and, so far as the Protectorate of the French Republic in Morocco is concerned:

M. P. P. Serra,
Director of the Sherifian Customs;

and, so far as the Regency of Tunis (French Protectorate) is concerned:

M. Charles Ode,
Director of Tunisian Customs;

His Majesty the King of the Hellenes:

M. Vasili Colocotronis,
Counsellor of Legation, and

M. Dimitri Capsali,
First Secretary of Legation in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs;

His Serene Highness the Governor of Hungary:

M. Felix Parcher de Terjekfalva,
Chargé d'affaires at Berne;

His Majesty the King of Italy:

Dr. Carlo Pugliesi,
Sub-Director-General of Customs;

His Majesty the Emperor of Japan:

M. Y. Sugimura,
Assistant-Director of the Imperial League of Nations Office;

The President of the Lithuanian Republic:

M. Gaëtan Dobkevicius,
Counsellor of Legation, and

Dr. Petras Karvelis,
Counsellor in the Ministry of Finance, of Commerce and Industry;

Her Royal Highness the Grand-Duchess of Luxemburg:

M. Ch. Vermaire,
Consul of Luxemburg at Geneva;

His Majesty the King of Norway:

Dr. Fridtjof Nansen,
Professor at the University of Christiania;

The President of the Republic of Paraguay:

Dr. Ramon V. Caballero,
Charge d'Affaires at Paris;

Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands:

M. E. Menten,
Charge d'Affaires at Berne, for the Kingdom in Europe,

and

M. W. I. Doude van Troostwijk,
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Swiss Federal Council for the Netherlands-Indies, Surinam and Curacao;

The President of the Polish Republic:

M. Jan Modzelewski,
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Swiss Federal Council;

The President of the Portuguese Republic:

M. A. Bartholomeu Ferreira,
Envoy Extraordinary.and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Portuguese Republic to the Swiss Federal Council;

His Majesty the King of Roumania:

M. Nicolas Petresco-Comnene,
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Swiss Federal Council;

His Majesty the King of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes:

R. Radmilo Bouyditch,
Inspector in the General Customs Administration, and

M. Valdemar Lounatchek,
Secretary of the Zagreb Chamber of Commerce;

His Majesty the King of Siam:

M. Phya Sanpakitch Preecha,
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to His Majesty the King of Italy;

His Majesty the King of Sweden:

M. K. Hjalmar Branting,
Representative of Sweden on the Council of the League of Nations;

The Swiss Federal Council:

M. Samuel Häusermann,
Director of the Sixth Customs Inspector-General in charge of the Third Section in the General Customs Administration at Berne,

and

M. Emile Ferdinand Leuté,
District at Geneva;

The President of the Czechoslovak Republic:

M. Jan Dvořáček,
Minister Plenipotentiary and Head of the Economic Department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and

Dr. Augustus Schönbach,
Ministerial Counsellor in the Ministry of Finance;

The President of the Republic of Uruguay:

Dr. D. Enrique E. Buero,
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Urugay to the Swiss Federal Council.

Who, after communicating their full powers, found in good and due form, have agreed as follows:

Article 1. The Contracting States, with a view to applying between themselves the principle and the stipulations of Article 23 of the Covenant of the League of Nations with regard to the equitable treatment of commerce, undertake that their commercial relations shall not be hindered by excessive, unnecessary or arbitrary Customs or other similar formalities.

The Contracting States therefore undertake to revise, by all appropriate legislative or administrative measures, the provisions affecting Customs or other similar formalities which are prescribed by their laws or by rules, regulations or instructions issued by their administrative authorities, with a view to their simplification and adaptation, from time to time, to the needs of foreign trade and to the avoidance of all hindrance to such trade, except that which is absolutely necessary in order to safeguard the essential interests of the State.

Article 2. The Contracting States undertake to observe strictly the principle of equitable treatment in respect of Customs or other similar regulations or procedure, formalities of the grant of licences, methods of verification or analysis, and all other matters dealt with in the present Convention, and consequently agree to abstain, in these matters, from any unjust discrimination against the commerce of any Contracting State.

The above principle shall be invariably applied even in cases in which certain Contracting States, in accordance with their legislation or commercial agreements, may reciprocally agree to accord still greater facilities than those resulting from the present Convention.

