Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

tained. And every such last mentioned letter, notice, or other communication sent by the post shall be deemed and considered to be a letter or a communication in the nature of a letter within the intent and meaning of the 8th clause of this Warrant.

11. If any question shall arise whether any such letter, notice. or other communication is entitled to the privilege of a printed paper, so far as respects the transmission thereof by the post, or of being sent by the post under or by virtue of the 7th and 8th clauses of this Warrant, the same shall be referred to the determination of the Postmaster-General, whose decision thereupon shall be final.

12. If any packet sent, or tendered, or delivered in order to be sent by the post, under the 6th and 7th clauses of this Warrant, shall in length, or breadth, or width, exceed the dimensions of 2 feet, or if any such packet, or the cover or envelope thereof, shall not be open at the ends or sides, or if any such packet shall be sent otherwise than in conformity with the terms, conditions, and regulations hereinbefore in the 8th clause of this Warrant contained, every such respective packet shall and may be detained and opened, and, at the option of the Postmaster-General, shall be either returned or given up to the sender thereof; and every such respective packet on being so returned or given up shall, at the option of the Postmaster-General, be either free of postage or be charged with any rate of postage he may think fit, not exceeding the postage to which it would have been liable as a letter.

13. If any packet sent, or tendered, or delivered in order to be sent by the post, under the 7th clause of this Warrant, from the United Kingdom to the Argentine Confederation (any such packet posted in London and sent from any department or office in or connected with the public service of Her Majesty which shall keep a postage account with the General Post Office in London, and the postage thereof being charged in such account only excepted), shall be posted in the United Kingdom without any postage paid thereon, or with a postage paid thereon less in amount than the rate of postage to which such packet is liable under and by virtue of the regulations hereinbefore contained, every such packet shall be detained and opened, and, at the option of the Postmaster-General, shall be dealt with and chargeable in like manner as is hereinbefore directed with respect to any packet not open at the ends or sides, or exceeding in length, or breadth, or width, the dimensions of 2 feet.

14. The respective letters and packets transmitted by the post under the provisions of this Warrant shall be subject to the several orders, directions, regulations, and rates of postage respectively contained in a certain Warrant of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the hands of 2 of the said Commissioners, bearing date the 19th day of February, 1855,* relating to * See Vol. 10, Page 289 (GREAT BRITAIN).

VOL. XI.

D

redirected rates of postage upon letters and packets which shall be redirected and again forwarded by the post.

15. The rates of postage chargeable on letters, books, publications, or works of literature or art, and other printed papers transmitted by the post under the provisions of this Warrant, shall be in lieu of any rates of British postage now chargeable by law thereon.

16. Nothing herein contained shall be construed to extend to any letters, newspapers, books, publications, or works of literature or art, or other pr printed papers sent between the Argentine Confederation and France, or sent otherwise than in closed mails between the Argentine Confederation and any Foreign Country or British Colony through France.

17. The several terms and expressions used in this Warrant shall be construed to have the like meaning in all respects as they would have had if inserted in the said Act passed in the 4th year of the reign of Her present Majesty.

18. The Commissioners for the time being of Her Majesty's Treasury may, by Warrant under their hands duly made at any time hereafter, alter, repeal, or revoke any of the rates of postage hereby fixed or altered, or any of the orders, directions, regulations, and conditions hereby made, and may make and establish any new or other rates, orders, directions, regulations, and conditions in lieu thereof, and from time to time appoint at what time the rates which may be payable are to be paid.

19. This Warrant shall come into operation on the 1st day of April, 1859.

Whitehall, Treasury Chambers, the 9th day of February, 1859. T. EDWARD TAYLOR. H. G. LENNOX.

CONVENTION between Great Britain and the Argentine Confederation, for the Settlement of British Claims. Signed in English and Spanish at Paraná, August 21, 1858.*

HER Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and His Excellency the President of the Argentine Confederation and Captain-General of its armies, being desirous of agreeing on the means, mode, and form of payment of the debt which the Argentine nation acknowledges in favour of British subjects who have suffered losses in the commotions of civil war which have befallen the Republic, losses which the Argentine nation, adopting a healing and generous policy, has consented to recognize; and judging it necessary to establish their agreement in the form of a Convention which shall determine the conditions and form of payment, have resolved to name as their Plenipotentiaries, that is to say :

* Ratifications exchanged at Paraná, March 27, 1860.

Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, William Dougal Christie, Esquire, Her Minister Plenipotentiary to the Argentine Confederation;

And His Excellency the President of the Argentine Confederation, the Secretaries of State in the Departments of Foreign Relations and of the Interior, Doctors Don Bernabé Lopez and Don Santiago Derqui;

Who after having exchanged their full powers, which they found in good and due form, have agreed on the following Articles :

ART. I. The Government of the Argentine Confederation recognizes as a national debt, all the sums due to British subjects on claims which shall have been presented on or before the 1st of January, 1860, and which shall have been settled jointly by Commissioners of the Argentine Government for that purpose appointed, and by the Minister Plenipotentiary of Her Britannic Majesty or his representative.

