relevant legislation, and more particularly the tariffs, have remained unmodified-the total yield remitted by one of the controlled revenues falls short by more than 50 per cent. of the yield remitted during the corresponding months of the preceding year.

The extended rights which the commissioner may exercise either singly or concurrently are the following:

(a.) He may propose that the Reich Minister of Finance should use as strictly as possible, and to their full extent, the powers granted to him by existing laws to increase the yield of the assigned revenues, or he may propose that he should cancel all the facilities and concessions granted under the laws in force, such as the complete or partial remittance or reimbursement of taxes or the granting of respite, &c., until such time as the conditions on which the extension of the commissioner's right was based will have ceased to exist.

In submitting these proposals the commissioner will make due allowance for economic needs, more particularly as regards exports, to the full extent compatible with fiscal requirements.

(b.) He may, except in the case of customs duties, veto measures reducing the tariffs for those revenues, the receipts of which have decreased; and in the case of all revenues, the receipts of which have grown smaller, he may protest against the mitigation of penalties or against any measures of a general nature which are liable to diminish or to delay the yield of these revenues. Accordingly, all Bills and ordinances regarding the assigned revenues, as well as all decrees circulated to the "Landesfinanzämter" concerning the collection of, and accounts kept for, the assigned revenues, will be communicated to him before being submitted to the "Reichsrat" or to the "Landesfinanzämter." If within a week from the communication of the Bill, &c., the commissioner fails to protest, he is assumed to be in agreement with the Bill, &c.

(c.) He may instruct his mandatories or experts to ascertain the special causes of the decrease in the receipts of certain revenues. For this purpose he may, after notifying the Reich Ministry of Finance, instal representatives or experts in certain Landesfinanzämter" or in local customs offices or in both. In this, case a German official will be associated with them with a view to facilitating the carrying out of their mandate, and to giving them an insight into the details of the internal and external working of the service.

(d.) In the event of the transfer of the receipts of the controlled revenues by the Oberfinanzkassen" provided in III, 3, having in his opinion given rise to irregularities, the commissioner shall be entitled to claim that the number of

important Zollkassen' which are bound to effect direct payment be increased beyond the number of ten.

The extended rights of the commissioner will lapse when the causes which have led to their extension have ceased to exist and this new state of affairs has been maintained for three months.

8. The German Government shall temporarily assign as security-on conditions identical with those regulating the pledging of the former receipts-other indirect taxes sufficient to produce, jointly with the revenues hitherto assigned, at least one-tenth every month of the budget liabilities for the current year (cf. Sections I and II), in any one of the following cases :—

(a.) If the receipts of the controlled revenues decline to such an extent that for three consecutive months-or for two consecutive months, provided the Minister of Finance has not given effect to the proposals submitted to him by the commissioner (Article 7, paragraph 2 (a))-in spite of a complete absorption of the reserve fund-the commissioner has been unable each month to pay over to the Agent for Reparation Payments one-twelfth of the annual budget liabilities fallen due (cf. Sections I and II).

(b.) If the Minister of Finance has not given effect to the proposals submitted to him by the commissioner, and if the receipts of the assigned revenues have not increased to such an extent as to ensure that during the fourth and the two following months after the commissioner has submitted his proposals, the fraction of the assigned revenues handed over to the commissioner will again amount to 120 per cent. of one-twelfth of the budget liabilities of the current year.

As soon as the revenues originally assigned considered per se have for three consecutive months again produced a minmum of 120 per cent. of one-twelfth of the budget liabilities of the current year, the temporary pledging of the new taxes will end. At the same time the rights of the commissioner will again be reduced to those indicated in Article 6.

9. If, on the other hand, the total receipts of the old and new pledged taxes taken together decrease to such an extent that during three consecutive months there cannot be transferred an amount at least sufficient to cover three-tenths of the budget liabilities of the current year, the commissioner shall have the following rights :

He may, after consultation with the Agent for Reparation Payments, require the execution of such measures as, in his opinion, are requisite and appropriate to redress existing shortcomings and to increase the receipts of the fiscal resources, the decline of which has caused the deficiency.

If these measures have been taken and applied, and if for at least four consecutive months the taxes assigned as security have yielded each month at least one-tenth of the budget liabilities, the measures shall be repealed in whole or in part, if the Minister of Finance and the commissioner consider that they are no longer necessary.

10. If these measures, in so far as they are covered by existing legislation, are not carried out immediately and, in so far as they involve an alteration of existing legislation, are not carried out within two months, or if they do not lead to the result that at the latest in the fourth month after their coming into force one-tenth at least of the budget liabilities of the current year is handed over, the commissioner shall be entitled to claim, after consultation with the Agent for Reparation Payments, that the administration of these revenues be changed. For this purpose he may claim that one or several autonomous organisations independent of the State be constituted which would have to administer those categories of taxation the failure of which occasioned the deficiency. But, in the event of the Reich Minister of Finance demanding it, such a change of organisation can only be carried out after the arbitrator mentioned under Article 14 has decided that this measure is necessary and apt to increase the returns from taxation so as to guarantee the annual budget liabilities (cf. Sections I and II).

11. The rates of the assigned duties on spirits, tobacco, beer and sugar shall not be reduced by the German Government without the consent of the commissioner.

