretariat
and little focus on the role of the Canadian IPR.15 However, the IPR’s
influence on international politics increased commensurately with anincrease in the participation of government officials. In this article, I draw on
the historical documents of Edgar J. Tarr, a member of the CIIA and a leaderof the Mont Tremblant Conference, and the Canadian Department ofExternal Affairs to elucidate the details of the interactions among officials of
various governments and nonofficial.16

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The Anglo-US Conflict at the IPR Mont Tremblant Conference and Canada
The eighth IPR conference at Mont Tremblant was held December 4–14,
1942. (See table 1.) The IPR decided on the date of this conference on July
13, 1942.17 The conference was not initially to have been held in Canada.18
The CIIA, however, wanted the conference to be held in its own country. It
had been actively attracting IPR conferences to increase its influence ininternational politics, and this was the third time it had hosted a conference,
after Banff in 1933 and Victoria in 1939; in the case of 1939, the outbreak of
the Second World War had caused the venue to be changed to Virginia
Beach in the United States. Therefore, the CIIA worked hard to become thehost the 1942 conference.19
Earlier studies emphasize that European countries, including Britain, wereconfronted at the Mont Tremblant Conference by the United States, Canada,
and China over the colonial issue, especially the independence of India.
Table 1. list of the IPR Conference
year

periodlocation

1 1925 from June 30 to July 15

Honolulu, U.S.A.

2 1927 from July 15 to 29

Honolulu, U.S.A.

3 1929 October 28 to November 9

Kyoto, Japan

4 1931 October 21 to November 2

Hangzhou and Shinghai, China

5 1933 August 14 to 26

Banff, Canada

6 1936 August 15 to 29

Yosemite, U.S.A.

7 1939 November 18 to December 2 Virginia Beach, U.S.A.
8 1942 December 4 to 14

Mont Tremblant, Canada

9 1945 Janurary 6 to 17

Hot Springs, U.S.A.

10 1947 September 5 to 20

Stratford-upon-Avon, U.K.

11 1950 October 3 to 15

Lachnow, India

12 1954 September 27 to October 8

Kyoto, Japan

13 1958 February 3 to 12

Lahol, Pakistan

Michio Yamaoka, Taiheiyo Mondai Chosakai Shiryo (Tokyo: The Instituteof Asia-Pacific Studies of Waseda University, 2010), 6.

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95

Research had suggested that Canada backed the United States along with
China, India, and Australia in denouncing European imperialism.20 The
Canadian position, however, was much more complicated, with Canada
trying to play the role of mediator between the United States and the United
Kingdom.
The Canadian Council of the IPR was the CIIA, which was established in
1928 and chaired by former prime minister Robert Borden. As mentioned
earlier, the establishment of the CIIA resulted from the process of
simultaneously establishing the Canadian branches of the BIIA and the IPR.
This was because the formation of the BIIA network was not popular in
Canada. Because the network was a transnational network centered on the
United Kingdom, it did not receive much interest, especially from those who
advocated Canadian autonomy, who were called “nationalists.” At the sametime, the IPR network, which was based in the United States, was working
diligently with John Nelson but failed to attract a prominent figure to install
as chair. Moreover, Marle Davies, general secretary of the IPR from Hawaii,
wanted the United Kingdom to join the IPR network, and the IPR’s
willingness to connect with the BIIA through its Canadian branch was a key
factor in the decision to join the CIIA by way of the Canadian group of theIPR.21Throughout the 1930s, the IPR grew into the most comprehensive
transnational network for Asia and the Pacific.22 The Canadian branch also
expanded, and in 1932, with a monetary donation from Massey, Escott Reidwas hired as national secretary, and the organization developed under his
direction.23 Massey served as the minister to the United States from 1926 to1930 and as the high commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1935 to
1946. As a branch of the IPR, the CIIA was considerably more active thanthe Australian and New Zealand branches, and from an early stage it was
actively seeking to participate in the IPR network. Canada’s geographic
location in North America may have been a major factor in its closer
relationship with the United States. The CIIA’s financial contributions to the
IPR were about five times larger than those of the Australian and New
Zealand branches, and they were even larger than those of the Japanese andBritish branches. The IPR was heavily reliant on private philanthropic
funding from the United States. The size of the financial burden of theAmerican Council of the IPR was orders of magnitude greater than that of
the other branches, but the second-largest financial contribution was private
funding from Canada.24 (See table 2.)
The chair of the CIIA at the time of the Mont Tremblant Conference was

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Table 2. Contributions of National Councils to the International IPR finance
1931

1932

1933

1934

1935

1936

total of 1931–36

U.S.A.

