Page:Lltreaties-ustbv001.pdf/213

Rh

In modification of the stipulation of Article 6 of the Convention, which fixes the maximum registration-fee at 25 centimes, it is agreed that the States outside of Europe are authorized to maintain this maximum at 50 centimes, including a receipt given to the sender.

In modification of the stipulations of Article 8 of the Convention, it is agreed that, as a temporary measure, the Administrations of the countries outside of Europe, whose legislation is at present opposed to the principle of responsibility, retain the option of postponing the application of that principle until they shall have been able to obtain from the legislative power the authority to introduce it. Up to that time, the other Administrations of the Union are not bound to pay an indemnity for the loss, in their respective services, of registered articles addressed to or originating in the said countries.

Bolivia, Chili, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua, which form part of the Postal Union, not having been represented at the Congress, the protocol remains open for their adhesion to the Conventions which have been concluded at the Congress, or only to one or the other of these Conventions.

The protocol also remains open to the British Colonies of Australasia, whose delegates at the Congress have declared the intention of those countries to enter the Universal Postal Union on the 1st of October 1891.

It also remains open to the South African Republic, whose delegate to the Congress has declared the intention of that country to adhere to the Universal Postal Union, reserving the right to hereafter fix the date of its entry into the Union.

Finally, with the view of facilitating the entry into the Universal Postal Union of other countries which are still outside the Union, the protocol remains equally open for them.

The protocol remains open to those countries whose representatives have signed this day the principal Convention only or only a certain number of the Conventions concluded by the Congress, for the purpose of allowing them to adhere to the other Conventions signed this day, or to one or the other of them.

The adhesions contemplated by Article III preceding, must be notified to