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Various - International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884.

V >> Various >> International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884.




Under the State Department:

For expenses of the International Conference for fixing a common zero
of longitude and standard of time-reckoning, including cost of
printing and translations, to be expended under the direction of the
Secretary of State, five thousand dollars; and the President is hereby
authorized to appoint two delegates to represent the United States at
said International Conference, in addition to the number authorized by
the act approved August third, eighteen hundred and eighty-two, and
who shall serve without compensation.

Approved July 7, 1884.




ANNEX III.


Circular.]


DEPARTMENT OF STATE
WASHINGTON, _October 23, 1882_.

SIR: On the 3d of August last the President approved an act of
Congress, in the following words:

"_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives
of the United States of America in Congress assembled_, That
the President of the United States be authorized and
requested to extend to the governments of all nations in
diplomatic relations with our own an invitation to appoint
delegates to meet delegates from the United States in the
city of Washington, at such time as he may see fit to
designate, for the purpose of fixing upon a meridian proper
to be employed as a common zero of longitude and standard of
time-reckoning throughout the globe, and that the President
be authorized to appoint delegates, not exceeding three in
number, to represent the United States in such international
conference."

It may be well to state that, in the absence of a common and accepted
standard for the computation of time for other than astronomical
purposes, embarrassments are experienced in the ordinary affairs of
modern commerce; that this embarrassment is especially felt since the
extension of telegraphic and railway communications has joined States
and continents possessing independent and widely separated meridional
standards of time; that the subject of a common meridian has been for
several years past discussed in this country and in Europe by
commercial and scientific bodies, and the need of a general agreement
upon a single standard recognized; and that, in recent European
conferences especially, favor was shown to the suggestion that, as the
United States possesses the greatest longitudinal extension of any
country traversed by railway and telegraph lines, the initiatory
measures for holding an international convention to consider so
important a subject should be taken by this Government.

The President, while convinced of the good to flow eventually from the
adoption of a common time unit, applicable throughout the globe,
thinks, however, that the effort now to be made should be to reach by
consultation a conclusion as to the advisability of assembling an
International Congress with the object of finally adopting a common
meridian. He, therefore, abstains from extending an invitation for a
meeting at an assigned day, until he has ascertained the views of the
leading Governments of the world as to whether such International
Conference is deemed desirable.

I am accordingly directed by the President to request you to bring the
matter to the attention of the Government of ----, through the
Minister of Foreign Affairs, with a view to learning whether its
appreciation of the benefits to accrue to the intimate intercourse of
civilized peoples from the consideration and adoption of the suggested
common standard of time so far coincides with that of this Government
as to lead it to accept an invitation to participate in an
International Conference at a date to be designated in the near
future.

You may leave a copy of this instruction with the Minister for Foreign
Affairs, and request the views of his Government thereon, at as early
a day as may be conveniently practicable.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

FRED'K T. FRELINGHUYSEN.


* * * * *




ANNEX IV.


Circular.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
WASHINGTON, _December 1, 1883_.

SIR: By a circular instruction of October 23, 1882, you were made
acquainted with (the language of) an act of Congress, approved August
3, 1882, authorizing and requesting the President to extend to other
Governments an invitation to appoint delegates to meet in the city of
Washington for the purpose of fixing upon a meridian proper to be
employed as a common zero of longitude and standard of time-reckoning
throughout the world; and you were instructed to bring the matter to
the attention of the Government to which you are accredited and to
inform it that the President deemed it advisable to abstain from the
issuance of the formal invitation contemplated, until through
preliminary consultation the views of the leading governments of the
world as to the desirability of holding such an International
Conference could be ascertained.

In the year that has since elapsed this Government has received from
most of those in diplomatic relations with the United States the
approval of the project, while many have in terms signified their
acceptance and even named their delegates.

Besides this generally favorable reception of the suggestion so put
forth, interest in the proposed reform has been shown by the
Geographical Conference held at Rome in October last, which very
decisively expressed its opinion in favor of the adoption of the
meridian of Greenwich as the common zero of time longitude, and
adjourned, leaving the discussion and final adoption of this or other
equivalent unit, and the framing of practical rules for such adoption,
to the International Conference to be held at Washington.

The President therefore thinks the time has come to call the
Convention referred to in my instruction of October 23, 1882. I am
accordingly directed by the President to instruct you to tender to the
Government of ----, through its Minister for Foreign Affairs, an
invitation to be represented by one or more delegates (not exceeding
three) to meet delegates from the United States and other nations in
an international Conference to be held in the city of Washington on
the first day of October next, 1884, for the purpose of discussing
and, if possible, fixing upon a meridian proper to be employed as a
common zero of longitude and standard of time-reckoning throughout the
globe.

You will seek the earliest convenient occasion to bring this invitation
to the attention of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of ---- by handing
him a copy hereof and requesting that the answer of his Government may
be made known to you.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

FRED'K T. FRELINGHUYSEN.

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