214 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 



EmpLre and in the Gei'inan Confederation of 1815, and that succession in 

 Holstein could not go in the female line. It was equally certain that Schlesvvig 

 had never been in either the Holy Roman Empire or the German Confederation, 

 and that succession in Schleswig could go in the female line. The reasonable 

 sequel in 1864 would have been for Prussia to purchase Holstein from Denmark, 

 and share the facilities of the international river. 



One would not expect such a view to be taken by a Prussian, but that was 

 the actual principle laid down by France nearly one hundred years earlier. The 

 famous Decree of November 16, 1792, asserted that ' No nation can, without 

 injustice, claim the right to occupy exclusively a river-channel, and to prevent 

 the riparian States from enjoying the same advantages, Such an attitude is a 

 relic of feudal slavery, or at any rate an odious monopoly imposed by force.' 

 This was not mere talk. It was followed, in 1793, by the complete freeing of 

 the Scheldt and the Meuse to all riparians — France herself being a riparian in 

 each case, for the Scheldt was naturally navigable up to Valenciennes. Some- 

 what similar rights were extended, in 1795, to all riparians on the Rhine — 

 France herself, of course, being again a riparian; and in 1797 the freedom was 

 extended, so far as France was concerned, to the ships of foreign nations, though 

 Holland was able to make the privilege valueless. 



The original Decree had not pressed the precise question of interna tionality. 

 But, if the general principle holds — that a great navigable river cannot be 

 monop)olised by a single political unit against riparians, even if they are its 

 subjects and of alien ' race ' — still more must it hold when the river in question 

 is fully international, flowing through or between two or more States. Of course, 

 Rhine, Danube, and Vistula do both. 



As a matter of fact, in Europe this principle has been generally accepted for 

 th© last century except by Holland. Prussia and Saxony agreed about the 

 Elbe in 1815, and the agreement was extended to Austria, Hanover, and Den- 

 mark in 1821. Prussia, Hanover, and Bremen made a similar agreement about 

 the Weser in 1823 ; and Spain and Portugal made similar agreements about the 

 Tagus and the Douro in 1829 and 1835. Holland, however, has a tarnished 

 record. 



One has not an atom of sympathy with the arrogant Gennan demand that 

 ' small nations must not be allowed to interfere with the development of great 

 nations, least of all with that of the greatest of nations,' and that Holland — 

 simply on the ground of her small size — should be robbed of her three estuaries 

 m the interest of Germany. But neither has one an atom of sympathy with the 

 Dutch habit of taking advantage of that small size to behave in a mean and 

 unreasonable way on the assumption that no Power except Germany would 

 use lore© against such a little people. I would like to illustrate the position by 

 an analysis of the problem on a canal, for one must include straits and canals 

 with rivers. Their inclusion may involve some difficulty, but in the most serious 

 case the difficulty is already largely solved. I refer to the Panama Canal during 

 the second year of the war, when British shipping was exactly half as large 

 again as U.S.A. shipping, amounting to very nearly 42 per cent, of the whole 

 traffic The total result of the war, however, has been a loss of over 5,200,000 

 tons of British shipping, involving a reduction of 13.5 per cent, in our carrying- 

 power at sea, while the U.S.A. tonnage has increased by nearly 6,730,000 tons, 

 i.e. an increase of 382.1 per cent, in the U.S.A. seagoing tonnage (June, 1919). 



The case which I propose to analyse is that of the Terneuzen Canal, and I 

 wish to press it with aU possible emphasis because it shows a typical case of 

 quite natural — and, therefore, almost pardonable — human selfishness, and because 

 its supporters are guilty of an extraordinary blindness to their own mercantile 

 adi-antage. 



Ghent is the second port in Belgium, and the first industrial town in Flanders. 

 In the days before the separation of the two countries it was connected with 

 Terneuzen, i.e. ' open-sea ' nr.vigation on the Scheldt, by a canal twenty miles 

 long, of which rather more than half was in ' Belgian ' and rather less than 

 half in ' Dutch ' territory, the actual sea-connexion being — unfortunately — in 

 the Dutch territory. 



At the time of the Franco-Prussian War the Belgians decided to enlarge the 

 canal, but had to waste eight years in obtaining the consent of the Dutch to the 

 undertaking. Even then the consent was given only on the condition that the 



