Mr. Hay to Mr. Sherman.
London, September 25, 1897.
Sir: I have the honor to transmit a copy of a telegram sent you yesterday. Deciphered, it is as follows:
Have visited foreign office to urge earliest date for Bering Sea conference. Promised reply in a few days. Have expressed my disagreement with, conclusion of British Government about Russia and Japan, and await your further instructions.
I received your cabled instruction of the 20th of September in due time; but as Lord Salisbury was out of town, at his place in the country, and as he usually comes in on Wednesday afternoons to receive the diplomatic body, I waited till that day to ask an interview with him. Unfortunately he remained out of town on that day. I therefore went on Thursday to see Sir Thomas Sanderson, the permanent undersecretary for foreign affairs, and represented to him the earnest desire of my Government that as early a date as possible should be fixed for the meeting of the conference, which had been agreed upon for the month of October, between the British, Russian, Japanese, and American Governments. He told me he was not acquainted with the state of the business, took a note of my request, and then added that the British Government had only consented to a meeting of English, Canadian, and American experts. I expressed my surprise at this, referred to my conversations with Lord Salisbury, in which I had expressly stated, without objection on the part of his lordship, that Russia and Japan would be invited to take part in the conference; it was true, I said, that Lord Salisbury, in his note consenting to a conference, had not mentioned the participation of other powers, but I had immediately, in acknowledging receipt of his note, called to his attention the fact of the invitation having been extended to Russia and Japan. Sir Thomas Sanderson assented to this, and told me he would give the matter his attention.
The next morning I saw in the Times a telegram from Ottawa announcing, apparently on authority, that the British and Dominion Governments objected to meeting the representatives of Russia and Japan in conference. This, taken in connection with what I had heard the day before, I thought required immediate attention. I was drafting a note to Lord Salisbury on the subject when I received a visit from Mr. Villiers, the undersecretary of state, in whose department this matter more immediately lies. He told me that several days ago the foreign office had instructed Mr. Adam, the chargé d’affaires of the British embassy in Washington, to acquaint you with the view of Her Majesty’s Government [Page 305] in regard to the participation of Russia and Japan in the conference. I once more recalled to him, as I had to Sir Thomas Sanderson, that I had constantly kept in view in my conversations with Lord Salisbury the expectation of the President that representatives of both Russia and Japan would take part in the conference, and that I had, in my note of the 29th of July, renewed that intimation without objection from the British Government. He said the conference was one of experts, that Russia and Japan had no experts, and that they had no interests at stake in the preservation of the Pribilof herd.
I told him, in view of the fact that the President had invited, with the knowledge and presumed assent of the British Government, the Governments of Russia and Japan to participate in the conference, and that these Governments had accepted the invitation, it would now be difficult, if not impossible, to exclude them; but that I would report to you our conversation, and await your further instructions.
He further informed me that they had inquired of Mr. D’Arcy Thompson what would be the earliest date at which he could be in Washington, and would let me know his reply as soon as received. Sir Julian Pauncefote, it is thought, will not be able to sail before the 24th of October.
I am, etc.,