October i6, 1919] 



NATURE 



•45 



by which foreigners got into Russia ; but we cannot 

 have similar linowledge of the political value to 

 Bohemia of the economically invaluable Elbe-Moldau. 

 We can note, however, that it is essentially a way 

 out, for the quantity of down-stream traffic (e.g. 

 lignite, sugar, grain) is five times that of the up- 

 stream traffic (e.g. iron, cotton, oils). 



The agreements already mentioned, with regard to 

 Elbe and Weser, Tagus and Douro, show that free- 

 dom of navigation has been granted as a reasonable 

 courtesy for many years by nearly all civilised Powers, 

 though even to this day Holland has persistently 

 blocked progress by her stupid commercial policy and 

 ner unique pnjsition at the mouths of Rhine and 

 Maas and Scheldt ; and the essential principles are 

 illustrated by the irrigation laws of Australia and the 

 United States, where everyone now admits that the 

 individual State cannot have any local standing, any 

 riparian claims, as against the Commonwealth. All 

 States, whatever their size or wealth or population, 

 must be equal, though the natural . advantages are 

 with the upper riparians for irrigation as with the 

 lower riparians for navigation. 



The serious administrative difficulties are two — 

 concerned respectively with the riparian sovereigntv 

 and with the different geographical conditions of 

 different rivers or different parts of the same river; 

 e.g. you can easily decrease the pace of the Rhine 

 above Mannheim, but not without increasing the 

 susceptibility to frost. 



Historically, riparian sovereignty, in the case of 

 Rhine and Danube, is only a relic of feudal robbery. 

 When they first became part of the civilised world 

 under Rome, there was no such thing as riparian 

 Ir sovereignty. They were public property, which had 

 B to be kept in order and improved ; and for this pur- 

 B pose the Romans exacted dues, which were spent 

 Y wholly and solely on the upkeep of the waterway. 

 The Franks continued the same custom on the Rhine, 

 but the feudal system brought in a horde of pettv 

 princelings — as impecunious as German princelings 

 '' have normally been^-who completely upset the old 

 rigUne. converted public into private property, and 

 exacted every kind of tax and toll. Unfortunately, 

 because Rhine and Danube had been frontiers for 

 Rome, they had been associated with a strictly mili- 

 tary control, and the legacy of this favoured the 

 feudal princelings — as it also helped to poison the 

 whole political development along both rivers, for thev 

 got only the worst side of Roman civilisation. Now 

 we must go back to the primitive conditions. If i:n 

 international river is a world feature, then its world 

 relation is the first consideration. In that case 

 riparians must tolerate representatives of the whole 

 world, or of such parts of the world as are most 

 concerned with the particular river, on the executive 

 for the administration of the river. In most cases, 

 moreover, riparian sovereigntv must be limited, even 

 in the interests of the riparians themselves, for the 

 presence of non-riparians on the executive may be, 

 and has been on the Danube, of the greatest value 

 in minimising friction amongst the riparians. In this 

 respect France has plaved a most honourable part, 

 generally supported bv Britain, especially on the 

 Danube, where, e.g. .Austria tried to exclude Bavaria 

 from the deliberations about the river, and to dominate 

 and intimidate the representatives of the lower 

 riparians. Indeed, it was onlv "the day before yester- 

 dav " that we had the gratification of readinf the 

 German decision to "exclude French and British 

 representatives from the Dnnul>e Commission on the 

 ground that thev had hindered the shins of the more 

 important nations from obtaining prio.'ity of treat- 

 ment." What greater compliment could have been 

 paid to us? 



NO. 2607, VOL. lOd] 



The fact only emphasises the vital point referred 

 to above, that different parts of the same river have 

 different conditions and may need different treatment, 

 i.e. that even riparians have not all naturally equal 

 use of "the river, and that the strongest or the most 

 favourably situated can grossly misuse their oppor- 

 tunities. The Dutch showed this on the Rhine in 

 1816, and the Austrians on the Danube in 1856. 

 Obviously such differences are, in themselves, poten- 

 tial causes of serious trouble ; riparians have not neces- 

 sarily and naturally real equality even when the 

 executive consists of only one representative from each 

 riparian State. The greater opportunities of expan- 

 sion, political and economic, on the lower river may 

 favour the growth of a stronger Power ; and the State 

 with the largest share of the river or the best position 

 on it has already an advantage over the others. For 

 instance, the Dutch on the Maas and the Russians 

 on the Danube have indulged in "voluntary negli- 

 gence"; it was in this way that Russia blocked the 

 mouth of the Danube, and 'that Holland made it im- 

 possible for the Belgians to continue their commercial 

 navigation on the Meuse down through Holland to the 

 sea, though since the discovery of coal in Limburg 

 the Belgians have— stupidlv— turned the tables on 

 Holland to some extent. 'A low riparian may no 

 more monopolise or ruin navigation on the_ lower 

 course of a river than a high riparian may poison or 

 exhaust its upper waters. The river is a unit, and 

 its unitv is essential to the fulfilling of its duties m 

 the evolution of world commerce; and, therefore, it 

 needs a unity of administration. This is best secured 

 bv a commission of riparians and non-nparians, and 

 such conditions facilitate the use of a river as a 

 political boundary. , , ■ ^u 



Nearly all the important details involved in the 

 internationalising of navigable rivers have been illus- 

 trated already in the history of Rhine and Danube, 

 and in both cases France has been an admirable guide 

 to Europe. On the Rhine, as I have mentioned, she 

 abolished in 179S most of the restrictions which had 

 made the river practically useless even to riparians; 

 and that she was not thinking only of ^f o^" 

 interests was proved bv her attempt— defeated by Hol- 

 land—to extend the freedom of the river to all nations 

 in 1707. Again, in the Convention of Pans (1804) 

 France enforced unitv of administration— sharing this 

 with Germanv on the ground that the river was ot 

 special concern to herself and to Germany, as she has 

 shared the administration of the Niger with us m 

 recent vears on the same ground. 



The Rhine thus received a simple, just, uniform 

 administration, which is a model for us now. .■Ml 

 tolls were abolished except two— one on the boat and 

 the other on the cargo — which were to be only large 

 enough to meet the upkeep of the waterway, and 

 were to be used for no other purposes. These tolls 

 could be paid in each political area with the coin of 

 that area, but a fixed ratio was maintained between 

 the various coinages. 



Of course, in iSi,; France was ousted from the 

 bank of the river ; and in the reorganisation elaborated 

 bv the Congress of Vienna von Humboldt, the Prus- 

 sian representative, adroitly introduced into the regula- 

 tions for the Central Commission of Riparian Repre- 

 sentatives words which were afterwards made to 

 mean exactly the opposite of the freedom enforced by 

 France, and' exactly the opposite of what our British 

 diplomats at the time thought and said that they 

 meant! Not onlv so, but during the sixteen long 

 vears while France remained more or less submerged, 

 Holland was allowed to make the whole scheme 

 ridiculous by the claim that "to the sea" did not 

 mean "out onto the sea," and that a tidal estuary was 



