should pay one-third of the 17,141,640 florins indemnity to Holland, and that the other States should contribute according to their tonnage. The navigation on the Scheldt thus became entirely free, to the great benefit of the port of Antwerp.

Attention must be drawn to Article IV of the treaty of 1863:

"Il est entendu que la capitalisation du péage ne portera aucune atteinte aux engagements qui résultent pour les deux Etats des traités en vigueur en ce qui concerne l'Escaut.'

The Dutch Government inserted this Article lest the abolition of the Scheldt dues should be held to impair their claim to full sovereignty over the Western Scheldt. Certain Belgian speakers and writers have argued that a condominium was established by the treaty of 1839 and the subsequent treaty of 1842, but the Belgian Government have always abstained from putting forward such a claim. It should have been put forward officially, if at all, at the time of drawing up, in May 1843, the elaborate series of regulations for carrying into effect Articles IX-X of the treaty of 1839 and of cap. ii, §§ 1, 2, 3, 4 of the treaty of 1842; but this was not done. On the contrary, such expressions are found as cap. ii, § 33, "les eaux néerlandaises "; ; cap. iv, § 10, "si les navires sont destinés pour Anvers, il sera loisible au Gouvernement néerlandais de les faire accompagner sur son territoire d'un garde de santé." The admission of these phrases im-. plies that the Belgian Government recognised the Western Scheldt or Hondt between Bath and the sea as Dutch "water-territory."

The only occasion on which the question of cosovereignty was raised was in a controversy which arose as to the right of the Dutch to construct a dyke for the railway from Flushing to Rosendael, which the Belgians held to be a hindrance to navigation. The Belgian Foreign Minister in the course of this controversy made the following claim (1851) :

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En acceptant les traités, les Pays-Bas ont fait des concessions et fixé des limites à leur souveraineté

ce qui

était dans le principe une concession de la Hollande est devenu un droit de la Belgique, les exceptions sont devenues la règle, les obligations exceptionnelles constituent réellement un abandon partiel du droit de souveraineté les traités de 1815, 1839 et 1842 ont créé au profit de la Belgique une servitude réelle à laquelle les Pays-Bas se sont soumis et dont ils ne peuvent s'affranchir sans un consentement mutuel.

The Dutch reply was that no such limitation of sovereignty was to be found in the treaties named:Si l'on admet que les Pays-Bas ont, par les engagements pris envers la Belgique, restreint leurs droits de souveraineté. cette restriction doit être expressément constatée par les

traités.'

The limiting conditions, in fact, were, in the treaties of 1815 and 1839, expressly stated to be those imposed by Articles CVIII to CXVII of the General Act of the Congress of Vienna relating to the free navigation of navigable rivers and streams; and the XXIV Articles of November 15, 1831 (which became the definitive treaty of April 19, 1839) simply applied to the Scheldt the regulations which the Convention of Mayence (March 31, 1831) had drawn up for the navigation of the Rhine in conformity with the General Act of the Congress of Vienna. The imposing of such regulations and. limiting conditions, therefore, no more impaired the sovereignty of Holland over the Western Scheldt than they impaired the sovereignty over the Rhine of the various States through which it flowed. In other words, the servitude" imposed by Article IX of the treaty of 1839 converted the Western Scheldt into an international waterway for commerce in normal times of peace, but in no wise restricted the full sovereignty of Holland over this "water-territory in time of war. The insertion of Article XIV in the treaty of 1839

"Le port d'Anvers, conformément aux stipulations de l'Article XV du Traité de Paris du 30 mai, 1814, continuera d'être uniquement un port de commerce

would be meaningless except on this interpretation. Indeed, it has been held to be more than doubtful

the Scheldt

whether the presence in these treaties of that word uniquement did not debar the Belgians from making Antwerp an entrenched camp (see below).

