Appendix A to HD-89

[The Secretary General of the Commission to Negotiate Peace (Grew) to the Secretary General of the Peace Conference (Dutasta)]

PARIS, November 10, 1919.

The Secretary General of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace presents his compliments to the Secretariat General of the Peace Conference, and begs to quote, at the request of the Secretary of Labor of the United States, President of the International Labor Congress, the following telegram, dated Washington, D. C., November 8, 1919, addressed by him to the Supreme Council of the Peace Conference:

"The officers of the International Labor Conference at Washington are authorized to state that the Conference considers that it is of the highest importance for the success and value of the work of the Conference, that the German and Austrian Delegations should participate in all deliberations and decisions in regard to the questions on the agenda. They would recall the fact that the decision in favor of the participations of these nations was approved by the whole conference with only one dissentient vote.

The Conference can hardly prolong its sittings beyond the end of November.

They would therefore request the Supreme Council to take such action as will (facilitate) the arrival of the German and Austrian Delegations at Washington at the earliest possible moment.

They also think that they should point out that engagements have been entered into at Paris in this matter. W. B. Wilson, President, H. B. Butler, Secretary-General".

In this connection, the Secretary General of the American Commission is instructed to make clear the understanding that in transmitting the above-quoted message, the Government of the United States is not in a position to approve or disapprove of its contents, and that the Secretary of Labor is acting solely in his capacity as President of the Labor Conference.

MONSIEUR LE PRÉSIDENT: The Delegation of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes has the honor to forward to the Supreme

Council its observations on the Treaty of Peace with Austria and the Treaty on the minorities following the new instructions of the Royal Government.

TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA

Although several of our very important requests have not been admitted in the Treaty with Austria, the Royal Government is ready to sacrifice them to the general interest, in order not to create difficulties for the Peace Conference. Yet, this Delegation considers it necessary to draw the careful attention of the Supreme Council to an economic question of vital interest to our country and which should be discussed now, it being in close connection with the Treaty of Peace with Austria.

Our people on the Adriatic coast are a sea-faring people whose qualities are well-known to the whole world. Our navigation has never ceased to exist; its origin dates back for several centuries and developed even under the Austro-Hungarian Government, although Vienna and Budapest systematically ousted the native element and tried by every means to introduce the German and Magyar element even in the mercantile marine. In spite of these efforts and even before this war, the Yougoslavs possessed part of the Austro-Hungarian commercial fleet and indeed, generally speaking, this fleet could not have existed without our crews (sailors and captains), whose number is nearly 30,000.

Our State is in indispensable need of ships for coastal navigation and for trade with foreign countries, a need all the more absolute as international traffic by land will be inadequate for many years to come i. e. till a considerable system of railway lines will be built in our country, the rolling stock repaired and augmented and a steady supply of coal assured.

Sailing craft are the principal means of communication for the traffic with our isles and the small localities on the coast; on the other hand, fishing is the principal source of livelihood for our people on the coast. Considering the shortage of tonnage all over the world it will be difficult for a long time to come to charter vessels. All this is closely bound up with our economic restoration and consolidation which will depend on our foreign trade.

Bearing in mind that a certain part of the tonnage of the former Austro-Hungarian Commercial fleet belonged already before the war to our co-Nationals, our economic existence could be assured if this portion of tonnage were given to us.

Let us pass to the Peace Treaty with Austria in connection with this subject.

Annex III. (Part VIII. Reparations) stipulates the obligations which the present Austrian Government assumes towards the Allied and Associated Powers concerning ships and vessels under the AustroHungarian commercial flag, as well as those in construction.

By the first paragraph of this Annex, the Austrian Government in its own name, and in such a way as to be binding upon all parties concerned, cedes to the Allied and Associated Powers the ownership of all commercial and fishing vessels and ships belonging to subjects of the former Austrian Empire. The other paragraphs deal with the details of these stipulations. It is probable that analogous clauses will be introduced in the Peace Treaty to be concluded with Hungary.

The Treaty with Austria contemplates no exceptions, not even those existing in the Treaty with Germany regarding ships under 1000 tons and of 1000 to 16000 tons.

These stipulations by their rigour and inflexibility are more damaging to our State than to Austria, Hungary or the other States created by the dismemberment of the Danubian Monarchy, as none of these States possess a seaboard. Landlocked States can exist without ships. For our State such a situation would be disastrous, a navy being one of its vital organs. As the surrender of all the ships of the former Austro-Hungarian navy would injure our State alone, it would constitute a flagrant injustice which surely was not in the intentions of the Peace Conference.

For all the reasons pointed out above, we firmly believe that the Supreme Council will take the foregoing into consideration and give them a benevolent examination, inspired by a spirit of equity.

It is necessary that this investigation should be proceeded to at once as the question might otherwise be considered closed as soon as the Treaty with Austria comes into force.

