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Belgium from Holland, in 1831, the treaty of separation again provided for the free navigation of this river.1

All the other navigable streams of Europe were open to the inhabitants on their banks, either before the treaty The Danube. of Vienna, or by its general rule above mentioned,

with the exception of the Danube. By the treaty of Bucharest, in 1812, and that of Adrianople, in 1829, the commercial use of this stream was to pertain in common to the subjects of Turkey and of Russia. By the treaty of Paris, in 1856, the Danube also came within the application of the rule of the treaty of Vienna, to which Turkey was not an original party. This was the last European stream, the freedom of which was to be gained for commerce.2

While Spain, after the independence of the United States, was mistress of the lower waters of the Mississippi, Mississippi. she was disposed to claim exclusive control over the

navigation near the gulf. But by the treaty of San Lorenzo

1 Compare Wheaton's History, 282-284, 552; Wheaton's Elements, ii., 4, § 15. 2 Five articles of the treaty are concerned with the navigation of the Danube, Articles 15-19. Art. 15 declares the freedom of the stream, according to the Vienna act, as a part of the public law of Europe forever, and prohibits tolls on vessels, and duty on goods, levied on the simple account of the navigation. Art. 16 appoints a commission of delegates from the five great powers with Sardinia and Turkey, to clear out the mouths of the Danube; and, in order to defray the expenses of such improvements, fixed duties, equal in amount for all nations, may be levied. This commission, by Article 18, is to finish its work in two years, and then shall be pronounced to be dissolved. Meanwhile, a permanent commission, by Article 17, is to be appointed, consisting of delegates of Austria, Bavaria, Turkey, and Wurtemberg, to which a commission from the three Danubian principalities is to be joined, who shall draw up rules of navigation and fluvial police, remove remaining obstacles, cause works necessary for the navigation to be executed along the whole course of the river, and when the first mentioned commission shall be dissolved, shall see that the mouths of the river are kept in good order. Art. 19 allows each of the contracting powers at all times to station two light vessels at the mouth of the Danube, for the purpose of assuring the execution of regulations settled by common consent. For the act of navigation of the Danube, growing out of Art. 17, above mentioned, see Murhard, Nouv. Rec., xvi., 2, 75. — In the treaty of Berlin of 1878, the permanent commission above spoken of is continued. The removal of obstacles to navigation, caused by the Iron Gates and cataracts, is intrusted to Austria-Hungary. The commission can exercise its powers as far as to Galatz. No ships of war shall navigate the streams below the Iron Gates. Roumania and Servia have a seat in the commission.

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el Real, in 1795, the use of the stream with liberty to deposit goods at and export them from New Orleans, was granted to citizens of the United States. Before this the question of the rights of the parties had been agitated between them. The United States had contended that there is a natural right belonging to the inhabitants on the upper waters of a stream, under whatever political society they might be found, to descend by it to the ocean. It was acknowledged, on the part of the United States, that this was, at the most, an imperfect right, and yet the right was claimed to be as real as any other, however well-defined, so that its refusal would constitute an injury, for which satisfaction might be demanded. There seems to be a weakness in this argument, for by admitting the right to be an imperfect one, the claim of injury for not complying with it was cut off.

In 1803, Louisiana, which had been ceded by Spain to France in 1800, was purchased of the latter by the United States, which thus had the territorial jurisdiction over all the course of the river.1

St. Lawrence.

The

The St. Lawrence, after separating for a great distance the British possessions from those of the American Union, traverses British territory to the sea. government of Great Britain, for a long time, steadily refused to concede the right of using the lower stream for the purposes of navigation, and the same diplomatic controversy was carried on, as in the case of the Mississippi, between the right according to the strict law of nations, and the claim on the principles of natural justice. Meanwhile, canals and railroads having bound the western part of the Union to the Atlantic seaboard, and New York having become a financial centre even for the Canadas, the importance of the question was greatly lessened. By the reciprocity treaty of June 5, 1854, the navigation of the river, as well as of the canals in Canada, was at length thrown open to the United States, on the same conditions which are imposed on the subjects of Great Britain. This privilege may be revoked by the latter party upon due

1 Compare Appendix ii., under the year 1803.

rivers.

notice. On their part the United States granted to British subjects the free navigation of Lake Michigan. The vast system of streams which find their way to the sea by means of the La Plata is open for navigation, not La Plata only to the inhabitants of the banks, but also in a system of great degree to strangers. The Argentine Republic opened its river navigation by treaties with France, Great Britain, and the United States, in 1853; and by a treaty with Brazil, in 1857, proclaimed that the Parana, the Paraguay, and the Uraguay, from their entrance into the La Plata to interior ports, opened or to be opened by the riparian states, should be accessible to the commerce and vessels of all nations. (Comp. Calvo, i., 344.) Uruguay, in 1853, made its rivers free to all nations, and granted to France and England the free navigation of the Paraguay, as far as to Assumption. Paraguay made similar treaties with the same powers in the same year, and in 1859 with the United States. Bolivia did the same the year before.

Brazil, in a treaty of 1851 with Peru, agreed to apply to the navigation of the Amazon the principles of the Congress of Vienna, relating to river navigation. But not until a number of years afterward was this decree brought to fulfillment. In December, 1866, besides the San Francisco and the Tocantins, a branch of the Amazon running wholly within Brazilian territory, the Amazon itself to the frontiers was declared to be open to all nations from and after September 7, 1867. Its tributaries, the Tapajos, the Madeira, and the Rio Grande, are also opened, but not through the upper part of their course, where only one bank belongs to the Brazilian empire. (Comp. Calvo, i., 345, 346, and Dipl. Corresp. of the United States for 1867, 1868, ii., 256.

The Stikine, Yukon, and Porcupine rivers of Alaska, rising in British and running into our territory, were opened to both nations by the treaty of Washington in 1871.

Such have been the advances in the freedom of navigation during the last forty years. There is now scarcely a river in the Christian portions of the world, the dwellers on whose

upper waters have not the right of free communication, by God's channels, with the rest of mankind. Whether the

motive which brought this about has been self-interest or sense of justice, an end approved alike by justice and benevolence has been reached, and the world cannot fail to be the gainer.

CHAPTER III.

RIGHT OR CLAIM OF INTERCOURSE.

RELATIONS OF FOR

EIGNERS WITHIN A TERRITORY OF A STATE.

§ 63.

how far a

We have already come to the conclusion that sovereignty in the strictest sense authorizes a nation to decide Intercourse upon what terms it will have intercourse with for- of states, eigners, and even to shut out all mankind from its right. borders. (§ 25.) If a protective tariff, or the prohibition of certain articles is no violation of rights, it is hard to say how far one state may not go in refusing to have commerce with another. If foreigners may be placed under surveillance, or may have various rights of citizens refused to them, why may they not be excluded from the territory? If it be said that the destination of separate states, as of separate families, is to be helpful to one another, that entire isolation is impossible, still the amount of intercourse must be left to the judgment of the party interested; and if a state, judging incorrectly, strives to live within itself as much as possible, is it to be forced to change its policy, any more than to modify its protective tariff?

And yet some kind of intercourse of neighboring states is so natural, that it must have been coeval with their foundation, and with the origin of law; it is so necessary, that to decline it, involves often extreme inhumanity; it is so essential to the progress of mankind, that unjust wars have been blessings when they opened nations to one another. There could, of course, be no international law without it. The fol

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