DEVELOPMENTS 
57 
France, then to Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Russia, Spain 
and Greece. 
The progress of the agitation is most clearly illustrated 
by the report delivered by Laszlo Szogyeny, then chief of 
the Hungarian Department in the Austro-Hungarian Foreign 
Ministry, to Count Andrew Bethlen, Minister of Agriculture 
in Hungary, on April 7. 1890, sub No. 1859/9. A.^ The pith 
of the report was as follows: „The negotiations with the 
various States have made very slow progress, because the 
great majority of the same avoided giving a binding promise, 
saying that, before they could do so, the way for the same 
must be levelled in their respective Parliaments, and that, 
before the particular laws were passed, any international 
agreement on the subject would of necessity be a dead letter. 
We know that the appeal resulted in a definite declaration 
of endorsement only from France and Switzerland, the former 
very warmly supporting the idea of an international con- 
vention. The governments of the great majority of the other 
States made their decision dependent on the attitude of Ger- 
many, where the Reichstag was considering the draft of a 
Bill to provide for the uniformity of the regulations for the 
protection of birds all over the Empire; they all considered 
that no decision could be arrived at till this Bill had been 
passed". 
„Belgium evaded the question just as Germany had done; 
while Russia used evasive expressions to avoid accepting the 
invitation". 
In a later stage of the negotiations, all the Northern States, 
with the exception of Great Britain,^ were requested to join 
* Chief Report of the Secund International Ornithological Congress 
held at Budapest. Budapest, 1892, p. 64. 
* The conditions in Great Britain, apart from its insularity, are 
peculiar, as we shall see later. O. H. 
