loquent address made by
his colleague, the representative of France, Mr. JANSSEN, he would
remark that, so far as he could follow that discourse, it seemed to
him to turn almost entirely on sentimental considerations; that it
appeared to him that the Delegate of France had overlooked one great
point which was correctly laid down by the President in his opening
address, viz., that one of the main objects to be kept in view in the
deliberations of this Conference would be, how best to secure the
aggregate convenience of the world at large--how we should choose a
prime meridian which would cause the least inconvenience by the change
that would take place. Of course, any change would necessarily be
accompanied by a certain amount of inconvenience, but our object, as
he understood it, was to take care that that inconvenience should be
as small in its aggregate amount as possible.

He stated that if that were taken as the ground of consideration by
this Conference, it appeared to him that the question was narrowed to
one of fact rather than to be one of sentiment, which latter would
admit of no solution whatever; for it was quite clear that if all the
Delegates here present were guided by merely sentimental
considerations, or by considerations of _amour propre_, the Conference
would never arrive at any conclusion, because each nation would put
its own interests on a level with those of every other.

He added that if the Conference should be able to agree in the opinion
that the adoption of one meridian (for his part he did not undertake
to say what meridian) would be accompanied by a greater amount of
convenience in the aggregate than the adoption of any other, he
thought that this should be the predominant consideration in guiding
the decision of this Conference, on the question referred to them, and
it appeared to him that this is a consideration which the Delegate of
France has not put before this Conference, at least not in a prominent
way. It is clear that the inconvenience caused to any one nation by
the adoption of a new neutral meridian would not be lessened by the
fact that all other nations would suffer the same inconvenience.

With respect to the question of a neutral meridian, Professor ADAMS
wished to call the attention of the Congress to the fact that the
Delegates here present are not a collection of representatives of
belligerents; that they are all neutral as men should be in a matter
purely scientific, or