$65,000 $22,000 $27,500 $37,000 $35,917 $17,500$204,917

Hawaii$10,000$5,525$6,575$5,700 $10,000$2,000$39,800

Canada$7,500$4,778$4,950$3,960$3,223$3,246$27,657

U.K.

$5,000$3,550$2,625$3,026$2,934$2,455$19,590Japan$5,000$2,500$2,500$859$843$1,425$13,127

China$2,000$1,202$2,677$2,000$1,770$1,794$11,443$2,000$2,000$4,000

Soviet Union
Australia

$625

$600

$600

$600

$588

$460

$3,473

$480

$700

$700

$700

$2,580

$42

$624

$300

$300

$1,766

$500

$500

$500

Netherland East Indies
New ZealandPhilippine$500$1,500Agenda, 52nd Meeting, 1936/02/28 for 1932–34 and Agenda, 56th Meeting, 1937/5/26 for
1935–36, RIIA 6/1/4, Royal Institute of International Affairs. Hawaii is tabulated separatelyfrom the United States. Also, the U.S. share for 1936 does not include the Rockefeller
Foundation’s $180,000. The Rockefeller Foundation’s contribution was included in the
U.S. contribution until 1935, but was reclassified to seemingly correct the imbalanceamong the branches.

Edgar J. Tarr, who took over as chair in fall 1937 and tried to change thedirection of the CIIA, advocating that it more directly inform public opinion
rather than serve as an academic institution as Reid had intended.25 Tarr wasa wealthy businessman in Winnipeg. Meanwhile, Reid retired from the CIIA
at the end of October 1938, and in 1939 he was appointed second secretaryof the Canadian legation in Washington.26 Until the outbreak of the Second
World War, the CIIA and the Canadian Department of External Affairs took
opposing views about war and did not cooperate closely.27 After the outbreakof the war, however, the relationship between the two sides became closer,
and there was close correspondence between Tarr and Hugh L. Keenleyside,
assistant undersecretary of the Department of External Affairs, regarding theorganization of the Mont Tremblant Conference.28 Keenleyside served theCanadian legation in Tokyo from 1929 to 1936. He was Prime Minister
King’s adviser in early 1936 and first secretary of the Department ofExternal Affairs from 1937 until 1941, when he was appointed assistantINTERWAR TRANSNATIONAL NETWORK AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH

97

undersecretary of the US and Far Eastern Division.29
Tarr believed that the IPR conference had an important role to play in
Canada’s foreign relations, and from the preparatory stages of the 1942
conference, he encouraged departmental officials to become involved.30
Initially, the Canadian government did not attach much importance to the
IPR as a forum. However, when it heard that the United Kingdom wassending a delegation, including senior government officials, it began to think
seriously about participating.31 In setting the agenda of the 1942 conference,
Tarr consulted with Keenleyside, and they had a frank exchange of ideas.
Keenleyside was opposed to the IPR’s stance of proposing policy to thegovernment, as it was important for him that officials reach theirconclusions informally.32 Canada’s Department of External Affairs had cometo emphasize the IPR as a forum, but it recognized that the main actor for
setting foreign policy was the government. Tarr also believed that the
government had to take center stage during the war, and soon after the endof the war, a venue would become available for private organizations tocontribute.33 Tarr noted, however, that more emphasis had been placed on
the IPR outside Canada and expressed concern that the Canadian
Department of External Affairs was downplaying the importance of theIPR.34The Anglo-US conflict over the agenda was already evident during the
preparation for the Mont Tremblant Conference. The United Kingdom, forexample, was dissatisfied with the conference’s agenda and requested anunsolicited change, for which Tarr tried to play a mediating role.35
Keenleyside shared this concern about the Anglo-US conflict. He wasworried about Britain’s complete rejection of Indian independence. He
questioned why the Indian delegation was composed only of those who
agreed with the British position.36 In Keenleyside’s opinion, the British andIndian delegations faced a formidable front in maintaining colonialism.
Such an attitude was considered to have the worst impact on the UnitedStates and China. The RIIA (the BIIA received a royal charter in 1926 andbecame known as the RIIA) was worried that it would have the opposite
consequences, in an attempt to help promote US and British
understanding.37
At the heart of the problem was the interpretation of the Atlantic Charter.
The Charter was a statement of principle of the postwar order agreed on by
the leaders of the United Kingdom and the United States in August 1941, but
immediately after the agreement was reached, there was a disagreement ininterpretation of paragraph 3 of the Charter, which said that “they respect the

