Page:Treaty of Peace - Versailles (1919) Ottawa.djvu/140

RV 140 (SESSIONAL PAPER No. 41) There shall be no impediment to the movement of persons or vessels other than those arising from prescriptions concerning customs, police, sanitation, emigration and immigration, and those relating to the import and export of prohibited goods. Such regulations must be reasonable and uniform and must not impede traffic unnecessarily.

The free zones existing in German ports on August 1, 1914, shall be maintained. These free zones, and any other free zones which may be established in German territory by the present Treaty, shall be subject to the régime provided for in the following Articles.

Goods entering or leaving a free zone shall not be subjected to any import or export duty, other than those provided for in Article 330.

Vessels and goods entering a free zone may be subjected to the charges established to cover expenses of administration, upkeep and improvement of the port, as well as to the charges for the use of various installations, provided that these charges shall be reasonable having regard to the expenditure incurred, and shall be levied in the conditions of equality provided for in Article 327.

Goods shall not be subjected to any other charge except a statistical duty which shall not exceed 1 per mille ad valorem, and which shall be devoted exclusively to defraying the expenses of compiling statements of the traffic in the port.

The facilities granted for the erection of warehouses, for packing and for unpacking goods, shall be in accordance with trade requirements for the time being. All goods allowed to be consumed in the free zone shall be exempt from duty, whether of excise or of any other description, apart from the statistical duty provided for in Article 328 above.

There shall be no discrimination in regard to any of the provisions of the present Article between persons belonging to different nationalities or between goods of different origin or destination.

Import duties may be levied on goods leaving the free zone for consumption in the country on the territory of which the port is situated. Conversely, export duties may be levied on goods coming from such country and brought into the free zone. These import and export duties shall be levied on the same basis and at the same rates as similar duties levied at the other Customs frontiers of the country concerned. On the other hand, Germany shall not levy, under any denomination, any import, export or transmit duty on goods carried by land or water across her territory to or from the free zone from or to any other State.

Germany shall draw up the necessary regulations to secure and guarantee such freedom of transit over such railways and waterways in her territory as normally give access to the free zone.