At a whaling conference in London, in June 1959, representatives of the United Kingdom, Japan, the Netherlands, and Norway again failed to reach agreement on a national quota arrangement for whaling in the Antarctic, a problem which they had been discussing intermittently since November 1958. At the end of the futile talks, Norway resigned from the International Whaling Convention. The Netherlands subsequently followed suit, leaving only die United Kingdom, Japan, and the Soviet Union as members. In consequence, no over-all international quota was fixed for die 1959–1960 season, scheduled to open on December 28. However, the International Whaling Commission reportedly agreed at its eleventh annual meeting diet the maximum permissible catch of whales for the Antarctic season 1959–1960 should not be changed, the figure remaining at 15,000 blue whale units. The blue whale stocks in the North Atlantic were considered to be too low for exploitation at present, so this species was scheduled for complete protection.