

The Days of a Man 1897 



In December, the Joint Diplomatic Commission 

 provided for a year before and composed of British, 

 Russian, Japanese, and American representatives, 

 convened at Washington. Great Britain's dele- 

 gates were Thompson and Macoun, though Sir 

 Wilfrid Laurier, premier of Canada, and Sir Louis 

 Davies, Solicitor General, had come from Ottawa to 

 assist as advisers. The Japanese delegation was 

 headed by Dr. Kakichi Mitsukuri, a distinguished 

 scholar holding degrees from both Yale and Johns 

 Hopkins, then dean of the College of Science in the 

 Imperial University of Tokyo. Associated with him 

 was Shiro Fujita of the Japanese Department of 

 Agriculture. Russia was represented by two men 

 from her local embassy Messrs. Pierre Botkin 

 and Gregoire de Wollant; their role, however, was 

 mainly to agree with us, Russian interests being 

 identical with those of the United States, entrusted 

 (as I have said) to Foster, Hamlin, and myself. 



With the British members we had frequent con- 

 ferences, and with the Japanese group as well. 

 But for some reason, obscure at the time, in spite 

 of the fact that most of us lived at the Shoreham, 

 we could never bring about a joint meeting of the 

 British delegation and the other two, as on the days 

 set for such a conference Macoun always happened 

 to be out of town. 



Finding it then impossible to arrange for a gen- 

 eral treaty involving the four nations, the American 

 commission secured and without difficulty the 

 signatures of Japan and Russia to a special treaty 

 which, when accepted by Great Britain also, would 



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