To resume, I would say that the great benefits that the whole world will receive from the adoption of a common prime meridian will not be fully produced unless the measure is unanimously accepted by all the most important maritime nations.  In any other event, I am, for my part, absolutely convinced that the measure adopted will be partly inefficacious, its adoption not being general, and everything will have to be done over again in the not distant future.  The discussions at which we have been present abundantly prove to me that it will always be so, as long as the meridian of some great nation is proposed.  In the face of this difficulty, which appears to me insurmountable, the only solution which, by its very nature, will not raise exciting questions of national pride is that of a meridian having a character of absolute neutrality.  If the adoption of such a meridian was admitted in principle, I am certain that a discussion based upon pure science, and following the best conditions which it should realize, would conduct us rapidly to a practical settlement of the question.

In such a discussion the arguments which ought to prevail should be, before everything, drawn from science, the only source of truth which alone can enlighten us, so as to permit us to form a sound judgment, and to decide solely upon considerations of a purely scientific nature.

In addition to these considerations, I am not ignorant that there are others.  I refer to questions of economy of which it is necessary to take count.  As to political interests, if there are any, our eminent colleagues who represent so worthily the diplomatic element in this assembly would see that they had due weight, and, thanks to this assembly of men distinguished, some in science and others in diplomacy, there was every reason to hope that the final practical solution of the question which we are seeking would not be long in being made clear to us all by the discussions.

Moreover, this practical solution appears to me already to follow from what our honorable colleague, M. JANSSEN, has told us on that subject.  The principle of the neutral meridian once adopted, there would still to be discussed the conditions which it should fulfil and the determination of its position.  Two things must be considered, either the meridian will be exclusively over the ocean, and then, by its very nature, it will be neutral, or it will cut some island, and in that case nothing would prevent an international diplomatic convention making neutral the plot of land on which it was desirable to establish an observatory, which would in reality be a very small matter.  Of these two solutions, both of which satisfy the conditions which the meridian ought to fulfil in its character of neutrality and by the requirements of science, I prefer the second.  I wish merely to suggest by what I have said how it would be possible to arrive at a practical solution of the question, since now I am only speaking of the adoption of the principle of the neutral meridian.