Foreign News: Whale Trouble

Queen Maud of Norway is English King Edward’s aunt and nowhere has Britain been traditionally more welcome to rule the waves than off the Norwegian coast. Last week, however, Norway’s Cabinet dared to take an acrimonious stand against the British Cabinet on the subject of whales, as 10,000 Norwegian sailors who normally man British-owned whaling ships not only struck but prisoned this British commercial fleet in the deep narrow harbor of the Sandefjord. As the ships lay at anchor, their funnels cold and smokeless, pale-eyed Norwegian seamen in blue jerseys leaned against lamp posts on the quay, seemingly convinced that the British Navy would not invade the Sandefjord.

The full-dress diplomatic whale dispute between London and Oslo has grown out of what is, in the opinion of Norwegians, a desire on the part of British firms to kill such an excessive number of whales each year that they will end by killing off entirely these great mammals and crippling one of Norway’s chief industries. Norwegians feel sure that they know more about whales than any other people. They are left cold by the desk-decisions of British soap magnates such as Unilever Ltd. which own British whale-killing and blubber-boiling “factory ships” on which the crews have always been Norwegians.

In the Kingdom of Norway’s latest note to the British Empire, Oslo again demanded limitation of the annual whale-oil haul to 2,265,000 barrels, whereas British soap makers insist on 2,529,000. Even more vital, Norway claimed, is the need of fixing quotas for each expedition and preventing these quotas from being transferred or juggled from one expedition to another. Said the Norwegian note: “This is the only means of preventing the extermination of the whale.”

Since this is the season at which whaling ships should start for the Antarctic; since the striking Norwegian seamen refused last week to let British seamen board the whalers in Sandefjord; and finally since it seemed unwise to use British warships, Unilever Ltd. finally chartered seven British seagoing tugs. These were sent churning across the North Sea with orders to hitch onto empty British whaling ships if possible and tow them off to England or Iceland, where perhaps competent crews could be signed for whaling.