THE IMMEDIATE PRELIMINARIES OF THE CONVENTION 
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taking advantage of this respite, met at the German Embassy, 
discussed the French proposal and went through that of 
Germany too which had been agreed upon at the preHminary 
conference at BerHn and, as we know, avoided including 
any schedules with the object of maintaining the support of 
Italy. 
At the following plenary session the Berlin draft was read 
as an amendment to the French one, a fact which, however, 
opened up a long-winded discussion that led to no result. 
Finally the British delegate proposed that a sub-committee 
be appointed containing a representative of each State, to 
attempt to reconcile the two proposals. 
This sub-committee, too, contained 15 members; it met, 
but its discussions led to no result. The dispute was all 
about the „ Schedules"; and the question to be decided was, 
whether a schedule of birds should be attached to the 
agreement or not; if the schedule should be there, it should 
at least not be binding. The latter view was adopted by 
the Hungarian, Austrian, German, Italian, British and Dutch 
delegates but was opposed by the others. 
Thiele's proposal for a compromise, whereby the French 
schedule" principle should be defined as a desirable end 
in the future, could not be carried through; consequently 
the conference had a negative result. 
Then the turn of affairs threatened the Berlin proposal, 
if taken before the plenum, with being out-voted: seeing this 
danger, the Hungarian, Austrian, German and Italian dele- 
gates determined that, if such a thing happened, they would, 
each independently, declare that they could take no further 
part in the conference and would only undertake to inform 
their respective governments of the results of the debates 
held without their assistance. 
At the full assembly of the plenum held in the afternoon, 
1. 
