ANNEX

Organic By-Laws of the International Office of Public Hygiene.

Article I. There is established in Paris an International Office of Public Hygiene under the States which accept participation in its operation.

Art. II. The Office cannot in any way meddle in the administration of the several States.

It is independent of the authorities of the country in which it is placed. It corresponds directly with the higher health authorities of the several countries and with the Boards of Health.

Art. III. The Government of the French Republic shall, on the application of the International Committee referred to in Article VI, take such steps as may be requisite to have the Office recognized as an institution of public utility.

Art. IV. The main object of the Office is to collect and bring to the knowledge of the participating States facts and documents of a general character concerning public health and especially regarding infectious diseases, notably the cholera, plague and yellow fever, as well as the measures taken to check these diseases.

Art. V. The Government shall inform the Office of the measures taken by them toward the enforcement of the international sanitary conventions. Art. VI. The Office is placed under the authority and supervision of an International Committee consisting of technical representatives designated by the participating States in the proportion of one representative for each State.

Each State is allowed a number of votes inversely proportioned to the number of the class to which it belongs as regards its participation in the expenses of the Office. (See Article XI.)

Art. VII. The Committee of the Office meets periodically at least once a year; the length of its session is unlimited.

The members of the Committee elect, by secret ballot, a chairman whose term of office shall be three years.

Art. VIII. The business of the office is conducted by a salaried staff including:

A Director;

A Secretary General,

such forces as may be necessary to perform the work of the Office.

The personnel of the Office shall not be permitted to fill any other salaried office.

The Director and Secretary General shall be appointed by the Committee.

The Director shall attend the meetings of the Committee in an advisory capacity.

The appointment and dismissal of employés of all classes appertain to the Director and shall be reported by him to the Committee.

Art. IX. The information collected by the Office shall be brought to the knowledge of the particular States by means of a Bulletin or of special communications addressed to them either in regular course or at their request.

In addition, the Office shall show periodically the results of its labors in official reports to be communicated to the participating Governments. Art. X. The Bulletin, which shall be issued at least once a month, shall include especially:

1. The laws and general or local regulations promulgated in the several countries in regard to contagious diseases;

2. Information concerning the progress of infectious diseases;

3. Information concerning the work done or measures taken toward the sanitation of localities.

4. Statistics concerning public health.

5. Notices of publications.

The official language of the Office and Bulletin shall be the French language. The Committee may order parts of the Bulletin to be printed in other languages.

Art. XI. The expenses necessary for the performance of the duties of the Office, estimated at 150,000 francs per annum, shall be defrayed by the States signatory to the Convention, their quotas being determined according to the following classes:

First Class: Brazil, Spain, The United States, France, Great Britain, British India, Italy, Russia, at the rate of 25 units;

Second class, at the rate of 20 units;

Third class, Belgium, Egypt, the Netherlands, at the rate of 15 units; Fourth class, Switzerland, at the rate of 10 units;

Fifth class, at the rate of 5 units;

Sixth class, at the rate of three units.

This sum of 150,000 francs cannot be exceeded except by consent of the signatory Powers.

Every State is at liberty to have itself entered in a higher class at some future time.

The States that may hereafter adhere to the Convention shall select the class in which they wish to be entered.

Art. XII. A sum intended to form a reserve fund shall be taken from the annual resources. The total sum of said reserve, which cannot exceed the amount of the annual budget, shall be invested in first class State securities.

Art. XIII. The members of the Committee shall receive, out of the working funds of the Office, an allowance for traveling and other expenses. They shall also receive an attendance counter for each meeting which they attend.

Art. XIV. The Committee shall fix the amount to be set aside annu

ally from its budget for a fund intended to secure a retirement pension for the Office force.

Art. XV. The Committee shall draw up its annual estimates and shall approve the account of expenditures. It shall make the organic regulations governing the personnel, as well as the arrangements necessary for the performance of the duties of the office.

The regulations as well as the arrangements shall be reported by the Committee to the participant States and cannot be modified without their assent.

Art. XVI. A statement of the financial management of the Office shall be submitted annually to the participant States at the close of the fiscal year.

(Signatures) 35

35 Senate Documents, 2d Session, 61st Congress, 48, 2216.

CHAPTER IV

THE UNIVERSAL POSTAL UNION

The Persians back in the time of Cyrus had the first postal service that we have any account of. Augustus established posts in the Roman Empire and the Great Kahn, according to Marco Polo, had a very efficient system in China when he visited it. The Peruvians under the Incas, though without a written language, transmitted dispatches throughout the empire by postrunners carrying orders and information expressed in the quipu by threads of various lengths and colors, knotted and combined in various ways. Along their great highways at intervals were stations for the accommodation of the runners carrying dispatches. The old Manchu Code of China required the carriers of dispatches to proceed at the rate of 300 lee in a day and night on pain of blows with the bamboo increasing in number with each hour of delay. The beginning of the postal system in England is assigned to the year 1481, when relays of riders and post horses were established to carry news. The first chief postmaster of England was appointed by Queen Elizabeth in 1581.3

The development of the postal service started and continued in each country separately until the year 1817, when a postal convention was entered into by the governments of The Netherlands and France, which appears to be the first treaty of the kind. After that, from time to time and after quite long intervals, other similar treaties were made by European states. The first treaty for the establishment of a general postal union was concluded at Berne on October 9, 1874, between the following nations: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, Spain, United States, France, Great 1 Prescott, Conquest of Peru, 1-88.

2 Penal Code of China, Sec. 238. 3 Bridgman, World Law, 17.

Britain, Greece, Italy, Luxemburg, The Netherlands, Portugal, Rumania, Russia, Servia, Sweden & Norway, Switzerland and Turkey. Afterward by subsequent conventions the union was enlarged and after it had become general a revised convention was concluded at Washington June 15, 1897. Another convention was signed at Rome, May 26, 1906, which included The United States and its island possessions,. Argentine Republic, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Colombia, Kongo, Korea, Costa Rica, Crete, Cuba, Denmark and its colonies, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ecuador, Spain and its colonies, Ethiopia, France and its colonies and dependencies, Great Britain and its colonies and dependencies, including India, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa, Greece, Guatemala, Hayti, Honduras, Hungary, Italy and its colonies, Japan, Liberia, Luxemburg, Mexico, Montenegro, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, The Netherlands, and its colonies, Peru, Persia, Portugal and its colonies, Roumania, Russia, Salvador, Servia, Siam, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunis, Turkey, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The text of the convention is as follows:

UNIVERSAL POSTAL CONVENTION

Article 1. Definition of the Postal Union.

The countries between which the present convention is concluded, as well as those which may adhere to it hereafter, form, under the title of Universal Postal Union, a single postal territory for the reciprocal exchange of correspondence between their post offices.

Article 2. Articles to which the Convention applies.

The stipulations of this Convention extend to letters, post cards, both single and with reply paid, printed papers of every kind, commercial papers, and samples of merchandise originating in one of the countries of the union and intended for another of those countries. They also apply to the exchange by mail of the articles above mentioned between the countries of the union and countries foreign to the union, whenever the services of two of the contracting parties at least are used for that exchange.

Article 3. Conveyance of mails between contiguous countries; third services.

1. The postal administrations of contiguous countries, or countries able to correspond directly with each other without availing themselves of the services of a third administration, determine, by common consent,