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right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will
live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored tothose who have been forcibly deprived of them.”38 This was because of
British prime minister Winston Churchill’s public statements that the
principles of decolonialization and self-determination did not apply to the
British Empire.39 When he was preparing for the IPR Mont Tremblant
Conference, Tarr was very concerned that Churchill’s speech had outraged
public opinion in the United States, as he believed that the March 1942
mission of Sir Stafford Cripps to India had broadened the understanding of
the difficulties of the Indian problem in the United States. He believed it wasnecessary for Britain to be clear about its commitment to think about anddiscuss the change in the status of India. He, therefore, warned the British
members of the IPR indirectly via Keenleyside that this situation was anextremely dangerous element of postwar Anglo-US cooperation and thatwithout Anglo-US cooperation, there could be no lasting peace.40
It is worth noting that Tarr did not attempt to prevent anyone who had adifferent opinion from the mainstream of the IPR from participating. He
argued that it was important to start discussions to challenge the criticism bysome IPR members that Britain, the United States, and China were unable todiscuss together India’s independence at a conference. He believed that by
setting up a common forum for discussion among the three countries, thethreat to stability of international relations or order would be removed.41
This skill of Tarr’s may have been cultivated from experience in responding
to Canadian diversity. There was a non-negligible minority in Canada: theFrench Canadians. Anglo-Canadians were also divided over important
policy issues, but the CIIA encompassed a diverse range of political
positions. Tarr was also keen to accurately reflect the diverse opinions
within Canada when selecting Canadian representatives. For example,
although he did not wish to select F. H. Soward, professor of history at the
University of British Columbia, because too many academic researchers
would have seats at the IPR conference, Tarr believed that British
Columbia’s perspective had to be represented. He did not like the opinion of
R. G. Trotter, professor of Canadian and Colonial History and head of the
Department of History at Queen’s University, but he accepted him because
his views were shared by some Canadians.42

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The British-Canadian Informal Meeting in Ottawa and the Postwar
International Order
Canada—that is, Tarr and the Department of External Affairs—wasconcerned about the stubbornness of the British delegation at the Mont
Tremblant Conference and the unbalanced makeup of the Indian delegation
because they knew that British attitudes were diverse and that not everyone
thought like Prime Minister Churchill. From spring 1942, consultations on
the draft Joint Declaration on the Colonies were underway in the United
Kingdom, with opinions ranging from those that were relatively forindependence such as C. R. Attlee, deputy prime minister and Dominion
secretary, to the more anti-independence Prime Minister Churchill and
Gladwin Jebb of the British Foreign Office.43 In that respect, the fact that the
British Council of the IPR was the RIIA made matters somewhat moredifficult: the RIIA intended to keep the British Empire from changing, and it
was more concerned with the preservation of the British Empire than was apolitician like Atlee, although not as much so as Prime Minister Churchill.44
In February 1943, members of the RIIA (British Council of the IPR) andCanadian government officials met informally in Ottawa. This meeting was
arranged by Keenleyside and Tarr. Keenleyside told Tarr at the end of
December 1942 that members of the RIIA, such as Sir Frederick Whyte, H.
B. Butler, Sir George Sansom, and W. J. Hinton, and Canadian government
officials should take this opportunity to exchange ideas. At the same time, hesaid that the IPR could be a catalyst for good relations between Britain andthe United States by drafting a colonial charter as part of the IPR’s
activities.45 In response, Tarr proposed a meeting with Whyte.46 According toTarr, the British side was willing to have this meeting.47 Therefore, Tarr told
N. A. Robertson, the undersecretary of the Canadian Department of External
Affairs, that he was concerned about British-US relations at the IPR Mont
Tremblant Conference and that he was organizing a meeting between Whyte
and Canadian officials to ease this conflict.48 Robertson agreed to the
proposal, arguing that the role played by the United States in the postwar
international order was in a state of flux and that the United Kingdom could
use its powerful influence to direct US policy in the desired direction.49
Once the date for the meeting was set, Tarr prepared a draft agenda inconsultation with Canadian officials.50 He summarized the general approachto the problem in eleven points. Among these, he counted “a feeling ofsuperiority on the part of many Americans vis-à-vis the United Kingdom,and on the part of many English, a partly submerged but constantly

