The employees shall be appointed by the director.

The director shall have a right to take part in the deliberations of the committee.

Art. 18. The director of the bureau shall have access to the place of deposit of the international prototypes of the meter and the kilogram only in pursuance of a resolution of the committee and in the presence of two of its members.

The place of deposit of the prototypes shall be opened only by means of three keys, one of which shall be in possession of the director of the archives of France, the second in that of the chairman of the committee, and the third in that of the director of the bureau.

The standards of the class of national prototypes alone shall be used for the ordinary comparing work of the bureau.

Art. 19. The director of the bureau shall annually furnish to the committee: 1st. A financial report concerning the accounts of the preceding year, which shall be examined, and, if found correct, a certificate to that effect shall be given him; 2d. A report on the condition of the apparatus; 3d. A general report concerning the work accomplished during the course of the year just closed.

The international committee shall make to each of the governments of the high contracting parties an annual report concerning all its scientific, technical, and administrative operations, and concerning those of the bureau. The chairman of the committee shall make a report to the general conference concerning the work that has been accomplished since its last session.

The reports and publications of the committee shall be in the French language. They shall be printed and furnished to the governments of the high contracting parties.

Art. 20. The contributions referred to in article 9 of the convention shall be paid according to the following scale:

The number representing the population, expressed in millions, shall be multiplied by the coefficient three for states in which the use of the metrical system is obligatory;

by the coefficient of two for those in which it is optional;

by the coefficient one for other states.

The sum of the products thus obtained will furnish the number of units by which the total expense is to be divided. The quotient will give the amount of the unit of expense.

Art. 21. The expense of constructing the international prototypes, and the standards and test copies which are to accompany them, shall be defrayed by the high contracting parties in accordance with the scale fixed in the foregoing article.

The amounts to be paid for the comparison and verification of standards required by states not represented at this convention shall be regu

lated by the committee in conformity with the rates fixed in virtue of article 15 of the regulations.

Art. 22. These regulations shall have the same force and value as the convention to which they are annexed.

(Signatures).4

The parties to the foregoing convention are the United States, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Brazil, Argentine Confederation, Denmark, Spain, France, Italy, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Sweden and Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, and Venezuela. It will be observed that all of the principal nations of Europe, except Great Britain, joined it and also the leading nations of North and South America. Neither of the strictly Asiatic nations is a party to it. Dealing with a single subject on which uniformity among all the nations is desirable, it was a pioneer in the establishment of international law by a conference of plenipotentiaries appointed for the sole purpose of providing permanent standards of weights and measures by which the standards in use in the different countries might be tested. The international bureau established at Paris pursuant to this convention appears to be a permanent institution affording uniform standards for all countries desiring to make use of the metric system. It exercises an international governmental function under a written fundamental law defining its powers and duties. It appears to be the first international bureau ever established by a large number of nations with continuing powers and designed to be permanent. It follows the democratic plan of deciding questions by a majority vote, each country having but one vote, whether great or small. It is supported by contributions from all the states which have joined in its organization and is open to all other nations which desire to become parties to the convention, who are permitted to join on exactly the same basis as the original parties. This most just and enlightened method of bringing about general agreements among all the nations with reference to matters of general concern has since been followed in most of the great international conventions.

On March 20, 1883, a Convention for International Protec4 Senate Documents, 2d Session, 61st Congress, 48, 1924 to 1935.

tion of Industrial Property was concluded at Paris by representatives of Belgium, Brazil, Spain, France, Guatemala, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Salvador, Servia and Switzerland, which was adhered to and proclaimed by the United States on June 11, 1887. The main purpose of this Convention is expressed in the second article as follows:

"Article II. The subjects or citizens of each of the contracting States shall enjoy, in all the other states of the Union, so far as concerns patents for inventions, trade or commercial marks, and the commercial name, the advantages that the respective laws thereof at present accord, or shall afterwards accord to subjects or citizens. In consequence they shall have the same protection as the latter, and the same legal recourse against all infringements of their rights, under reserve of complying with the formalities and conditions imposed upon subjects or citizens by the democratic legislation of each State."

