Page:Bearing and Importance of Commercial Treaties in the Twentieth Century, 1906.djvu/14

 of consuls from taxation, it is mutually agreed that this shall apply only to professional consuls, not to subjects of the State wherein their functions are discharged;

And Article 21, that each Power will instruct its consuls abroad to protect and assist subjects of the other Power in places where the latter has no consular representative, in the same manner and on equally favourable terms as its own subjects.

Article 22 allows each Party the right of sending officials to visit the Customs stations and inspect the methods of doing business and watching the frontier, and reciprocal information is to be given as to the accountancy and statistics of both Customs services.

Lastly, Article 23 provides that any differences as to the interpretation or application of the tariffs or supplementary conditions concerning them, or the application of the most-favoured-nation clause, shall be referred to arbitration, if desired by either Party.

Germany has entered into similar treaties with Russia and Italy. In the case of Italy, further provision is made for an arrangement assimilating the conditions of employment of workmen migrating into the contracting parties' dominions.

I have brought our own rather chaotic arrangements with France into juxtaposition with the systematic provisions of the German-Austro-Hungarian treaty to show how far-reaching a treaty of commerce may be made and how the tariff may only be one item in the variety of matters a treaty of commerce may deal with.

The tariff item, however, is a very big one and looms out in the subject of treaties of commerce, especially in general public interest, as involving, perhaps, the greatest economic problem of the age.