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reappearing dislike for Americans.” He also pointed out “the shift of relative
world power and prestige as between the UK and US.” Then he asked, “Can
American attitude and action be adjusted to make it easier for the UK and its
citizens to refrain from irritable reactions to the US, and if so, how?”
Furthermore, he believed in a greater willingness on the part of the UK tomake concessions because it was a more pressing need for the UK.51
In attendance at the meeting were Sir George Sansom, Sir Frederick
Whyte, W. J. Hinton, and Redvers Opie on the British side and Tarr, Dr. W.
C. Clark, G. F. Towers, Louis Rasminsky, W. A. Mackintosh, O. D. Skelton,
N. A. Robertson, H. L. Keenleyside, Hume Wrong, H. F. Angus, and Escott
Reid on the Canadian side. The minutes were to be prepared independently
by Hinton on the British side and by Reid on the Canadian side.52 (See table
3 for list of all participants.) According to the minutes by Reid, the British
participants shared the perception that there was an anti-British atmospherein the United States. As a result, if the United States were to withdraw from
Europe after the war, it would be very alarming for Britain because Britain
would have to consider its European policy alongside the Soviet Union. It
was expected that Europe would then be divided into two camps, East andWest. The presidential election of 1944 was a major factor in determining
the course of events in the United States. It was recognized that the outcome
would determine the future of world peace to some extent. The key to thepresidential election, it was said, was for US public opinion to understandthat Britain was pursuing an enlightened policy in its colonies, such as
India.53
The Canadians made two proposals, which were generally accepted by
the British side. The first was that negotiations with the United States should
be conducted as multilateral negotiations, along with the other Allies. The
second suggestion was that it was important to have a “forward-looking”
policy. The first proposal was especially significant. The proposal was basedon the idea that multilateral negotiations would be effective in reducing thepressure on the United States to take a stronger position in bilateralnegotiations. This was something that Canada was aware of in its
negotiations with the United States. The Canadian government had behaved
similarly in the Northwest Canada issue, which involved the virtual US
occupation of the Canadian Northwest in 1943. By the Ogdensburg
agreement, the United Sates embarked on a proliferation of military projects
through the Canadian Northwest. The influx of US military personnel andcivilian workers resulted in the presence of over 33,000 US citizens in the
Canadian Northwest as of June 1943, which far exceeded the local

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Table 3. list of participants of the informal meeting on February 6 to 7
the British side
*Sir George Sansom

Minister advising on Far Eastern Affairs, British Embassy,
Washington*Sir Frederick Whyte

Chair of Far Eastern Group at the RIIA

*W. J. Hinton

Director of Speakers and Exibitions Division, British Information
Services*Redvers Opie

Economic Adviser, British Embassy, Washington 1939–42

the Canadian side
*Edgar J. Tarr

President, Monarch Life Assurance Company. Honorary President,
CIIA

Dr. W. C. Clark

Deputy Minister, the Department of Finance

G. F. Towers

Governor, Bank of Canada*Louis Rasminsky

Assistant Chair, Foreign Exchange Control Board

W. A. Mackintosh

Special Assistant to Deputy Minister, the Department of Finance*D. A. Skelton

Director of Research, Bank of Canada

N. A. Robertson

Under Secretary, the Department of External Affairs*H. L. Keenleyside

Assistant Under-Secretary, the Department of External Affairs

Hume Wrong

Minister-Counsellor, Canadian Legation in the United States

H. F. Angus

Professor, the University of British Columbia

Escott Reid

the Department of External Affairs

Minutes by Reid, 1943/2/10, box 3177, RG25 G-2, Library and Archives Canada.
*Participants of the IPR Conference in 1942

