Four men sat in an uncomfortable silence in the chairs around the great table in the Cabinet's council room within the massive complex of buildings, that was the Great Palace of Westminster, which housed the multitude of officies and officials of the government of Great Britain and it's sprawling empire as well as the Houses of the Lords and the Commons. The four men represented three of the Great Ministries that controlled elements of British Imperial policy within and without the Empire, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Colonial Affairs and the Admiralty.
The whole confounded administrative fracas, had been started ironically and innocently enough by a routine inquiry by the Royal Geographical Society, to the Admiralty to ask if the Antarctican charts and maps in the Royal Archives were up to date and could they have the latest copies. The Admiralty Cartographic section had looked through their files, realised that the maps were in fact dated and reported the fact to the Geographical Society with the rejoiner that they would up date them as speedily as possible by contacting the South American Naval Station Headquarters, based in the Falkland Islands.
These inquiries had garnered the attention of other departments of the Admiralty and been progressively bumped up the chain-of-command till it reached the Sea Lords. It was realised that the South Polar situation in the words of the Private Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty, Rear-Admiral Alfred T. Dale, particularly it's scientific colony had been rather neglected of late, which was a fairly mild way to put what amounted to thirty years of leaving the South Polar Scientific Expedition largely to it's own devices.
From there of course, things had snowballed, as the Admiralty grappled with the problems if suddenly realise it had and acted to correct them. At this point, somehow, the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office found out was going on and decided for their own reasons to get involved. Lord George Hamilton, the First Lord of the Admiralty had tried to run interference both in both the Cabinet and in the halls of Westminister and keep the two rival governmental offices out of what both he and Admiral Hood regarded as a purely naval matter. Baron Knutsford, the Colonial Secretary, however hadn't taken being brushed aside kindly and started pressing the matter both in and out of government to both Hamilton's and Hood's growing alarm. This had caused Sir Julian Pauncefote, the Permanent Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs to get wind of the matter and knowing his chief, Lord Salisbury's long interest in scientific matters in general and the South Polar Scientific Colony in particular decided to get involved.
The Prime Minister had unexpectedly summoned them to discuss, the "Antarctican Question", that had been unsettling the relations and impacting the normally routine discussions amoung the offices of the British government for the last several months. The fact that the prime minister had summoned only them, rather then the the whole council of government meant that he wanted to keep the matter restricted to a handful of secretaries before broaching the matter to the whole cabinet, much less the Commons or the Lords. It was also significant to them that he had not summoned them for this meeting to either his official residence at No.10 Downing Street or his more private and preferred London residence at No.20 Arlington Street. This discussion was to go on the record.
Everyone except, Admiral Hood jumped in their seats, when the room door was suddenly snatched open. A moment later the imposing six foot four inches, heavily bearded bulk of one of the most powerful men in the British and Imperial political spheres entered the room.
-- WORK IN PROGRESS.
