ARTICLE 6

The commission shall present its report to the two high contracting Parties signed by all the members of the commission.

ARTICLE 7

The commission shall arrive at all its decisions by a majority vote of the five commissioners.

ARTICLE 8

The two high contracting Parties undertake to bear, each on its part, the expenses of the inquiry made by it previously to the assembly of the commission. The expenses incurred by the international commission, after the date of its assembly, in organizing its staff and in conducting the investigations which it will have to make, shall be shared equally by the two Governments.

In witness whereof the undersigned have signed the present declaration and have affixed their seals thereto.

Done in duplicate at St. Petersburg, November 25 (12), 1904. (Signed) CHARLES HARDINGE (Signed) COUNT LAMSDORFF

ADDITIONAL DOCUMENT

Supplementary protocol to the Declaration between Great Britain and Russia relative to the constitution of an international commission of inquiry on the subject of the North Sea incident.-Signed at St. Petersburg, November 12/25, 1904.1

The undersigned have met to-day in the building of the Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs to proceed to the signature of the declaration between the Government of His Britannic Majesty and the Imperial Russian Government, concerning the institution of a commission of inquiry on the subject of the North Sea incident.

After the reading of the respective instruments, found in good and due form, the signature of the said declaration took place in the usual

manner.

In faith of which the undersigned have drawn up the present protocol and attached the seals of their arms.

Done in duplicate at St. Petersburg, November 12 (25), 1904. (L. S.) CHARLES HARDINGE (L. S.) COUNT LAMSDORFF

Translation. For the original French text, see Appendix, p. 615.

THE TAVIGNANO, CAMOUNA AND

GAULOIS CASES

between

FRANCE and ITALY

Findings Reported May 2, 1913

Syllabus

On January 25, 1912, during the Turco-Italian war, the French mail steamer Tavignano was seized by the Italian torpedo boat Fulmine off the coast of Tunis and conducted to Tripoli under suspicion of having on board contraband of war. The suspicion proved to be unwarranted and the vessel was released on the following day.

On the same date, in the same waters, the two Tunisian mahones, Camouna and Gaulois, were fired upon by the Italian torpedo boat Canopo.

The French Government claimed indemnity for these acts from the Italian Government on the ground that the vessels when encountered were within the territorial waters of Tunis and were not, according to international law, subject to either attack or capture. On the other hand, Italy maintained that the acts complained of took place on the high seas and that no rule of international law had been violated.

The cases were submitted to a commission of inquiry by agreements signed April 15 and May 20, 1912.1 The commission made its report on July 23d, but as no definite conclusion was reached a compromis was signed on November 8th2 submitting the case for arbitration to the tribunal in charge of the Carthage and Manouba cases. No decision was rendered by the tribunal, the matter being finally settled out of court by a special agreement dated May 2, 1913, according to the terms of which Italy agreed to pay an indemnity to the French Government of five thousand francs for distribution among the various individuals who had sustained losses.

REPORT OF THE COMMISSION

Report of the commission of inquiry constituted in virtue of the agreement for inquiry signed at Rome between France and Italy, May 20, 1912.-Malte, July 23, 1912.5

The commissioners, after having examined and compared all data gathered both from the documents presented by the two parties

1Post, pp. 417, 419.

Post, p. 421.

5Translation. For the original French text, see Appendix, p. 616.

and from the evidence in the case; after having done the important part, which was the weighing of all this evidence; and after having taken into consideration the degree of uncertainty appertaining thereto, has reached the following conclusions:

I

The evidence and documents presented are not of a nature to permit of determination of the exact geographical points where occurred the various acts which have been submitted to inquiry, but simply of the zones in which they occurred, it being impossible to decide upon an exact point in the zones.

1. Regarding the point where the Tavignano stopped.

This point is within the area of a rectilinear quadrilateral set off by the following four apexes:

The Fulmine, setting out from an indeterminate point in the zone above defined, pursued the mahones, perhaps going out of that zone, in a direction impossible to determine definitely but which was either southeast or southwest by south.

The pursued mahones were located at the following points, which are the centers of inexact circles of half-mile radii:

After this pursuit the Fulmine returned to moor near the Tavignano, at point H, which the commission has chosen as the center of an inexact circle of a half-mile radius.

B. The Canopo cannonaded the Gaulois when that mahone was at a point indicated above and when it (the Canopo) was proceeding in a northerly direction from the point indicated in its log-book by

which point the commission has also adopted as the center of an inexact circle of a half-mile radius.

The commission, after its visit to the localities and after verification in the waters of Zarzis, decided, in reporting, to use for the hydrography, configuration and nature of the coast and neighboring banks the French Hydrographic Service Card No. 4247. The commission recalls the fact that its verification was the object of the procès-verbal of July 15, 1912, which is numbered 68.

The president having read the present report to the commissioners, the report and its conclusions have been unanimously adopted. Done at Malte, in triplicate, July 23, 1912.

Commissioners: GUISEPPE GENOESE ZERBI

SOMBORN

SEGRAVE