1 We will be all the more convinced of this, if we will remember that in the Austro-Turkish convention relating to Bosnia and Herzegovina an analogous disposition disguises in the same manner the conveyance for a lump sum, purely nominal rights of sovereignty which the Treaty of Berlin in recognizing the Austrian occupation, had reserved to the Sultan just for the sake of form.

2 At Philippopoli, where nevertheless from 5,000 to 6,000 Turks have remained, the mosks have organized membership except in certain quarters of the city; in the rest the Mussulmans themselves request the civil authorities to admit them to the Christian worship rather than leave them adrift. At Sofia a lone mosk has been kept open to worship for about twenty families, not Turks, but Mussulman gypsies, so poor that the government provides the funds necessary to maintain the monument. St. Sophia is in ruins, another mosk has been converted into a museum, and another has been rebuilt into a church.

3 As a matter of fact, up to the present time, the commission has held no meeting.

4 These articles read as follows:

“Art. 7. — Great care shaft be exercised to keep in good condition all vakoufs property situated in Bulgaria. No edifice for worship or of charity may be torn down except for imperious need and in accordance with the laws and regulations in force. In case a vakouf edifice is to be expropriated for imperious reason, this can be done only after another location shall have been designated of the same value with respect to the place where it is situated and after full payment of the value of the building. The amounts to be paid as price for vakoufs property appropriated for imperious reason shall be entirely devoted to the maintenance of vakoufs property situated in Bulgaria and to the construction of other religious establishments in localities where the need of such establishments may be felt. The chief mufti is charged with the control of the accounts relating thereto and to .prevent mismanagement of the funds.

“Art. 8. — Within six months after the signing of this document, a special Commission, of which the chief mufti shall by right be a member, shall be appointed by the Bulgarian government; the object of this Commission shall be, within three years of the date of its organization, to examine and verify all claims presented up to the present time by the mutevellis or their beneficiaries. Those interested who are not agreeable to the decisions of the Commission may appeal to the competent court of the country.”

5 Yellow Book, Protocol No. 7, pp. 122 et seq.

6 See Serkis, La Roumélie orientale, p. 203. According to the archives of the administrative council of the Ottoman public debt. Cf. Àndréadès, , Les obligations financières envers la dette publique ottomane des provinces détachées de l’Empire turc depuis le traité de Berlin, in the Bévue générale de droit international public, tome XV (1908), pp. 585Google Scholaret seq.

7 With particular reference to the matter of taxes, we will merely remark that the Berlin plenipotentiaries thought that this burden was by right incumbent upon Bulgaria by the mere fact of separation. It has been for a long time an uncontested opinion in spite of its debatable character, that in the case of dismemberment a quota of the debt of the dismembered state falls ipso facto upon the newly created state. This means a transposition of private into public law coming from the theory attached to inheritances, but which in our judgment is juridically false. There is no inheritance in the matter of sovereignty, but substitution: this the Bulgarian plenipotentiaries could have invoked. But it might have been answered that it is always possible to derogate conventionally to strict juridical principles; that, moreover, there had not been substitution, since Bulgaria in theory had not ceased to be part of the Ottoman Empire. They might then in their turn have demonstrated that suzerainty is not the same as sovereignty, and contended that Bulgaria in this respect had really not contracted a conventional engagement. But it is unnecessary to remark that these theoretic controversies were not brought forward.

8 Minutes of the Commission, No. 49, and Organic regulations, Chapter I, Art. 16.

9 See Article 3 of the protocol of St. Petersburg, and Article 1 of the protocol of Constantinople.

10 The full text of the protocol, preamble and preface of the Turko-Bulgarian protocol follows:

The Imperial Russian Government being desirous of assuring to the Imperial Ottoman Government the sum of 125 million francs in settlement of all claims of the Sublime Porte against Bulgaria, the following agreement has been entered into:

Article 1. — In view of permitting the Sublime Porte to realize the sum of 125 million francs the Russian Government remits to Turkey fully and finally 40 of the 74 outstanding annuities due Russia on account of the war indemnity fixed by the treaty of Jan. 27/Feb. 8, 1879, and by the convention of May 2/l4, 1882; the Imperial Ottoman Government having settled all annuities due on account of the war indemnity up to Dec. 31, 1908, said remission shall enter in force beginning Jan. 1, 1909.

Article 2. — The Imperial Ottoman Government shall have the right until July 1 to capitalize the 34 annuities outstanding over and above the 40 annuities remitted by Russia by appraising these annuities at their actual value at the rate of four per cent. par. — In case the Imperial Ottoman Government does not avail itself of this privilege, it shall have the same privilege at the expiration of the 40th year, capitalization at this date to be calculated at the rate of the then credit of the Ottoman Empire as shall be established by agreement between the two governments.

