Representatives of Great Britain, Japan, Russia, and the United States
are to meet at Washington early in May to consider the best means of preserving the fur seal, the sea otter, the walrus, and plumage birds in the North Pacific. The object of this Animal Protection Congress is to frame rides on which all the countries concerned will agree. As the Times points out in an informing article, the drawing-up of an international code for hunting in the Northern and Polar Seas presents no great difficulties. The real obstacle is " the existence of so-called vested interests and of an imperious fashion which will have what it wants without regard to the consequences." It is a strange and anomalous thing that as civilisation advances rare and beautiful animals have been specially marked clown for destruction. The need for inter- national co-operation has now become imperative, but the most sensible and humane regulations will be of little avail without the education of public opinion and the breaking- down of the tyranny of fashion.
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