Article 3. In view of the grave obstacles to international trade caused by import and export prohibitions and restrictions, the Contracting States undertake to adopt and apply, as soon as circumstances permit, all measures calculated to reduce such prohibitions and restrictions to the smallest number; they undertake in any case, as regards import and export licences, to do everything in their power to ensure:

(a) That the conditions to be fulfilled and the formalities to be observed in order to obtain such licences should be brought immediately in the clearest and most definite form to the notice of the public;

(b) That the method of issue of the certificates of licences should be as simple and stable as possible;

(c) That the examination of applications and the issue of licences to the applicants should be carried out with the least possible delay;

(d) That the system of issuing licences should be such as to prevent the traffic in licences. With this object, licences, when issued to individuals, should state the name of the holder and should not be capable of being used by any other person;

(e) That, in the event of the fixing of rations, the formalities required by the importing country should not be such as to prevent an equitable allocation of the quantities of goods of which the importation is authorised.

Article 4. The Conctracting States shall publish promptly all regulations relating to Customs and similar formalities and all modifications therein, which have not been already published, in such a manner as to enable persons concerned to become acquainted with them and to avoid the prejudice which might result from the application of Customs formalities of which they are ignorant.

The Contracting States agree that no Customs regulations shall be enforced before such regulations have been published, either in the official journal of the country concerned or through some other suitable official or private channel of publicity.

This obligation to publish in advance extends to all matters affecting tariffs and import and export prohibitions or restrictions.

In cases, however, of an exceptional nature, when previous publication would be likely to injure the essential interests of the country, the provisions of the second and third paragraphs of this Article will lose their obligatory force. In such cases, however, publication shall, so far as possible, take place simultaneously with the enforcement of the measure in question.

Article 5. Every Contracting State whose tariff has been modified by successive additions and alterations affecting a considerable number of articles shall publish a complete statement, in an easily accessible form, of all the duties levied as a result of all the measures in force.

For this purpose all duties levied by the Customs authorities by reason of importation or exportation shall be methodically stated, whether they are Customs duties, supplementary charges, taxes on consumption or circulation, charges for handling goods or similar charges, and in general all charges of any description, it being understood that the above obligation is limited to duties or charges which are levied on imported or exported goods on behalf of the State and by reason of clearing goods through the Customs.

The charges to which goods are liable being thus clearly stated, a clear indication shall be given in the case of taxes on consumption and other taxes levied on behalf of the State by reason of clearing goods through the Customs, whether foreign goods are subject to a special tax owing to the fact that, as an exceptional measure, goods of the country of importation are not or are only partially liable to such taxes.

The Contracting States undertake to take the necessary steps to enable traders to procure official information in regard to Customs tariffs, particularly as to the amount of the charges to which any given class of goods is liable.

Article 6. In order to enable Contracting States and their nationals to become acquainted as quickly as possible with all the measures referred to in Articles 4 and 5 which affect their trade, each Contracting State undertakes to communicate to the diplomatic representative of each other State, or such other representative residing in its territory as may be designated for the purpose, all publications issued in accordance with the said Articles. Such communication will be made in duplicate and so soon as publication is effected. If no such diplomatic or other representative exists, the communication will be made to the State concerned through such channel as it may designate for the purpose.

Further, each Contracting State undertakes to forward to the Secretariat of the League of Nations, as soon as they appear, ten copies of all publications issued in accordance with Articles 4 and 5.

Each Contracting State also undertakes to communicate, as soon as they appear, to the "International Office for the publication of Customs Tariffs" at Brussels, which is entrusted by the International Convention of July 5th, 1890, with the translation and publication of such tariffs, ten copies of all Customs tariffs or modifications therein which it may establish.

Article 7. The Contracting States undertake to take the most appropriate measures by their national legislation and administration both to prevent the arbitrary or unjust application of their laws and regulations with regard to Customs and other similar matters, and to ensure redress by administrative, judicial or arbitral procedure for those who may have been prejudiced by such abuses.

All such measures which are at present in force or which may be taken hereafter shall be published in the manner I provided by Articles 4 and 5.

Article 8. Apart from cases in which their importation may be prohibited, and unless it is indispensable for the solution of the dispute that they should be produced, goods which form the subject of a dispute as to the application of the Customs tariff or as to their origin, place of departure or value, must, at the request of the declarant, be at once placed at his disposal without waiting for the solution of the dispute, subject, however, to any measures that may be necessary for safeguarding the interests of the State. It is understood that the refund of the amount deposited in respect of duties or the cancellation of the undertaking given by the declarant shall take place immediately upon the solution of the dispute, which must, in any case, be as speedy as possible.

Article 9. In order to indicate the progress which has been made in all matters relating to the simplification of the Customs and other similar formalities referred to in the preceding Articles, each of the Contracting States shall, within twelve months from the coming into force in its own case of the present Convention, furnish the Secretary-General of the League of Nations with a summary of all the steps which it has taken to effect such simplification.

