Page:Treaty of Peace - Versailles (1919) Ottawa.djvu/30

RV 30 (SESSIONAL PAPER No. 41)

The Governing Commission will alone have the power of levying taxes and dues in the territory of the Saar Basin.

These taxes and dues will be exclusively applied to the needs of the territory.

The fiscal system existing on November 11, 1918, will be maintained as far as possible, and no new tax except customs duties may be imposed without previously consulting the elected representatives of the inhabitants.

The present stipulations will not affect the existing nationality of the inhabitants of the territory of the Saar Basin.

No hindrance shall be placed in the way of those who wish to acquire a different nationality, but in such case the acquisition of the new nationality will involve the loss of any other.

Under the control of the Governing Commission the inhabitants will retain their local assemblies, their religious liberties, their schools and their language.

The right of voting will not be exercised for any assemblies other than the local assemblies, and will belong to every inhabitant over the age of twenty years, without distinction of sex.

Any of the inhabitants of the Saar Basin who may desire to leave the territory will have full liberty to retain in it their immovable property or to sell it at fair prices, and to remove their movable property free of any charges.

There will be no military service, whether compulsory or voluntary, in the territory of the Saar Basin, and the construction of fortifications therein is forbidden.

Only a local gendarmerie for the maintenance of order may be established.

It will be the duty of the Governing Commission to provide in all cases for the protection of persons and property in the Saar Basin.

31.

The territory of the Saar Basin as defined by Article 48 of the present Treaty shall be subjected to the French customs regime. The receipts from the customs duties on goods intended for local consumption shall be included in the budget of the said territory after deduction of all costs of collection.

No export tax shall be imposed upon metallurgical products or coal exported from the said territory to Germany, nor upon German exports for the use of the industries of the territory of the Saar Basin.

Natural or manufactured products originating in the Basin in transit over German territory and, similarly, German products in transit over the territory of the Basin shall be free of all customs duties.

Products which both originate in and pass from the Basin into Germany shall be free of import duties for a period of five years from the date of the coming into force of the present Treaty and during the same period articles imported from Germany into the territory of the Basin for local consumption shall likewise be free of import duties.

During these five years the French Government reserves to itself the right of limiting to the annual average of the quantities imported into Alsace-Lorraine and