114
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 5TH FEBRUARY, 1887.
You will, accordingly, at the time of signature, make a Declaration to the effect that the accession of Great Britain to the Union comprises all the Colonies and foreign possessions of Her Majesty, but that liberty is reserved by Her Majesty's Government to notify at any period the separate withdrawal from the Union of the following British possessions, in the manner prescribed by Article XX of the Convention:
India.
The Dominion of Canada. Newfoundland.
The Cape.
Natal.
New South Wales.
Victoria. Queensland. Tasmania.
South Australia. Western Australia. New Zealand.
No. 13.
I
am,
&c.
(Signed)
IDDESLEIGH.
My Lord,
Sir F. Adams and Mr. Bergne to the Earl of Iddesleigh.—(Received September 13.)
Berne, September 10, 1886. WE have the honour to report that the Third International Copyright Conference met at Berne on the 6th instant, the following States being represented :-
Germany. Belgium.
Spain.
United States. France.
Great Britain.
Haïti. Italy.
Japan. Liberia. Switzerland. Tunis.
The Delegates of all these States, save those of the United States and Japan, had received Full Powers from their Governments to sign the Convention, and the signature accordingly took place on the 9th instant.
No Delegates from Sweden and Norway were present, but the President read a note which he had received from the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, to the effect that those Governments expected to be able to adhere to the Convention before the date fixed for the exchange of ratifications.
The British signed copies of the Convention, Additional Article, "Protocole de Clôture," and procès-verbal of signature are inclosed in this despatch, together with printed copies of the records of the present Conference.*
In view of the instructions contained in Lord Rosebery's despatch of the 2nd ultimo, we proposed at the first sitting that the next meeting of the Conference should take place ten years after the date of signature, 'unless four Signatory Powers should collectively demand an earlier meeting; and we accepted an addition to this proposal submitted by the German Delegate, to the effect that such a demand must not be made at an earlier date than four years after the signature.
The English and German proposals were combated by the Delegates of France and Tunis, who were of opinion that an earlier meeting might prove desirable.
In view of these conflicting opinions, a suggestion was made by the President, M. Droz, by way of compromise, to the effect that the next Conference should take place from four to six years after the date at which the Convention should come into actual operation; and, as an interval of from about five to seven years from the date of signature would thus be secured, we had no difficulty in accepting this proposal, which was eventually adopted unanimously. At the suggestion of the British Delegates, seconded by the German Delegate, Paris was selected as the next place of meeting, and it was arranged that the actual date, within the limits agreed upon, should be fixed by the French Government, in consultation with the central Swiss Office.
The amendment to Article VII, which had been proposed by the Swiss Government, did not give rise to much discussion, it being recognized that it did not alter the sense of the Article as drafted last year; and the insertion was accordingly accepted by a unanimous vote, save the German Delegate, whose Government was not favourable to the slightest amendment of the draft agreed upon last year.
The Declaration which had been proposed by the French Government gave rise to some debate, the Italian and German Delegates giving reasons against its adoption, especially in regard to paragraph 4.
We confined ourselves to a statement of the position of English law on the question of the drama- tization of novels, and added that though, as agreed upon last year, we should prefer that no amend-
* The records are not reprinted with the present Paper.
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