Similar summaries shall thereafter be furnished every three years and whenever requested by the Council of the League.

Article 10. Samples and specimens which are liable to import duty, and the importation of which is not prohibited, shall, when imported by manufacturers or traders established in any of the Contracting States, either in person or through the agency of commercial travellers, be temporarily admitted free of duty to the territory of each of the Contracting States, subject to the amount of the import duties being deposited or security being given for payment if necessary.

To obtain this privilege, manufacturers or traders and commercial travellers must comply with the relevant laws, regulations and Customs formalities prescribed by the said States; these laws and regulations may require the parties concerned to be provided with an identity card.

For the purpose of the present Article, all objects representative of a specified category of goods shall be considered as samples or specimens, provided, first, that the said articles are such that they can be duly identified on re-exportation, and secondly, that the articles thus imported are not of such quantity or value that, taken as a whole, they no longer constitute samples in the usual sense.

The Customs authorities of any of the Contracting States shall recognise as sufficient for the future identification of the samples or specimens the marks which have been affixed by the Customs authorities of any other Contracting State, provided that the said samples or specimens are accompanied by a descriptive list certified by the Customs authorities of the latter State. Additional marks may, however, be affixed to the samples or specimens by the Customs authorities of the importing country in all cases in which the latter consider this additional guarantee indispensable for ensuring the identification of the samples or specimens on re-exportation. Except in the latter case, Customs verification shall be confined to identifying the samples and deciding the total duties and charges to which they may eventually be liable.

The period allowed for reexportation is fixed at not less than six months, subject to prolongation by the Customs administration of the importing country. When the period of grace has expired, duty shall be payable on samples which have not been re-exported.

The refund of duties paid on importation, or the release of the security for payment of these duties, shall be effected without delay at any of the offices situated at the frontier or in the interior of the country which possess the necessary authority, and subject to the deduction of the duties payable on samples or specimens not produced for re-exportation. The Contracting States shall publish a list of the offices on which the said authority has been conferred.

Where identity cards are required, they must conform to the specimen annexed to this Article and be delivered by an authority designated for this purpose by the State in which the manufacturers or traders have their business headquarters. Subject to reciprocity, no consular or other visa shall be required on identity cards, unless a State shows that such a requirement is rendered necessary by special or exceptional circumstances. When a visa is required, its cost shall be as low as possible and shall not exceed the cost of the service.

The Contracting States shall, as soon as possible, communicate direct to each other, and also to the Secretariat of the League of Nations, a list of the authorities recognised as competent to issue identity cards.

Pending the introduction of the system defined above, facilities at present granted by States shall not be curtailed.

The provisions of the present Article, except those referring to identity cards, shall be applicable to samples and specimens which are liable to import duties and the importation of which is not prohibited, when imported by manufacturers, traders or commercial travellers established in any of the Contracting States, even if not accompanied by the said manufacturers, traders, or commercial travellers.

(Specimen.)

Name of state.

(Issuing Office.)

Identity Card for Commercial Travellers.

Valid for twelve months including the day of issue.

Good for................................................................................................................No. of identity card..................................................

It is hereby certified that the bearer of this card

M.................................................................................................................................., born at..............................................................

living at................................................................................................................ No...................... Street.............................................

is the owner of¹.......................................................................................................................................................................................

at..............................................................................................................................................................................................................

for the purpose of trade..........................................................................................................................................................................

.................................................................................................................................................................................................................

(or) is a commercial traveller employed by the firm of/the firms of....................................................................................................

at...............................................................................................................................................................................................................

which possess¹/possesses.........................................................................................................................................................................

for the purposes of trade..........................................................................................................................................................................

The bearer of this card intends to solicit orders in the above-mentioned countries and to make purchases for the firm(s) referred to. It is hereby certified that the said firm(s) is (are) authorised to carry out its (their) business and trade at..............and that it pays (they pay) the taxes, as provided by law, for that purpose.

................, the............................ 19.......

Signature of the head of the firm(s)

Description of the bearer ...........................................................................................................................................................................

Age.....................................................................................................

Height................................................................................................

Hair....................................................................................................

Special Marks....................................................................................

Signature of the bearer......................................................................

_____________________________

1 State the articles or nature of the trade.

N.B. - The first entry should only be completed for heads of commercial or manufacturing businesses.

Article 11. The Contracting States shall reduce as far as possible the number of cases in which certificates of origin are required.

In accordance with this principle, and subject to the understanding that the Customs Administrations will retain fully the right of verifying the real origin of goods and consequently also the power to demand, in spite of the production of certificates, any other proof they may deem necessary, the Contracting States agree to comply with the following provisions:

1. The Contracting States shall take steps to render as simple and equitable as possible the procedure and formalities connected with the issue and acceptance of certificates of origin, and they shall bring to the notice of the public the cases in which such certificates are required and the conditions on which they are issued.

