EDITORIAL NOTE IN the spring of 1917 the Foreign Office, in connexion with the preparation which they were making for the work of the Peace Conference, established a special section whose duty it should be to provide the British Delegates to the Peace Conference with information in the most convenient form-geographical, economic, historical, social, religious, and political respecting the different countries, districts, islands, &c., with which they might have to deal. In addition, volumes were prepared on certain general subjects, mostly of an historical nature, concerning which it appeared that a special study would be useful. The historical information was compiled by trained writers on historical subjects, who (in most cases) gave their services without any remuneration. For the geographical sections valuable assistance was given by the Intelligence Division (Naval Staff) of the Admiralty; and for the economic sections, by the War Trade Intelligence Department, which had been established by the Foreign Office. Of the maps accompanying the series, some were prepared by the above-mentioned department of the Admiralty, but the bulk of them were the work of the Geographical Section of the General Staff (Military Intelligence Division) of the War Office. Now that the Conference has nearly completed its task, the Foreign Office, in response to numerous inquiries and requests, has decided to issue the books for public use, believing that they will be useful to students of history, politics, economics, and foreign affairs, to publicists generally and to business men and travellers. It is hardly necessary to say that some of the subjects dealt with in the series have not in fact come under discussion at the Peace Conference; but, as the books treating of them contain valuable information, it has been thought advisable to include them. It must be understood that, although the series of volumes was prepared under the authority, and is now issued with the sanction, of the Foreign Office, that Office is not to be regarded as guaranteeing the accuracy of every statement which they contain or as identifying itself with all the opinions expressed in the several volumes; the books were not prepared in the Foreign Office itself, but are in the nature of information provided for the Foreign Office and the British Delegation. The books are now published, with a few exceptions, substantially as they were issued for the use of the Delegates. No attempt has been made to bring them up to date, for, in the first place, such a process would have entailed a great loss of time and a prohibitive expense; and, in the second, the political and other conditions of a great part of Europe and of the Nearer and Middle East are still unsettled and in such a state of flux that any attempt to describe them would have been incorrect or misleading. The books are therefore to be taken as describing, in general, ante-bellum conditions, though in a few cases, where it seemed specially desirable, the account has been brought down to a later date. January 1920. G. W. PROTHERO, General Editor and formerly Director of the Historical Section. § 1. National and International Rivers . § 2. Double character of questions relative § 15. The Navigation of other Rivers. (B) Applications of the Principles of the Congress of 25 § 18. The Elbe, the Weser, the Rivers and Canals of Poland, the Po (ii) The Danube § 19. The Treaty of Paris, 1856. 28 30 § 20. The Act of Navigation, 1857; the § 21. The Congress of Berlin, 1878, and its 32 § 24. Proceedings of the Conference . 36 37 38 (iii) The Conference of Berlin, 1884–5 III. CONCLUSIONS (i) § 27. The Assent of the Civilized World 40 II. Articles CVIII-CXVI of the Final Act of the III. Articles XV-XIX of the Treaty of Paris, 1856 INTRODUCTION § 1. National and International Rivers. (a) A navigable river which lies wholly within the territory of one State is described as national. Such a river forms part of the territory, and is, according to general opinion and practice, subject to the exclusive control of the territorial power, which, however, frequently concedes to other States, by convention or as a matter of comity or policy, a right of navigation for purposes of access to its ports. (b) A river navigable from the sea, which flows through or along 1 the territory of two or more States 2 is described as international. Between a national and an international river, there is thus this first great difference that, while the former is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of one State, the latter is subject in parts to the several jurisdictions of the riparian States. In spite of this political 1 When the international river separates the territories of two States it is called a boundary river; and the question then arises where-in default of special agreement the line of demarcation of the jurisdiction of either State is presumed to be drawn (cf. infra, p. 47). 2 For a somewhat different terminology, cf. Oppenheim, International Law, i, pp. 239-40. Professor Oppenheim's fourfold classification emphasizes the fact that free navigation has not yet been recognized on all rivers flowing through or along the territory of two or more States, while his definition of international rivers (§ 176), which requires free navigation for the merchantmen of all nations, reduces when the special regulations are taken into account the number of such rivers to a very small number indeed, as will appear from what follows (Part II). 3 For an illustration of the legal difference, cf. Moore, Digest, i, p. 626, quoting Mr. Rush. B |