population.54
As of the late 1930s, Canada needed to strengthen its relations with theUnited States, and wartime cooperation between the two countries wasnoticeably strengthened in the early 1940s. In the process, however, Canada
had become concerned that its relations with the United States jeopardized
its own sovereignty.55 Nevertheless, the relationship with the United States
was vitally important to Canada, and it considered how to deal with theUnited States in a multilateral framework.56 There was also a consensus at
the informal meeting that conflicts between Britain and the United States

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were more likely to arise in bilateral negotiations than in multilateralnegotiations. Concerning the IPR Mont Tremblant Conference, multilateralnegotiations were effective because a third party was able to play a bufferrole between Britain and the United States.57
Robertson, however, later wrote a note to the effect that the meeting wasof little consequence: on March 10, 1943, the Department of External
Affairs sent the minutes prepared by Reid to the diplomatic missions in the
United States, Britain, Australia, Argentina, and other countries. At the time,
Robertson recalled that he did not even sign the letter to make it clear that itwas not an official meeting. He also referred to the tensions between Britain
and the United States, which Tarr claimed were exaggerated, and opposed
third-party mediation.58 This was clearly a subsequent change in thepositions taken at this meeting. What happened in between? In spring 1943,
talks between Britain and the United States on the plan of the “United
Nations” were just beginning to make progress.59 The Canadian view wasreflected in the Anglo-US talks. As we will see, the meeting was significant
in that regard, but at the same time, the informal meeting may have been
regarded as having already completed its role.
At the informal meeting between Britain and Canada in February, issuesof wartime cooperation between the Allies and the postwar international
order were discussed. With regard to politics among the Allies, Canada wasdissatisfied. It believed that the organizational framework of the Allies
should ensure that their contributions to the war should be commensuratewith their influence on common policy. Only within such a framework, they
believed, could they increase their effective contributions to the war effort.
Canada saw that the UN Relief Administration would be led by sevencountries: the four major powers, plus Canada, Brazil, and Sweden. Canada
was unhappy with the division of twenty-six countries of the UN Relief
Administration between the major powers and the rest of the world because
it would have lumped Canada and Costa Rica together. Canada took pride inbeing the third most important country in the United Nations.60
Gladwin Jebb of the British Foreign Office prepared a memorandum inMarch 1943 in preparation for revision of the Cabinet Memorandum for theUnited Nations plan. The memorandum drew on criticism from Attlee, thedeputy prime minister and Dominion secretary, as well as the views ofrepresentatives of the Dominions and the British Embassy in Washington.
As a result, a reference was added to the importance of general consent for
decisions in UN beyond the four major powers to gain the understanding of
the Dominions. This was on the advice of Charles Webster, a member of theINTERWAR TRANSNATIONAL NETWORK AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH103

RIIA.61 In addition to the government-level exchange of ideas in
Washington, informal meetings between RIIA members and CIIA and
Canadian government officials in Ottawa were likely another source of
information about the Canadian position toward the UN plan.
The Canadian members of the IPR sought to improve Canada’s positionin the postwar international order. They acknowledged, furthermore, thatseeking to expand the role of Canada in the United Nations mechanism
would increase Canada’s responsibility. Meanwhile, the Canadian members
recognized that the fundamental problem was that the Canadian Parliamentand citizens had not come to feel responsible in matters of international
policy if their own national interests were not directly involved.62 The
Canadian government had opposed taking on a position of responsibility inthe past. The government believed it was a time for Canada to realize its
responsibility to the international community.
CONCLUSION
In this article I have examined the role that the IPR, a network ofnongovernmental transnational organizations, played in Canada’s search for
its position in international politics in 1942–43. The CIIA was created as a
response to both the British-led and British Empire–based BIIA network andthe US-led IPR network. In Australia and New Zealand, as well as in
Canada, Institutes of International Affairs were the result of a merging ofthese two networks. However, Canada was uniquely positioned between
these two transnational networks, because Canada was politicallyequidistant from both the United Kingdom and the United States. In Canada,a British-dominated transnational network was not so popular, andestablishing a Canadian branch of the BIIA was a difficult task. The
difficulty was resolved when Canada joined the IPR through establishing a
Canadian chapter. The IPR network welcomed the confluence of the BIIA
network, as it had sought the UK’s participation. Canada had been the link
between the United Kingdom and the United States since the early days of
the IPR.
Originally, the British considered the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
to be the US counterpart to the BIIA network. As far as European issues areconcerned, the coordination of the BIIA and the CFR appears to haveworked well.63 However, on Asia-Pacific issues, the CFR did not function
well because the number of Asian experts is limited, and the focus of theiractivities has shifted to the IPR, and the IPR became the main venue. As a

