The President. Gentlemen, I am greatly honored by the kind expression of your good feeling towards me as the President of this Conference, and I thank you very heartily for it. The duty assigned to us all has not been free from difficulty, but our meetings and discussions have been characterized by great courtesy and kindness, and by a conciliatory spirit.
With patience and devotion the Delegates to this Congress have sought to discharge the trust committed to them, and, as your Chairman, I beg you to receive my most cordial thanks for the courteous consideration I have received at your hands. The President of the United States and the Secretary of State desire me to renew to you their thanks for your presence here, and their best wishes for your safe and happy return each to his own home.
I shall esteem myself very happy hereafter whenever I shall have the good fortune to meet any of my colleagues of the International Meridian Conference.
Mr. Rutherfurd, the Delegate of the United States. Mr. President and gentlemen, I am sure that you will all unite with me in passing the resolution which I now propose to read:
"Resolved, That the thanks of the Conference be presented to the Secretaries for the able manner in which they have discharged their arduous duties."
The resolution was unanimously adopted.
General Strachey, Delegate of Great Britain. I wish, sir, as one of the Secretaries, to express my thanks for the manner in which my labors have been esteemed by the delegates present. All that I can say on the subject is, that however troublesome the duties of the Secretaries have been, I have not the least doubt that anybody else named instead of myself would equally have bestowed his best attention on the discharge of those duties.
Mr. Janssen, Delegate of France, then said: Before the dissolution of the Conference, Mr. Cruls and I desire specially to thank our colleagues for the honor they have done us by entrusting to us the revision of the French version of the protocols. In order that we might fully respond to that honor, we have examined with all possible care the French translations of the remarks of our colleagues. Our only regret is that, in consequence of the desire of several of them to quit Washington, we have been obliged to leave portions of the translations, particularly of the last protocols, much in the state in which we received them from the official translators, not having had the time to correct these translations as we would have desired.
Upon motion of Mr. Janssen, Delegate of France, the Conference passed a vote of thanks to the delegate of Turkey for the aid he has rendered the Secretaries in the revision of the protocols.
The President then said: Before our final adjournment I desire to express a very high appreciation of the ability, fidelity, and zeal with which Mr. W. F. Peddrick, the Secretary attached by the Department of State to this Conference, has performed his difficult duties, and to thank him for his services.