No invitation had been sent to the Belgian Life-boat Service to attend the International Conference, because recent personal inquiries in Belgium had unfortunately failed to discover the existence of such an organisation, and because no trace could be found in the records of the Institution (or in The Lifeboat, which has been published since 1852) that we had ever been in com- munication with it, while, on the other hand, the correspondence and inter- change of information and official reports with other countries has been carried on almost from the date of the establishment of their respective Life- boat Services. As a result of the Con- ference, and the reports of it which appeared in the Press, the Institution is now in friendly touch with the Belgian Ministry of Marine, by which the Life- boat Service in Belgium is maintained.

Like the American and Danish, it is a State Service. Its fleet consists of nine Life-boats of British pattern, two steam tugs, and two motor tugs. In addition, it is provided with rocket apparatus and other life-saving appliances. It has 116 Life-boatmen.

We hope, in a later number of The Lifeboat, to publish a full account of the Service, which has, with great courtesy, been written for us by the Belgian Ministry of Marine. Meanwhile, we are very glad to be able to give the. above particulars, and to add to the other tributes which the Institution has re- ceived the following, addressed to the Secretary of the Institution by the Director-General of the Belgian Service: " I would ask you to believe that I shall always feel the liveliest satisfaction in collaborating with those bodies which, like the Royal National Life-boat Institution, devote their ceaseless efforts to the generous work of saving human life. It would have been a special pleasure to me to express to you, on the recent occasion of the Centenary of your noble work, the gratitude and admiration of my fellow-countrymen in general, and of the Belgian sailors in particular, for the valiant Life-boatmen of the British coasts, and of the generous founders and supporters of the Royal National Life-boat Institution. The expression of these feelings, although delayed by the want of contact between our two Services in the past—a contact which, like yourself, I should have been delighted to maintain, for the mutual benefit of our common work—is not, believe me, for that reason any less deep and sincere.".