If the Reparations Commission is not bound by some special decision it could proceed upon the basis of the Treaty alone.

In case the distribution of these ships is to be effected in proportion only to the losses incurred during the war by each Allied and Associated Power, the Kingdom of Serbia, which before the war possessed no access to the sea, nor any ships, could not obtain any part of the Austro-Hungarian fleet. Shipowners, at present subjects of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, but former subjects of the AustroHungarian Monarchy, would find themselves in a more unfavourable position than that of subjects of Germany, Austria or Hungary, who will receive an indemnity for their ships from their respective States. Contrariwise our subjects will receive no indemnity, their ships being devoted to the payment of reparations due by the enemy States.

To make it easier to understand this special question and its development since the conclusion of the Armistice, we take the liberty of

drawing the attention of the Supreme Council to several other circum

stances.

On the declaration of war, the Yougoslav shipowners placed all their vessels, in Allied or neutral waters, at the disposal of the Allies. Consequently, many big modern cargo-boats anchored at that time in the then neutral ports of Venice, Ancona and Brindisi preferred to remain under Italian protection to returning to Austrian ports, a return which could then have been easily made. There were also Yougoslav vessels in the British waters; the British Government treated them in a friendly manner. It chartered them at reasonable rates and used these vessels, the property of Yougoslav shipowners, flying the Austrian flag and anchored in British ports.

The Interallied War Council inserted clauses in the Armistice with Austria-Hungary, implying that vessels owned by Italians and Yougoslavs of Austria-Hungary would receive friendly treatment.

According to information received by us, this question was discussed in May 1919 (probably the 22nd) by the Supreme Council, and on that occasion the intention expressed was to apply special treatment, by which our shipowners would retain the ownership of their ships.

From the communications of Mr. Lansing, later on of Mr. Hipwood of the Board of Trade we came to the conviction that the United States and Great Britain were not going to apply the ton for ton principle to the Italians and Yougoslavs in the Adriatic, but that under the adopted scheme of distribution, the Reparations Commission would leave our shipowners the free disposal of their tonnage, formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian fleet. To enable the aforesaid Commission to proceed in this way, a side-agreement relating to Yougoslav shipowners is a necessary corollary.

When the Second Sub-Commission of Reparations met in London in March and April 1919 the President, Lord Cunliffe, informed our experts that the question of tonnage in the Adriatic would be reserved and submitted to special study.

Our Delegation is prepared to furnish more detailed information verbally through our experts, in so far as the Supreme Council shall judge it necessary to demand such information of it concerning the subject in question.

Proposition. The Delegation of the Kingdom of Serbs-Croats and Slovenes has the honor to beg the Supreme Council of the Allied and Associated Powers to submit this question to an immediate examination and to bring about a decision by which instructions be given to the Commission of Reparations to assign to our State such trading vessels as well as the fishing and sailing boats in the Adriatic as upon

'CF-24/1, minute 5, vol. v, p. 834.

the date of November 4, 1918 were owned by our shipowners and capital in the Adriatic.

THE MINORITIES CONVENTION

9

The Royal Government has never contested the general principle of this convention. In the last Note addressed to the Royal Government of Rumania it was stated, according to press information, that the Peace Conference, while preserving intact the general principle which is the basis of the Minorities Convention, is prepared to consider modifications available for application to the internal clauses of the Convention with Rumania. On this point we agree with the Conference and while respecting the general principle of the Convention which is the same in all Conventions of this kind-we beg the Supreme Council kindly to examine the following points which apply to internal conditions and which in accordance with the instructions of our Government, it is our duty to submit to it.

1) We ask that in the Preamble to the Convention it shall be added that Serbia loyally carried out the engagements accepted by her under the Treaty of Berlin.10

This is a known fact. It is a matter of importance to us that it should be recognized in the Convention which creates the new clauses protecting Minorities at the moment in which it abolishes the engagements of the Treaty of Berlin. It would be a satisfaction equal to that most justly given to Greece by recognizing in the Preamble to her Convention that she intended equal rights irrespective of origin to all populations living within her territories.

2) The right reserved to the Principal Powers under Art. 51 of the Treaty with Austria originally embarrassed the Royal Government which feared lest the National Assembly would not ratify a blank cheque. But, in face of the Convention, it is obviously no longer a question of a blank cheque.

Nevertheless it must be pointed out that it does not transpire from the text of the Convention that the latter is connected with Art. 51 of the Treaty with Austria, nor that by the signature of the Convention the right reserved to the Principal Powers under Art. 51 becomes exhausted.

Consequently, we request that Art. 5 [51] of the Treaty with Austria shall be brought into relation with the Minorities Convention in such a way that it is made clear thereby that the right of the Principal [Powers], provided for in Art. 51 is exhausted by the Convention. We beg to observe that satisfaction in this direction has already been given to