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Rh at Lisbon on the 21st of March 1885, in conformity with the following stipulations:

The countries between which the present Convention is concluded, as well as those which may join it hereafter, form, under the title of Universal Postal Union, a single postal territory for the reciprocal exchange of articles of correspondence between their post-offices.

The stipulations of this Convention extend to letters, to single post-cards and post-cards with paid reply, printed matter of every kind, commercial papers and samples of merchandise originating in one of the countries of the Union, and intended for another of those countries. They also apply to the exchange by mail of the articles above mentioned between the countries of the Union and the countries foreign to the Union, whenever the services of two of the contracting parties at least are used for that exchange.

1.—The Postal Administrations of neighboring countries, or countries able to correspond directly with each other without using the intermediary of the services of a third Administration, determine, by mutual agreement, the conditions of the conveyance of mails which they exchange across the frontier, or from one frontier to the other.

2.—Unless there be a contrary arrangement, the direct maritime-conveyance performed between two countries by means of packets or vessels depending upon one of them, shall be considered as a third service, and this conveyance, as well as that performed between two offices of the same country by the intermediary of maritime or territorial services depending upon another country, is regulated by the stipulations of the following Article.

1.—The right of transit is guaranteed throughout the entire territory of the Union.

2.—Consequently, the several Postal Administrations of the Union may send reciprocally, through the intermediary of one or of several of them, as well closed mails as correspondence in open-mail according to the needs of the traffic, and the convenience of the postal service.

3.—The correspondence exchanged, whether in open-mail or in closed mails between two Administrations of the Union, by means of the services of one or several other Administrations of the Union, is subject to the