*II. The Government of the Argentine Confederation binds itself to pay interest on this debt at the rate of 6 per cent. per annum, from and after the 1st of October, 1858, and to redeem it by annual instalments, the first of which shall be paid on the 31st of December, 1860, being 1 per cent. of a sum composed of the principal and of the aforesaid interest at the rate of 6 per cent., computed up to the 31st of December, 1859, and which instalment shall afterwards be increased every year by the amount by which the interest on the portion of the debt remaining unpaid is diminished, so that the whole debt will be redeemed in a period of 34 years, according to a table annexed to this Convention, exhibiting the calculation.

III. The Argentine Government will issue for each claim 34 coupons, payable to bearer, representing the sums to be paid on the 31st of December of each year, till the total extinction of the debt, and bearing interest at 6 per cent., which interest will be paid half-yearly, viz., on the 30th of June and 31st of December of each year. beginning with the 30th of June, 1860, till the total extinction of the debt.

IV. The coupons for all claims already settled will be delivered to Her Britannic Majesty's Legation for the claimants, at the time of the exchange of the ratifications of this Convention; and those of other claims will be respectively delivered within 1 month after each has been settled by the Argentine Commissioners of Liquidation and Her Britannic Majesty's Minister, or his representative.

V. These coupons will be received, from the day of their issue, at the Treasury of the Argentine Government, at par, in payment for public lands; and they will also be received, at par, in the principal custom-houses of the Confederation, and, for the present. in those of Mendoza, Rosario, Corrientes, and Gualeguaychu, in * Cancelled by Additional Articles, August 18, 1859. Page 53.

payment of customs dues, after the 1st of January of the year in which they respectively fall due. The bearer will be credited with the interest on the coupon up to the day on which it is received, either for the purchase of public lands or payment of customs' dues.

VI. The coupons and interest will always be paid in silver dollars, or in ounces, at the legal value of 17 dollars to the ounce. VII. All the revenues of the Argentine Government are made chargeable for the fulfilment of the present Convention.

VIII. Inasmuch as similar Conventions are this day signed by the same Plenipotentiaries of the Argentine Confederation and Plenipotentiaries of France and Sardinia respectively, the Argentine Government agrees to the appointment of a Commission, composed of the Ministers or Chargé d'Affaires of Great Britain, France, and Sardinia, and of 3 members named by the Argentine Government, which shall have for object to endeavour to settle amicably any differences which may arise with regard to any of the 3 Conventions.

*IX. The ratifications of this Convention will be exchanged at Paraná within 8 months, or sooner if possible.

In witness whereof, the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed the same, and have affixed thereto the seals of their arms. Done at Paraná, Provisional Capital of the Argentine Confederation, on the 21st day of August, in the year of our Lord,

1858.

(L.S.) W. D. CHRISTIE.

(L.S.) BERNABE LOPEZ. (L.S.) SANTO. DERQUI.

(ANNEX.)-Table. Calculation showing how the Debt will be paid

off in 34 Years, beginning in 1860, and ending in 1893. On a supposed debt of 100,000 dollars, the interest payable in the year 1860 will be 6,000 dollars, and 1,000 will be paid off at the end of the same year. The amount paid off in every succeeding year increases exactly as the amount of interest for the year diminishes; interest and instalment of payment making a total of 7,000 every year, except the last, when there is only a small remainder of the debt.

Year.

Debt.

Interest.

Instalment.

1860

100,000

6,000

1,000

1861

99,000

5,940

1,060

1862

97,940

5,876

1,124

1863

96,816

5,808

1,192

1864

95,624

5,737

1,263

1865

94,361

5,661

1,339

1866

93.022

5,581

1.419

1867

91,603

5,496

1,504

1868

90,099

5,405

1,595

1869

88,594

5,310

1,690

1870

86,814

5,208

1,792

1871

85,022

5,101

1,899

* Cancelled by Additional Articles, August 18, 1859. Page 53.

[blocks in formation]

ADDITIONAL ARTICLES to the Treaty of 1858 between Great Britain and the Argentine Confederation, relative to British Claims. Signed, in English and Spanish, at Paraná, August 18, 1859.

In order to determine more clearly some of the stipulations contained in the Conventions concluded on the 21st of August, 1858, between their Excellencies the Ministers Plenipotentiary of England and France, and the Chargé d'Affaires of Sardinia, and the Ministers Plenipotentiary of the Argentine Confederation; and in order to facilitate the carrying out of the same :

The undersigned-that is to say, George Fagan, Esquire, Her Britannic Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires, subject to the approbation of his Government, and his Excellency Brigadier-General and Senator Don Tomas Guido, in virtue of the full powers conferred on him by His Excellency the Vice-President, have agreed on the following Articles :

ART. I. Articles II. and IX. of the Convention of the 21st of August, 1858, and the Protocol of the same day, are cancelled, and are replaced by the following Additional Articles to the said Convention, which Articles shall have the same force and value as if they had been inserted therein word for word.

II. To the principal of each sum awarded as compensation settled and liquidated in accordance with Article I. of the said Convention, interest shall be added in the following proportions: In the case of claims arising out of destruction and forcible seizure of cattle, destruction of farm property, sequestration of merchandize, thefts, and other losses, 50 per cent. interest in the

* See page 50.

« AnteriorContinua »