To secure international action to stop oil pollution of the sea the British Government has invited some forty other maritime countries to send representatives to a conference in London in April. For years the pollution by oil of coastal waters and of the shores of Britain and other countries has been an expensive nuisance to humanity and has led to the lingering and horrible death of countless sea birds. It has now become intolerable. It is true that since 1922 discharge of oil within three miles of the coast has been legally prohibited and that in 1926 shipowners of many countries voluntarily adopted a 50-mile limit. Unfortunately little success has rewarded these efforts.