Page:The European Concert in the Eastern Question.djvu/248

 May, 1881, which adjusts the old regulations to the changed circumstances produced by the admission of Russia and Roumania as Riverain States, claims for the Commission the sole control over its employés, adopts a flag, and establishes an international sanitary council at Bucharest.

II. With reference to the middle river, an avant-projet, drawn by a sub-committee of representatives of Austria, France, and Italy, was considered by the Commission, assisted by Delegates of Servia and Bulgaria, in the spring of 1881. It suggested the appointment of a mixed Commission, for the superintendence of this portion of the river, to consist of representatives of Austria, Bulgaria, Roumania, and Servia, the Austrian representative to be perpetual president, with a casting vote. The Riverain Powers strongly objected to the preponderant control which would thus be given to Austria over a part of the river which is not touched by her territory, but all of them except Roumania agreed, on 2nd June, 1882, to a compromise which had been suggested by M. de Barrère, the French delegate, in the preceding autumn, to the effect that the constitution of the mixed Commission, as previously proposed, should be modified by adding to it one of the members of the European Commission, to be selected by alphabetical rotation every six months. The objections urged by Roumania to this scheme were directed mainly against the exceptional position given by it to Austria, and to its interference with her own alleged exclusive rights, as a Riverain State, to executive authority over so much of the river as flows through, or bounds, her territory. Austria, on the other hand, gave notice that her consent to the prolongation of the powers of the Commission, after 24th April, 1883, would depend upon its decisions as to the mixed Commission; and Russia gave a similar notice with reference to certain concessions being made to her with respect to the Kilia branch.