TRANSPORTATION 87 



of this union was which, in 1879, already comprehended a railroad 

 net of 55,000 kilometers, yet it was by no means complete, inasmuch 

 as large regions of Europe were not included (France, Switzerland, 

 Russia, and Italy), and as the contents of the agreed regulations 

 depended upon the conclusions of a majority and did not sufficiently 

 guarantee its consistency. Therefore Switzerland proposed to 

 create an international freight-right through a juristic convention, 

 which should encircle all states of the European continent. The 

 preliminary w r ork was begun in 1876, and after many conferences 

 the convention concerning the freight transportation by rail was 

 adopted definitively by the delegates of the enumerated states, in 

 the conference at Bern on October 14, 1890; it was ratified on 

 September 30, 1892, and the regulations became valid on January 



1, 1893. 1 Although this convention did not establish uniform regu- 

 lations for the whole rights of transportation, as it concerns only the 

 railroad transportation from one state into another, but not the 

 internal transportation, which is governed by the laws of the single 

 states, yet the facilitation of transportation must be considered a 

 great progress in the organization of the European freight transpor- 

 tation; and Meili correctly demands, in view of this beginning 

 created by praxis of juristic science, " to create a universal right for 

 the world institutions of transportation." 2 



In the interior of the states the transportation of freight remains 

 still subject to the private law of the several states which have formed 

 a special source of it in the commercial law. Also for this branch 

 of jurisprudence many new legal questions have arisen through 

 ,the modern institutions of transportation; the scientific treatment 

 of this subject brought about many investigations into the rights of 

 transportation and especially of transportation of freight by rail. 



Also the international treatment of the rights of private persons 

 receives its material, increasing in quantity through the facts of 

 modern transportation, and thus the most important points in 

 which jurisprudence comes in contact with transportation have been 

 demonstrated. There does not yet exist any treatise on this devel- 

 opment and transformation of juristic material in connection with 

 transportation. Only Goldschmidt declares in his universal history 

 of commercial law 3 that a considerable part of the institutions in 

 that province of jurisprudence, of antiquity, and of the Middle Ages 

 have arisen from maritime intercourse, because at times of insuffi- 

 cient communication by land, communication was confined to navi- 

 gation. Through centuries all temporal and local differences in 



1 Eger, Das Internationale Uebercinkommen iiber den Eisenbahnfrachivcrkehr, 



2. Aufl. 1903. 



2 Meili, Das Recht der modernen Verkehrs und Transportanstalten, 1888; and 

 Die intcrnationalen nionen Uilber das Recht der Weltverkehrsanstalten, 1889. 



3 1. Band, 1891, S. 28. 