The first article provides that the States named “have constituted themselves into a state of Union for the protection of Industrial Property," and in the sixteenth article it is provided that: "The States that have not taken part in the present convention shall be admitted to adhere to the same upon their application. This adhesion shall be notified through the diplomatic channel to the Government of the Swiss Confederation and by the latter to all the others. It shall convey of full right, accession to all the clauses and admission to all the advantages stipulated by the present convention. Subsequent conventions relating to the same subject were entered into at Madrid on April 15, 1891, and at Brussels on December 14, 1900. Fifteen nations participated in framing the Convention of Brussels, which modifies the prior ones in some particulars but in the direction of more extended and better application of its provisions to effectuate its main purposes. Very many separate treaties had been entered into concerning the subjects of trademarks and patents and the evident advantages of a uni5 Senate Documents, 2d Session, 61st Congress, 48-1935.

6 Id. 1943.

7 Id. 1945.

form act covering the subject as between all the nations induced the making of these conventions.

On March 14, 1884, a Convention for the Protection of Submarine Cables was entered into at Paris by twenty-seven Nations including most of the leading ones with a provision for the adhesion of the others. The purpose of it was to permit the laying of Cables across the Oceans over which neither of the nations had sovereignty by securing the joint consent of all of them, and to provide for their protection after laying. Subsequent agreements and protocols with reference to it were entered into on December 1, 1886;10 May 21, 1886;11 and July 7, 1887.12 In order to confer the right to lay and maintain these cables international legislation was necessary, because so much of a cable as was not within a marine league of the shore was beyond the jurisdiction of any nation.

When the first cables were laid there seems to have been little if any consideration given to the broad international aspect of the right to lay and maintain a cable on the bed of the ocean. The promoters of the first cable lines appear to have been satisfied with the permission of the governments of the countries owning the shores to land their cables. The first submarine cable that was successfully established was from Dover to Ostend, November 1, 1852. After several unsuccessful attempts to connect Europe and America by a cable across the Atlantic, communication was established in 1858 and messages of congratulation were exchanged between Queen Victoria and President Buchanan, but the line ceased to work in a few weeks. On July 27, 1866, permanent communication by cable was established, and President Johnson in his annual message to Congress said "The entire success of the Atlantic telegraph between the coast of Ireland and the Province of Newfoundland is an achievement which has been

8 All these conventions relating to industrial property have been superseded by that of June 2, 1911, which is copied below in full.

9 Id. 1949.

10 Id. 1956.

11 Id. 1957.

12 Id. 1858.

justly celebrated in both hemispheres as the opening of an era in the progress of civilization."13 A French cable was landed in July, 1869, from Havre to Canso, and a cable from Ireland to Rye, New Hampshire, was completed in 1875. It having been fully demonstrated that communication by cable laid under the ocean was not merely practicable but commercially profitable other projects were started. This led to a consideration of questions as to the value of a franchise which merely allowed the landing of a cable by the governments controlling the termini but having no more right to the bed of the sea than any other government. A valid franchise to maintain an ocean cable required the consent of all the nations. To meet this situation an international conference was called and the following convention was signed by plenipotentiaries of the United States, Germany, the Argentine Confederation, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Brazil, Costa Rica, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Spain, Colombia, France, Great Britain, Guatemala, Greece, Italy, Turkey, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Persia, Portugal, Roumania, Russia, Salvador, Servia, Sweden and Norway, and Uruguay.

CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF SUBMARINE CABLES

Article I. The present Convention shall be applicable, outside of the territorial waters, to all legally established submarine cables landed in the territories, colonies or possessions of one or more of the High Contracting Parties.

Art. II. The breaking or injury of a submarine cable, done wilfully or through culpable negligence, and resulting in the total or partial interruption or embarrassment of telegraphic communication, shall be a punishable offense, but the punishment inflicted shall be no bar to a civil action for damages.

This provision shall not apply to ruptures or injuries when the parties guilty thereof have become so simply with the legitimate object of saving their lives or their vessels, after having taken all necessary precautions to avoid such ruptures or injuries.

Art. III. The High Contracting Parties agree to insist, as far as possible, when they shall authorize the landing of a submarine cable, upon suitable conditions of safety, both as regards the track of the cable and its dimensions.

13 Messages and Papers of the Presidents, V. 3652.