2. Certificates of origin may be issued not only by the official authorities of the Contracting States, but also by any other organisations which possess the necessary authority and offer the necessary guarantees and are previously approved for this purpose by each of the States concerned. Each Contracting State shall communicate as soon as possible to the Secretariat of the League of Nations a list of organisations which it has designated for the purpose of delivering certificates of origin. Each State retains the right of withdrawing its approval from any organisation which has been so notified to it, if it is shown that such organisation has issued certificates in an improper manner.

3. In cases where goods are not imported direct from the country of origin, but are forwarded through the territory of a third contracting country, the Customs administrations shall accept the certificates of origin drawn up by the approved organisations of the third contracting country, retaining, however, the right to satisfy themselves that such certificates are in order in the same manner as in the case of certificates issued by the country of origin.

4. The Customs administrations shall not require the production of a certificate of origin:

(a) In cases where the person concerned renounces, all claim to the benefit of a regime which depends for application upon the production of such a certificate.

(b) When the nature of the goods clearly establishes their origin, and an agreement on this subject has been previously concluded between the States concerned;

(c) When the goods are accompanied by a certificate to the effect that they are entitled to a regional appellation, provided that this certificate has been issued by an organisation designated for this purpose and approved by the importing State.

5. If the law of their respective countries permits, and subject to reciprocity, Customs administrations shall:

(a) Except in cases where abuse is suspected, dispense with proof of origin in regard to imports which are manifestly not of a commercial nature, or which, although of a commercial nature, are of small value;

(b) Accept certificates of origin issued in respect of goods which are not exported immediately, provided that such goods are despatched within a period of either one month or two months, according as the exporting country and the country of destination are or are not contiguous; this period may be extended, provided that the reasons given for the delay in completing the transport of the goods appear satisfactory.

6. When, for any sufficient reason, the importer is unable to produce a certificate of origin when he imports his goods, the Customs authorities may grant him the period of grace necessary for the production of this document, subject to such conditions as they may judge necessary to guarantee the charges which may eventually be payable. Upon the certificate being subsequently produced, the charges which may have been paid, or the amount paid in excess, shall be refunded at the earliest possible moment.

In applying the above provision, such conditions as may result from the exhaustion of the quantities which may be imported under a rationing system shall be taken into account.

7. Certificates may be in either the language of the importing country or the language of the exporting country, the Customs authorities of the importing country retaining the right to demand a translation in case of doubt as to the effect of the document.

8. Certificates of origin shall not in principle require a consular visa, particularly when they originate from the Customs administrations. If, in exceptional cases, a consular visa is required, the persons concerned may at their discretion submit their certificates of origin either to the Consul of their district or to the Consul of a neighbouring district for a visa. The cost of the visa must be as low as possible, and must not exceed the cost of issue, especially in the case of consignments of small value.

9. The provisions of the present Article shall apply to all documents used as certificates of origin.

Article 12. The documents known as "Consular invoices" will not be required, unless their production is necessary either to establish the origin of the goods imported in cases where the origin may affect the conditions under which the goods are admitted, or to ascer-tain the value of the latter in the case of an ad valorem tariff, for the application of which the commercial invoice would not suffice.

The form of Consular invoices shall be simplified so as to obviate any intricacies or difficulties and to facilitate the drawing up of these documents by the branch of trade concerned.

The cost of a visa for Consular invoices shall be a fixed charge, which should be as low as possible; the number of copies of any single invoice required shall not exceed three.

Article 13. Where the regime applicable to any class of imported goods depends on the fulfilment of particular technical conditions as to their constitution, purity, quality, sanitary condition, district of production, or other similar matters, the Contracting States will endeavour to conclude agreements under which certificates, stamps or marks given or affixed in the exporting country to guarantee the satisfaction of the said conditions will be accepted without the goods being subjected to a second analysis or other test in the country of importation, subject to special guarantees to be taken where there is a presumption that the required conditions are not fulfilled. The importing State should be afforded every guarantee as to the authorities appointed to issue the certificates and the nature and standard of the tests applied in the exporting country. The Customs administrations of the importing State should also retain the right to make a second analysis whenever there are special reasons for doing so.

To facilitate the general adoption of such agreements, it would be useful that they should indicate:

(a) The methods to be uniformly adopted by all laboratories appointed to make analyses or other tests, these methods being open to revision from time to time at the request of one or more of the States parties to such agreements;

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