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more US-centered forum, the IPR was less than desirable for discussing
Asian issues for the United Kingdom, and there were some strained
moments in Anglo-US relations. In such an arena, Canada had elected
themselves to catalyze improvement in these relations. Anglo-US
cooperation was necessary for the stability of the postwar international
order, not only for Canada but for the world. By involving itself in
Anglo-US relations, Canada was gradually consolidating its readiness toincrease its international standing and to assume commensurate
responsibilities.
This article has focused on the IPR conference at Mont Tremblant and theinformal Anglo-Canadian meeting immediately after the IPR conference.
Contrary to claims in earlier studies by Thorne, Yui, Akami, and Anderson,64
Canada did not blame the British for keeping the colony intact or side with
the US position on the colonial issue. Canada tried to be a mediator between
Britain and the United States. This skill may have been cultivated byprevious experience in responding to Canadian diversity in national
background and political positions. Canada did not merely change its
dependency from the United Kingdom to the United States. It was also
concerned with maintaining good Anglo-US relations and felt the need toprotect Canadian sovereignty from the United States. Canada tried to convey
that the important thing in relations with the United States was to position
the United States in a multilateral framework. Pressures from the UnitedStates on countries that needed close relations with US for their survival
could be better resolved at the multilateral level than at the bilateral level.
The Anglo-Canadian informal conference led by the CIIA with
Keenleyside after the IPR conference also provided an excellent opportunity
for the United Kingdom to consider the demands of the British Dominions
when considering the United Nations plan. Canadians also tried to be abuffer in Anglo-US relations and to use the relationship as a way to enhance
Canada’s position in the postwar international order. The meeting was, inaddition, an opportunity for Canada to convey its dissatisfaction with the
postwar international order, which was being envisioned as a great power–
centered mechanism. As the Cold War progressed, the US government
compromised on British colonial policy, while the British compromised less,resulting in an underestimation of Canada’s role as a successful mediator ofdifferences between the two major powers.
NOTES
This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of

INTERWAR TRANSNATIONAL NETWORK AND THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH

105

Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) number
19H04510.
1J. B. Brebner, North Atlantic Triangle: The Interplay of Canada, the United States andGreat Britain (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1945); John Holmes, The Shaping ofPeace: Canada and the Search for World Order, 1943–1957, 2 vols. (Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 1979/1982).
2
Hector Mackenzie, “Delineating the North Atlantic Triangle: The Second World War and
Its Aftermath,” Round Table 95, no. 383 (January 2006): 101–12.
3
John Hilliker, Canada’s Department of External Affairs, vol. 1, The Early Years, 1909–
1946 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990), 3.
4
Ibid., 5–7.
5Ibid., 30–56.
6
Ibid., 70.
7Ibid., 80.
8Kazuo Kimura, Phillip A. Buckner, and Norman Hillmer, Kanada no Rekishi: Daiei
Teikoku no Chusei na Chojo 1713–1982 [Elder Daughter of the Empire: A History ofCanadian-British Relations, 1713–1982] (Tokyo: Tosui Shobo, 1997), 175.
9Ibid., 181.
10
Hilliker, Early Years, 111–12.
11
Until Canada’s constitution was “patriated” in 1982, approval of the British Parliament
was required for changes to that constitution. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/
article/patriation-of-the-constitution.
12
Although much of the early research on the IPR focused on its association with
McCarthyism, empirical research on the founding of the IPR and its interwar activities began
in the 1980s. Beginning with Paul F. Hooper’s first reference to early IPR activities using IPR
documents from the University of Hawai‘i’s collection in Elusive Destiny (Honolulu:
University of Hawai‘i Press, 1980), he published a series of articles. In collaboration with
William Holland, the former international executive director of the IPR, he started a new
trend in IPR research. Although interest in the IPR is high in Japan, it shares with Hooper afocus on the private-sector interaction aspect of the IPR. In the 1980s, Nobuo Katagiri started
work on the Japanese Council of the IPR, based on research in the Diplomatic Archives of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, resulting in a book compiling previously publishedpapers, Taiheiyo Mondai Chosakai no Kenkyu [The Institute of Pacific Relations] (Tokyo:
Keio Gijuku Daigaku Shuppankai, 2003). However, Tomoko Akami’s Internationalizing the
Pacific (New York: Routledge, 2002) changed the conventional image of the IPR dramatically.
Taking a long-term view of the entire interwar period, Akami argues that the essence of the
IPR’s activities was the search for the formation of a world order by the United States, led by
East Coast American intellectuals.
13
Thomas Davies, NGOs: A New History of Transnational Civil Society (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2014), 90–105.
14
T. B. Millar, “Commonwealth Institutes of International Affairs,” International Journal
33, no. 1 (Winter 1977–8): 10–11.
15
International Secretariat of IPR, ed., War and Peace in the Pacific: A Preliminary Reportof the Eighth Conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations on Wartime and Post-war Cooperation of the United Nations in the Pacific and the Far East, Mont Tremblant, Quebec,
December 4–14, 1942 (New York: ISIPR, 1943). Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The
United States, Britain, and the War against Japan, 1941–1945 (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1978), 212–14. Daizaburo Yui, Mikan no Senryo Kaikaku: Amerika Chishikijin to106

YOSHIE TAKAMITSU

Suterareta Nihon Minshuka Koso [The Unfinished Reform under the Occupation] (Tokyo:
Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1989), 71–107. Akami, Internationalizing the Pacific, 257–69.
16
Tarr’s work in CIIA is discussed by Pricilla Roberts, “Tweaking the Lion’s Tail: Edgar J.
Tarr, the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, and the British Empire, 1931–1950,
Diplomacy & Statecraft 23, no. 4 (November 2012): 636–59. The author argues that the CIIA
has become influential in Canadian foreign policy largely due to Tarr’s contributions. She
mentions the Mont Tremblant Conference but not the informal meeting that immediately
followed.
17International Secretariat of IPR, War and Peace, v.
18
Tarr to Carter, 1943/6/9 and Carter to Tarr, 1942/6/11, box 2837-40, RG25-2929, Libraryand Archives Canada (hereafter cited as LAC).
19
Tarr to Angus, Keenleyside, Mackintosh, Pearson, Rasminsky, and Skelton, 1942/8/19,
box 2837-40, RG25-2929, LAC.
20
Thorne, Allies of a Kind, 213; Yui, Mikan no Senryo Kaikaku, 100; Akami,Internationalizing the Pacific, 268.
21
Edward Greathed, “Antecedents and Origins of the Canadian Institute of International
Affairs,” in Harvey L. Dyck and H. Peter Krosby, eds., Empire and Nations (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1967). This article is the most basic work on the creation of the
CIIA. The International Journal that featured “Opinion and Policy” is useful forunderstanding the relations among the university, the CIIA, and the Department of External
Affairs. International Journal 33, no. 1 (Winter 1977–8).
22
Akami, Internationalizing the Pacific, 167–239.
23
Carter Manny, “The Canadian Institute of International Affairs 1928 to 1939: An Attempt
to “Enlighten” Canada’s Foreign Policy” (bachelor’s thesis, Harvard College, 1971), 22–61.
24
Yoshie Takamitsu, “The Democratization of International Politics and Second Track
Diplomacy between the World Wars,” Rekishi Hyoron 789 (January 2016): 62.
25
Manny, Canadian Institute of International Affairs, 62–69.
26
Ibid., 73. Tarr was president of Monarch Life Assurance Company and director of the
Bank of Canada.
27
Ibid., 79–97.
28
External to Tarr, 1942/8/23, box 2, Edgar J. Tarr Series, MG28-I250, LAC.
29
John D. Meehan, The Dominion and the Rising Sun: Canada Encounters Japan, 1929–41(Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004), 15–16, 154. Hilliker, Early Years, 243.
30
Tarr to Keenleyside, 1942/7/13, box 2837-40, RG25-2929, LAC.
31
Robertson to Pearson, 1942/8/5, box 2837-40, RG25-2929, LAC.
32
Keenleyside to Tarr, 1942/10/6, box 2837-40, RG25-2929, LAC.
33
Tarr to Keenleyside, 1942/6/15, box 2837-40, RG25-2929, LAC.
34
Tarr to Keenleyside, 1942/10/10, box 2837-40, RG25-2929, LAC.
35
Tarr to Angus, Keenleyside, Mackintosh, Pearson, Rasminsky, Skelton, 1942/8/25, box
2837-40, RG25-2929, LAC.
36
Keenleyside to Tarr, 1942/10/23, box 2837-40, RG25-2929, LAC.
37
Tarr to Keenleyside, 1942/11/12, box 2837-40, RG25-2929, LAC.
38
Official text of Atlantic Charter, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_16912.
htm.
39
Thorne, Allies of a Kind, 61.
40
Memo to Members of Canadian Group at Mont Tremblant Conference, undated, box
2837-40, RG25-2929, LAC.
41
Tarr to Keenleyside, 1942/11/27, box 2837-40, RG25-2929, LAC.
42
Tarr to Macdonell, 1942/9/2 and Tarr to Keenleyside, 1942/11/14, box 2837-40, RG252929, LAC.

