PART XII

Ports, Waterways, and Railways

SECTION I.--_General Provisions_

=ARTICLE 321.=--Germany undertakes to grant freedom of transit through her territories on the routes most convenient for international transit, either by rail, navigable waterway, or canal, to persons, goods, vessels, carriages, wagons, and mails coming from or going to the territories of any of the Allied and Associated Powers (whether contiguous or not); for this purpose the crossing of territorial waters shall be allowed. Such persons, goods, vessels, carriages, wagons, and mails shall not be subjected to any transit duty or to any undue delays or restrictions, and shall be entitled in Germany to national treatment as regards charges, facilities, and all other matters.

Goods in transit shall be exempt from all customs or other similar duties.

All charges imposed on transport in transit shall be reasonable, having regard to the conditions of the traffic. No charge, facility, or restriction shall depend directly or indirectly on the ownership or on the nationality of the ship or other means of transport on which any part of the through journey has been, or is to be, accomplished.

=ARTICLE 322.=--Germany undertakes neither to impose nor to maintain any control over transmigration traffic through her territories beyond measures necessary to insure that passengers are _bona fide_ in transit; nor to allow any shipping company or any other private body, corporation, or person interested in the traffic to take any part whatever in, or to exercise any direct or indirect influence over, any administrative service that may be necessary for this purpose.

=ARTICLE 323.=--Germany undertakes to make no discrimination or preference, direct or indirect, in the duties, charges, and prohibitions relating to importations into or exportations from her territories, or, subject to the special engagements contained in the present treaty, in the charges and conditions of transport of goods or persons entering or leaving her territories, based on the frontier crossed; or on the kind, ownership, or flag of the means of transport (including aircraft) employed; or on the original or immediate place of departure of the vessel, wagon, or aircraft or other means of transport employed, or its ultimate or intermediate destination; or on the route of or places of transshipment on the journey; or on whether any port through which the goods are imported or exported is a German port or a port belonging to any foreign country or on whether the goods are imported or exported by sea, by land, or by air.

Germany particularly undertakes not to establish against the ports and vessels of any of the Allied and Associated Powers any surtax or any direct or indirect bounty for export or import by German ports of vessels, or by those of another power, for example by means of combined tariffs. She further undertakes that persons or goods passing through a port or using a vessel of any of the Allied and Associated Powers shall not be subjected to any formality or delay whatever to which such persons or goods would not be subjected if they passed through a German port or a port of any other power, or used a German vessel or a vessel of any other power.

=ARTICLE 324.=--All necessary administrative and technical measures shall be taken to shorten, as much as possible, the transmission of goods across the German frontiers and to insure their forwarding and transport from such frontiers, irrespective of whether such goods are coming from or going to the territories of the Allied and Associated Powers or are in transit from or to those territories, under the same material conditions in such matters as rapidity of carriage and care en route as are enjoyed by other goods of the same kind carried on German territory under similar conditions of transport.

In particular, the transport of perishable goods shall be promptly and regularly carried out, and the customs formalities shall be effected in such a way as to allow the goods to be carried straight through by trains which make connection.

=ARTICLE 325.=--The seaports of the Allied and Associated Powers are entitled to all favors and to all reduced tariffs granted on German railways or navigable waterways for the benefit of German ports or of any port of another power.

=ARTICLE 326.=--Germany may not refuse to participate in the tariffs or combinations of tariffs intended to secure for ports of any of the Allied and Associated Powers advantages similar to those granted by Germany to her own ports or the ports of any other power.

SECTION II.--_Navigation_