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On March 25, 1891, a Convention was signed between Holland and Belgium concerning the placing of buoys and lights in the river; and the Dutch Government agreed not to remove such buoys or lights" without the consent of Belgium." But in an additional

Article, signed on November 30, it was stipulated that this Agreement "does not contemplate (ne vise pas) the case of war or the eventual danger of war." That Belgium signed this additional Article without raising any objection may be taken as а convincing proof that the Belgian Government did not dissent from the Dutch view that full sovereignty over the Western Scheldt reverted to Holland in time of war. Such an admission does not, however, imply that official Belgium is satisfied with the existing state of things, or that the grievances of which complaint is made are not recognised as legitimate.

These grievances may be briefly stated as follows: (1) As regards the lighting and buoying of the river, all changes and improvements are subject to the consent of the Dutch Commissioners on the Board of Control. Their veto can bring everything to a standstill, and seriously compromise the interests of navigation to and from Antwerp. (2) The constant dredg ing of the channel (fairway) of the Western Scheldt is absolutely necessary, but not a single cubic yard can be dredged without the consent of the Dutch. (3) The Dutch engage in damming operations in their section of the river without any regard to its effect upon the navigation higher up. (4) The contention of the Belgians is that Antwerp has been converted into an entrenched camp, intended to be a safe refuge for the Belgian forces, and the base of military defence of Belgium against an invader. The creation of such a fortified base, however, would clearly be useless unless

the river were open to the ships of a friendly Power. If reinforcements, munitions, and supplies were debarred from reaching Antwerp, the entrenched camp would prove to be a trap, and the whole scheme of defence would fall to the ground. (5) Under present conditions, Antwerp could not become a naval base, though this is a necessity for a colonial Power.

To take the last two of these grievances first (and that they are real grievances cannot be denied), there can be no remedy without expunging from the Fundamental Treaty, to which Belgium owes its existence as an independent State, Article XIV, which expressly declares:

"Le port d'Anvers, conformément aux stipulations de l'Article XV du Traité de Paris du 30 mai, 1814, continuera d'être uniquement un port de commerce.

How far it was legitimate for the Belgian Government to make Antwerp into an entrenched camp is discussed in a supplementary Note. It must be granted, however, that this Article, as it stands, forbids the conversion of this commercial port into a naval base. After the war the treaty of 1839 may in many respects be considerably modified; but, until that takes place, the question of the Scheldt and of Antwerp is not simply a DutchBelgian question. Both Holland and Belgium are still bound by the terms of settlement imposed upon them by the Five Powers of the Conference of London. Events since 1914 have further shown that the strict maintenance by the Dutch of their rights and duties, as a neutral Power, has been on the whole advantageous to the Allied cause, since they have prevented Antwerp from serving as a base for German submarines and destroyers.

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(B) SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

(a) The Treaty Status of Antwerp

Lord Castlereagh, when he left London to attend the Congress of Châtillon, took with him a memorandum of secret instruction dated December 26, 1813. One of the conditions, on which he was instructed to insist, as a sine qua non for the relinquishment by Great Britain of her conquests, was the absolute exclusion of France from any naval establishment on the Scheldt, and especially at Antwerp.

This insistence took definite shape in Art. XV of the Preliminary Treaty of Paris, May 30, 1814, which declares :

At the Congress of Vienna a Commission was appointed to deal, inter alia, with the conversion of Antwerp into a commercial port. The British Plenipotentiary, the Duke of Wellington, was opposed to the demolition of works which were essential for the defence of the town. It was resolved, therefore, that the matter should be referred to the consideration of British and Dutch Commissioners chosen for the purpose; and the following instructions were given to them in a Protocol of the General Congress, March 29, 1815, for their guidance :

Que les Gouvernements de l'Angleterre et des Pays-Bas seront tous les deux invités à nommer immédiatement chacun un commissaire, qui se réuniront sans délai à Anvers, et arrangeront entre eux:

"1. Lesquels seraient les objets à détruire totalement, comme le camp retranché et autres, pas nécessaires pour la défense de la place.

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