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Thorne, Allies of a Kind, 223–24.
Inderjeet Parmar, Think Tanks and Power in Foreign Policy: A Comparative Study of theRole and Influence of the Council on Foreign Relations and Royal Institute of International
Affairs, 1939–1945 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 24–36.
45
Keenleyside to Tarr, 1942/12/31, box 3177, RG25 G-2, LAC.
46
Tarr to Whyte, 1943/1/4, box 3177, RG25 G-2, LAC.
47
Tarr to Keenleyside, 1943/1/7, box 3177, RG25 G-2, LAC.
48
Tarr to Robertson, 1943/1/9, box 3177, RG25 G-2, LAC.
49
Robertson to Tarr, 1943/1/26, box 3177, RG25 G-2, LAC.
50
Tarr to Robertson; Tarr to Keenleyside, 1943/2/3, box 3177, RG25 G-2, LAC.
51
“Anglo-American Relations” by Whyte and Tarr, 1943/2/3, box 3177, RG25 G-2, LAC.
52
Robertson to Pearson, 1943/2/24, box 3177, RG25 G-2, LAC.
53
Minutes by Reid, pp.1–3, 1943/2/10, box 3177, RG25 G-2, LAC.
54
Shelagh Grant, “Search for a Northern Policy 1940–1950: Impact of the Canadian
Institute of International Affairs” (honors thesis, Trent University, 1981), 37–39.
55
Ibid., 41.
56
Minutes by Reid, p. 3, 1943/2/10, box 3177, RG25 G-2, LAC.
57
Ibid., p. 4
58
External Affairs to Massey, 1943/3/10; External Affairs to Robertson, 1943/3/10; andRobertson to External Affairs, 1943/8/16, box 3177, RG25 G-2, LAC.
59
Yuichi Hosoya, “Designing the ‘United Nations’: Charles Webster and the Planning ofWorld Order, 1942–43,” Journal of Law, Politics, and Sociology 84, no.1 (January 2011):
102.
60
Minutes by Reid, pp. 5–6, 1943/2/10, box 3177, RG25 G-2, LAC.
61
Hosoya, “Designing the ‘United Nations,’” 102–3.
62
Minutes by Reid, p. 13, 1943/2/10, box 3177, RG25 G-2, LAC.
63
Parmar, Think Tanks and Power, 96–97.
64
Thorne, 212–14; Yui, 71–107; Akami, 257–69. Michael Richard Anderson, “PacificDreams: The Institute of Pacific Relations and the Struggle for the Mind of Asia” (PhD diss.,
University of Texas at Austin, 2009), 74–78, 99–101.
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