Roumanian nationals belonging to racial, religious or linguistic minorities, these minorities shall be assured an equitable share in the enjoyment and application of the sums which may be provided out of public funds under the State, municipal or other budget, for educational, religious or charitable purposes.

ARTICLE 11.

Roumania agrees to accord to the communities of the Saxons and Czecklers in Transylvania local autonomy in regard to scholastic and religious matters, subject to the control of the Roumanian State.

ARTICLE 12.

Roumania agrees that the stipulations in the foregoing Articles, so far as they affect persons belonging to racial, religious or linguistic minorities, constitute obligations of international concern and shall be placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations. They shall not be modified without the assent of a majority of the Council of the League of Nations. The United States, the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan hereby agree not to withhold their assent from any modification in these Articles which is in due form assented to by a majority of the Council of the League of Nations.

Roumania agrees that any Member of the Council of the League of Nations shall have the right to bring to the attention of the Council any infraction, or any danger of infraction, of any of these obligations, and that the Council may thereupon take such action and give such direction as it may deem proper and effective in the circumstances.

Roumania further agrees that any difference of opinion as to questions of law or fact arising out of these Articles between the Roumanian Government and any one of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers or any other Power, a Member of the Council of the League of Nations, shall be held to be a dispute of an international character under Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. Roumania hereby consents that any such dispute shall, if the other party thereto demands, be referred to the Permanent Court of International Justice. The decision of the Permanent Court shall be final and shall have the same force and effect as an award under Article 13 of the Covenant.

CHAPTER II.

ARTICLE 13.

Roumania undertakes to make no treaty, convention or arrangement and to take no other action which will prevent her from joining in any general convention for the equitable treatment of the commerce of other States that may be concluded under the auspices of the League of Nations within five years from the coming into force of the present Treaty.

Roumania also undertakes to extend to all the Allied and Associated Powers any favours or privileges in Customs matters which she may grant during the same period of five years to any State with which since August, 1914, the Allied and Associated Powers have been at war, or to any State which in virtue of Article 222 of the Treaty with Austria has special Customs arrangements with such States.

ARTICLE 14.

Pending the conclusion of the general convention referred to above, Roumania undertakes to treat on the same footing as national vessels or vessels of the most favoured nation the vessels of all the Allied and Associated Powers which accord similar treatment to Roumanian vessels. As an exception from this provision, the right of Roumania or of any other Allied or Associated Power to confine her maritime coasting trade to national vessels is expressly reserved.

ARTICLE 15.

Pending the conclusion under the auspices of the League of Nations of a general convention to secure and maintain freedom of communications and of transit, Roumania undertakes to accord freedom of transit to persons, goods, vessels, carriages, wagons and mails in transit to or from any Allied or Associated State over Roumanian territory, including territorial waters, and to treat them at least as favourably as the persons, goods, vessels, carriages, wagons and mails respectively of Roumanian or of any other more favoured nationality, origin, importation or ownership, as regards facilities, charges, restrictions and all other matters.

All charges imposed in Roumania on such traffic in transit shall

be reasonable, having regard to the conditions of the traffic. Goods in transit shall be exempt from all customs or other duties.

Tariffs for transit across Roumania and tariffs between Roumania and any Allied or Associated Power involving through tickets or waybills shall be established at the request of the Allied or Associated Power concerned.

Freedom of transit will extend to postal, telegraphic and telephonic services.

Provided that no Allied or Associated Power can claim the benefit of these provisions on behalf of any part of its territory in which reciprocal treatment is not accorded in respect of the same subjectmatter.

If within a period of five years from the coming into force of this Treaty no general convention as aforesaid shall have been concluded under the auspices of the League of Nations, Roumania shall be at liberty at any time thereafter to give twelve months' notice to the Secretary-General of the League of Nations to terminate the obligations of the present Article.

ARTICLE 16.

Pending the conclusion of a general convention on the international régime of waterways, Roumania undertakes to apply to such portions of the river system of the Pruth as may lie within, or form the boundary of, her territory, the régime set out in the first paragraph of Article 332 and in Articles 333 to 338 of the Treaty of Peace with Germany.

ARTICLE 17.

All rights and privileges accorded by the foregoing Articles to the Allied and Associated Powers shall be accorded equally to all States Members of the League of Nations.

The present Treaty, in French, in English and in Italian, of which in ease of divergence, the French text shall prevail, shall be ratified. It shall come into force at the same time as the Treaty of Peace with Austria.

The deposit of ratifications shall be made at Paris.

Powers of which the seat of the Government is outside Europe will be entitled merely to inform the Government of the French Republic through their diplomatic representative at Paris that their ratification

has been given; in that case they must transmit the instrument of ratification as soon as possible.

A procès-verbal of the deposit of ratifications will be drawn up. The French Government will transmit to all the Signatory Powers a certified copy of the procès-verbal of the deposit of ratifications.

Done at Paris, the ninth day of December one thousand nine hundred and nineteen in a single copy which will remain deposited in the archives of the Government of the French Republic, and of which authenticated copies will be transmitted to each of the Signatory Powers.

Plenipotentiaries who in consequence of their temporary absence from Paris have not signed the present Treaty may do so up to December 20, 1919.

In faith whereof the hereinafter-named Plenipotentiaries, whose powers have been found in good and due form, have signed the present Treaty.

TREATY OF PEACE BETWEEN THE PRINCIPAL ALLIED AND ASSOCIATED POWERS AND THE SERB-CROATSLOVENE STATE.1

Signed at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, September 10, 1919.

The United States of America, the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan, the Principal Allied and Associated Powers, on the one hand;

and the Serb-Croat-Slovene State, on the other hand;

Whereas since the commencement of the year 1913 extensive territories have been added to the Kingdom of Serbia, and

Whereas the Serb, Croat and Slovene peoples of the former AustroHungarian Monarchy have of their own free will determined to unite with Serbia in a permanent union for the purpose of forming a single sovereign independent State under the title of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and

Whereas the Prince Regent of Serbia and the Serbian Government have agreed to this union, and in consequence the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes has been constituted and has assumed sovereignty over the territories inhabited by these peoples, and

Whereas it is necessary to regulate certain matters of international concern arising out of the said additions of territory and of this union, and

Whereas it is desired to free Serbia from certain obligations which she undertook by the Treaty of Berlin of 1878 to certain Powers and to substitute for them obligations to the League of Nations, and

Whereas the Serb-Croat-Slovene State of its own free will desires to give to the populations of all territories included within the State, of whatever race, language or religion they may be, full guarantees

1 British Treaty Series, 1919, No. 17.