12. The commissioner shall avoid any interference with the customs tariff policy of the German Government.

13. All the provisions of the present protocol shall be interpreted and applied in such a way as to ensure that the persons charged with the control of the assigned revenues, as well as the experts appointed by the commissioner, will, when not on duty and even beyond the term of their activity as controllers, observe the strictest secrecy regarding the facts that may come to their knowledge in connection with the control and more particularly that the fiscal and trade secrets of the businesses involved will not be violated.

14. Any divergencies of opinion arising between the commissioner and the German Government with regard to the interpretation of this protocol and more particularly with regard to the rights enjoyed by the commissioner shall, at the request of the German Government or of the commissioner, be decided by an arbitrator to be appointed by the chairman at the time of the Permanent Court of International Justice of The Hague who, on the demand of the German Government, must be a national of a country other than Germany or the countries represented upon the Reparation Commis

sion. Except in the case covered by Article 10, an appeal to the arbitrator will not operate to suspend action.

15. All expenses incurred by the commissioner, the subcommissioners and their entire staff shall be met from the fixed annuities to be paid by Germany; they must not increase the said annuities. Only the supplementary expenses of control occasioned by the fact that the legitimate claims of the commissioner have not been complied with by the German administrative authorities will have to be defrayed by Germany in addition to the budget liabilities mentioned in Chapters I and II. The arbitrator provided in Article 14 will decide whether and to what extent Germany has incurred such a liability.

16. In so far as at the beginning of the last quarter of the second year of the execution of the plan the danger may arise that the sale of preference shares of the company "Deutsche Reichsbahn,' or that an internal loan will not produce an amount sufficient to meet the extraordinary liabilities falling due in the course of this year to an amount of 250 million gold marks, the commissioner shall be entitled, at the request of the Agent for Reparation Payments, to retain from the receipts cashed by him during the last three months of the current year and during the first month of the next year a quarter each month of the amount required to cover the deficiency.

17. The provisions of this chapter regarding the assignment of certain revenues as security do not affect the budget liabilities contained in Chapters I and II.

OWEN D. YOUNG.

ANNEX II.

(See Article 3 (a) of this Agreement.)

CONVENTION between Germany and the Netherlands to provide for the Collaboration of the German and Dutch Authorities in the Customs Control of Travellers at the Joint Frontier Stations.-Berlin, May 23, 1923.(1)

[Ratifications exchanged at Berlin, March 28, 1924.]

(Traduction.)

SA Majesté la Reine des Pays-Bas et le Président du Reich allemand, animés du désir de conclure une Convention rela

(1) League of Nations Treaty Series, No. 617." Signed in the German and Dutch languages.

tive à la réunion des bureaux de douane chargés du contrôle du trafic international, ont, à cet effet, nommé comme Plénipotentiaires :

Sa Majesté la Reine des Pays-Bas M. le Baron W. A. F. Gevers, Envoyé extraordinaire et Ministre plénipotentiaire à Berlin;

Le Président du Reich allemand: M. le Baron Ago von Maltzan, Secrétaire d'Etat aux Affaires étrangères;

Lesquels, après avoir échangé leurs pleins pouvoirs, reconnus en bonne et due forme, ont convenu des dispositions

suivantes :

ART. 1". Afin de faciliter le trafic international entre les Pays-Bas et l'Allemagne, les Parties contractantes décident, d'un commun accord, que le contrôle des voyageurs et la visite de leurs bagages seront effectués conjointement par les autorités néerlandaises et les autorités allemandes, conformément aux dispositions de la présente Convention.

Le Ministre des Finances néerlandais et le Ministre des Finances du Reich allemand désigneront, d'un commun accord, les gares frontières néerlandaises ou allemandes dans lesquelles le contrôle sera exercé conjointement par les autorités des deux pays; ils détermineront également les formalités qui devront être remplies et prendront conjointement, en cas de nécessité, toutes les dispositions nécessaires pour assurer l'exécution de la présente Convention.

2. Dans les gares frontières communes et sur la partie des lignes de chemin de fer en dépendant et allant de la frontière jusqu'à la gare frontière commune, les dispositions légales relatives au passage de la frontière, qui sont en vigueur dans chacun des deux pays, seront appliquées de manière à donner la préférence à celles du pays de provenance.

Le bénéfice des dispositions relatives au contrôle commun pourra être refusé aux personnes dont l'admission est subordonnée, dans l'un des deux pays, à un examen médical.

3. Les fonctionnaires et employés de l'Etat étranger sont autorisés à accomplir dans les gares frontières et sur les parties de lignes de chemin de fer mentionnées à l'Article 2 tous les actes destinés à assurer l'exécution des dispositions légales en vigueur dans leur pays et mentionnées à l'Article 2; ils pourront procéder, à cet effet, de la même manière et en observant les mêmes formes que dans leur propre pays et leurs actes auront les mêmes conséquences que dans leur propre pays. Une contrainte aux fins de contrôle ne pourra être exercée qu'avec le concours des fonctionnaires de l'autre Etat. L'arrestation et le renvoi dans le pays de provenance ne pourront avoir lieu que lorsqu'il s'agit de ressortissants du pays de provenance.

4. En ce qui concerne l'application des sanctions en cas de contraventions commises sur le territoire de l'un des deux