86 TRANSPORTATION 



tor} 7 possesses no example, and which is to be considered as the living 

 base of all progress. 1 Even the independence of the states has sub- 

 mitted to them, and for the first time in the province of transporta- 

 tion those unions of administration 2 of the states have originated 

 which establish international regulations for communication; the 

 legislation of the different states will be compelled to recognize these, 

 because universal intercourse demands so. " The state builds 

 ways and bridges for itself and regulates and administrates them 

 after its own will; but the mail-wagon, the locomotive, the electric 

 spark which goes beyond both, does not any more belong to the 

 state alone/' 3 



Probably the first similar international treaties have been made 

 with regard to navigation on rivers. The Vienna Congress Acts of 

 1814 established first general principles for all rivers common to 

 several states. On these rivers navigation should be permitted to 

 all vessels. The police of the river and taxes should be regulated 

 uniformly. Later treaties have been made concerning the large 

 German rivers: the Rhine, 1831; Elbe, 1821; Weser, 1823; Dan- 

 ube, 1856 and 1857; Po, 1850; Pruth, 1866. Commissions and 

 inspections were established to make and enact regulations for navi- 

 gation, to determine the punishment for transgressing their norms, 

 so that they exercise acts of an international legislation. By the 

 treaty of Paris of May 17, 1865, the European telegraph union, and 

 by the treaty of Bern of October 9, 1874, the Universal Postal Con- 

 vention was formed, without board with executive right, as is the 

 case with the above-mentioned river commissions, but with an infin- 

 itely farther-reaching effect of international uniformity upon the 

 order of transportation. Never has the international communication 

 been acknowledged more distinctly and precisely than in Article I 

 of this latter convention, which reads: Les pays entre lesquels est 

 conclu le present traite former ont sous la des-ignation de " Union gene- 

 rale des pastes " un seul territoire postale pour I'echange reciproque des 

 correspondances entre lews bureaux de poste. 



This force of communication striving after unity has attained 

 still greater success as to the right of railway freight. As early as 

 1846 a union of German railway administrations had been formed, 

 which comprised not only the railways of the numerous German 

 states, but. also those of Austria-Hungary and later those of Belgium, 

 Holland, Luxembourg. The purpose of this union was to create 

 common regulations of the operation of railways for all connected 

 lines and to subject thereby the freight transport to independent, 

 and in the several states, equal rights. However great the success 



1 Jellinek, Lchrc von den Staatenverbindungen, 1882, S. 158 ff. 



2 Stein, Verwaltungslehre, p. 361. 



3 Stein, loc. cit. 



