Five Power Parley

With nice diplomatic mummery the game was played last week of pretending that British Foreign Secretary "Uncle Arthur" Henderson was sending out from London invitations to the great naval powers. He received the Quaker-Scotch text from Washington, dutifully had four fair copies made, despatched them to Washington, Paris, Rome, Tokyo. A further bit of mummery was to delay publication of the U. S. State Department's "acceptance" until a few hours after Scot MacDonald left Washington (see above).

The note invites powers to participate in a conference at London in the third week of January next, bids them come prepared to discuss the limitations of all types of surface war boats, the abolition of the submarine. Japan immediately signified acceptance, though her formal reply to "Uncle Arthur" was delayed. France and Italy, who rely on undersea boats as their chief naval arm, were expected to send acceptances containing strongest reservations against even discussing abolitions of subwarfare.