There was a very disquieting rumor last week to the effect that Englandhad refused to take part in the Seal Conference.
The reason given for her refusal was that she could not join in thediscussion if Russia and Japan were admitted to it.
At the British Foreign Office, which is the department of the Governmentthat has the charge of such matters, the officials refused to saypositively whether Great Britain had declined to take part in theconference, but they let it be understood that Canada was at the bottomof the trouble.
The Canadian Government was most unwilling to have Great Britain join inthe conference, and asked that the mother country should withdraw, andleave the settlement of the matter to the colony that was mostinterested in it.
It was thought that Canada feared that Japan and Russia might look atthe sealing question from the same point of view that we do, and sopersuaded England to object to them, and thus draw out of theconference.
That England should say she would not join because of Russia and Japan,was a great surprise to the officials in Washington.
When Mr. Foster was in London last July, he told the British officialsthat he had just returned from St. Petersburg, having obtained theconsent of the Czar to send a representative to the meeting. Englandconsenting to join the conference soon after this, it was thought thatthe consent of the two other countries had influenced her to come to alike decision.
In the same month of July, our ambassador in England wrote to LordSalisbury, told him of the arrangements that had been made, and askedwhether Great Britain would surely be represented.
The Prime Minister kept this note unanswered until September, and thensaid he could not possibly take part in any discussion to which Japanand Russia were also to be admitted.
Every one wondered what this refusal could mean, and it caused a verybad impression, as it came right after the publication by the ForeignOffice of a book in which the letters and despatches which had passedbetween the two countries in the seal dispute had been printed.
This book contained some very unfriendly remarks about the UnitedStates. Among other things it was said that we ought not to be makingsuch a fuss about the kind of sealing that is now being carried on,because in 1832 we practised the same methods ourselves in the SouthAtlantic Ocean.
This accusation is absolutely true, but Mr. Chamberlain, in his book,did not add that bitter experience in the south had taught us ourlesson, and that it is because of the destruction we had worked to thesouthern herd that we are so anxious to take better care of thenorthern.
So important does the protection of the seals seem to our Government,that when the news came that England might not join in the conference ifJapan and Russia were represented there, it was decided to hold themeeting, whether Great Britain joined or not. But, being anxious to keepon the best of terms with our English cousins, the Government sent amost pressing invitation to England, begging her to attend theconference, and hear what the scientists had to say about the seal herd,even if she would not take any part in the discussion.