Article 3. —The sum of five and a half million Turkish pounds, or 125 million francs accruing to the Imperial Ottoman Empire represents by 40 million francs the obligation of Eastern Rumelia, and by another 40 million francs the 310 kilometers of Eastern Railways situated in Eastern Rumelia and seized by the Bulgarian Government, by 2 million francs the cost and the arrears of rent of the Bélova-Vakarel line, and by 43 million francs the equivalent in value of the properties of the domain of the Ottoman state, situated in Eastern Rumelia and in Bulgaria. The Imperial Ottoman Government, in consequence, renounces its rights derived from Article 9 of the Treaty of Berlin, the Bulgarian tribute, the contributive Bulgarian taxes to the public debt of the Empire, and also its rights to arrears of the Eastern Rumelian obligation as determined by the Organic Regulation and annexures thereto. — The Bulgarian Government shall pay interest at б per cent, upon the 40 million francs of the Rumelian obligation beginning September 22/October 5, 1908, until the ratification of the protocol.

Article 4.—The Bulgarian Government renouncing, by a declaration signed simultaneously with the present arrangement, all claims under the terms of paragraph 1, of Article 10 of the Treaty of Berlin relating to the Roustchouk-Varna railway, the Ottoman Government will make note of said declaration.

Article 5. — It is agreed that the questions and claims regarding vakoufs and religious communities, posts and telegraphs, lighthouses and sanitary administration are entirely excluded and shall form the subject of a direct agreement between the Imperial Ottoman Government and Bulgaria. — It is also agreed that the immediate debts of Bulgaria due to the Eastern Railway Company, resulting from rolling stock and material seized, etc., and the operating indemnity are excluded from the present arrangement.

Signed: ad referendum, Signed: ad referendum,

Iswolsky. Rifaat.

St. Petersburg, March 3, 1909.

11 Vide, Article 1 of the Turko-Bulgarian protocol.

12 The loan is for 7 million Turkish pounds, 4 per cent, interest, 1 per cent, amortization. Vide, Le Temps, Sept. 7, 1909.

13 The text of this convention follows:

The Imperial Russian Government having settled through the Russo-Turkish protocol of March 3, 1909, the Bulgarian obligations to Turkey arising from the Bulgarian declaration of independence and the seizure of the Eastern Railways by the Bulgarian Government, the following agreement has been concluded:

Article 1. — The Royal Bulgarian Government, in view of the definitive settlement of the financial claims of Turkey consigned in the protocol mentioned hereafter, hereby recognizes its indebtedness to the Imperial Russian Government in the sum of 82 million francs.

Article 2. —The Royal Bulgarian Government guarantees to acquit itself of this indebtedness in 75 years at 4¾ per cent, interest, constituting an annuity (interest and amortization) of 4,025,600 francs payable in equal semi-annual instalments on April 1 and Oct. 1. The first payment shall be made Oct. 1, 1909. The Imperial Russian Government shall receive interest beginning with the date of the recognition of Bulgarian independence by Turkey. — It is agreed that the Royal Bulgarian Government, the case occurring, shall pay a monthly interest of one half per cent, on all arrears.‘

Article 3. — The Royal Bulgarian Government has the right, at any time it may choose to do so, to liberate itself of the entire present indebtedness by paying the entire amount of the indebtedness left to be amortized.

Article 4. — All payments referred to in the present protocol shall be effected in francs, at Paris, to the order of the Imperial Russian Bank.

St. Petersburg, April 6, 1909.

Ad referendum: S. Paprikoff Ad referendum:

Ivan Sallabacheff Iswolsky.

14 Article XII reads as follows: “The effective Russian army of occupation in Bulgaria and in Eastern Rumelia shall be composed of six divisions of infantry, and two divisions of cavalry, and shall not exceed 50,000 men. It shall be maintained at the expense of the country occupied.”

15 In 1879, at the time of the first meeting of the provincial assembly at Philippopoli, Prince Tzarétéleff, Russian Consul-General, declared in the name of the Russian Emperor that, inasmuch as Rumelia had, more than any other country, suffered from the ravages of war and of famine, the Russian Government would not insist upon any regular annuity payments, and would not demand interest on arrears. In effect, the Russian Government has let these arrears accumulate and for a time it was thought that the Russian Government had remitted its claim. In reality, however, it has repeatedly urged settlement of the daim, and its reminders have at times been pressed home, in threatening manner, designed to weigh on the political conduct of the debtor. It acted in this manner toward the provincial government when Aleko Pacha refused to renew the contract of the sixty Russian officers in the service of the Rumelian militia. Since 1895 demands for payment of arrears have been made three times, under the cabinets of Stoïtoff, Rodoslavoff and Daneff, but no agreement could be reached regarding the terms of payment.

This experience should suffice, and the Bulgarian Government avoid delay in paying the instalments relating to the new loan which it has contracted in Russia.

16 Vide, Artide 6, of the loan contract, repaid in full to-day. State of the Public Debt, Ministry of Finance, 1908 (printed in Bulgarian).

17 This delegate is our very distinguished compatriot, M. Bousquet, honorary State-Councillor, to whose publications we have often had occasion to refer.

18 A new loan, at 5 per cent., was guaranteed in 1904, as the last mentioned, by the excess of the bandrol and Mourourié taxes, and in addition by the stamp duty, which, in its turn, has been legislatively and economically immobilized. Lastly, still another loan, 4 ½ per cent., in gold, 1907, touches in part the revenue of the Mourourié tax. The privilege of the united banks regarding the floating of new loans was, in virtue of this new contract, to run until April, 1909. The Bulgarian Government has but just liberated itself from that shackle.