Page:The European Concert in the Eastern Question.djvu/246

 Commission of Riverain Powers was to be constituted, of delegates of Austria, Bavaria, the Porte, and Würtemberg, together with Commissioners from the three Riverain Principalities, Servia, Wallachia, and Moldavia. A temporary international Commission, composed of delegates of Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, and Sardinia, was to cause the execution of certain necessary works below Isaktcha. The subsequent history of these two Commissions is curious. The Riverain Commission, which was intended permanently to regulate the course of the river in pursuance of the Treaty of Vienna, after a few years of unsuccessful activity, fell into abeyance and has been dissolved. The novel experiment of an international Commission has, on the other hand, done good work. Instead of coming to an end in two years, its powers have been prolonged from time to time, and are likely to be prolonged indefinitely, while its jurisdiction has been extended far above the point at which it originally terminated.

The Conference of the Powers which was held at Paris, from 22nd May to 19th August, 1858, with reference to the affairs of Wallachia and Moldavia, had under its consideration a Navigation Act signed at Vienna on 7th November, 1857, by the Riverain Commission, but declined to sanction it, as being drawn too exclusively in the interests of the commerce of the Riverain States. The Act, amended in accordance with the views of the Conference, was again submitted to the Powers in 1859, but no notice having been taken of it, the Riverain Commission practically ceased to exist.

On other hand, the same Conference prolonged the powers of the European Commission till it should have completed the works with which it was charged.

The Conference which sat at Paris from 10th March to 4th June, 1866, with reference to the United Principalities,