Page:Treaty of Peace - Versailles (1919) Ottawa.djvu/35

RV 35 (SESSIONAL PAPER No. 41)

The German Government undertakes to bear the expense of all civil and military pensions which had been earned in Alsace-Lorraine on date of November 11, 1918, and the maintenance of which was a charge on the budget of the German Empire.

The German Government shall furnish each year the funds necessary for the payment in francs, at the average rate of exchange for that year, of the sums in marks to which persons resident in Alsace-Lorraine would have been entitled if Alsace-Lorraine had remained under German jurisdiction.

For the purposes of the obligation assumed by Germany in Part VIII (Separation) of the present Treaty to give compensation for damages caused to the civil populations of the Allied and Associated countries in the form of fines, the inhabitants of the territories referred to in Article 51 shall be assimilated to the above-mentioned populations.

The regulations concerning the control of the Rhine and of the Moselle are laid down in Part XII (Ports, Waterways and Railways) of the present Treaty.

Within a period of three weeks after the coming into force of the present Treaty, the port of Strasburg and the port of Kehl shall be constituted, for a period of seven years, a single unit from the point of view of exploitation.

The administration of this single unit will be carried on by a manager named by the Central Rhine Commission, which shall also have power to remove him.

This manager shall be of French nationality.

He will reside in Strasburg and will be subject to the supervision of the Central Rhine Commission.

There will be established in the two ports free zones in conformity with Part XII (Ports, Waterways and Railways) of the present Treaty.

A special Convention between France and Germany, which shall be submitted to the approval of the Central Rhine Commission, will fix the details of this organisation, particularly as regards finance.

It is understood that for the purpose of the present Article the port of Kehl includes the whole of the area necessary for the movements of the port and the trains which serve it, including the harbour, quays and railroads, platforms, cranes, sheds and warehouses, silos, elevators and hydro-electric plants, which make up the equipment of the port.

The German Government undertakes to carry out all measures which shall be required of it in order to assure that all the making-up and switching of trains arriving at or departing from Kehl, whether for the right bank or the left bank of the Rhine, shall be carried on in the best conditions possible.

All property rights shall be safeguarded. In particular the administration of the ports shall not prejudice any property rights of the French or Baden railroads.

Equality of treatment as respects traffic shall be assured in both ports to the nationals, vessels and goods of every country.

In case at the end of the sixth year France shall consider that the progress made in the improvement of the port of Strasburg still requires a prolongation of this temporary regime, she may ask for such prolongation from the Central Rhine Commission, which may grant an extension for a period not exceeding three years. 41—41e—$3 1⁄2$