the expense of which this sea-service is performed shall have the right to a payment of the expenses attending this transport.
The members of the Union engage to reduce those expenses as much as possible. The payment which the Office providing the sea-conveyance may claim on this account from the despatching Office shall not exceed 6 francs 50 centimes per kilogramme for letters, and 50 centimes per kilogramme for the articles specified in Article 4, (net weight.)
In no case shall these expenses be higher than these now paid. Consequently, no payment shall be made upon the postal sea routes on which nothing is paid at the present time.
In order to ascertain the weight of the correspondence forwarded in transit, whether in closed mails or in open mails, there shall be taken, at periods which shall be determined upon by common consent, the statistics of such correspondence during two weeks. Until revised, the result of that labor shall serve as the basis of the accounts of the Administrations between themselves.
Each Office may demand a revision,—
- 1st. In case of any important modification in the direction of the correspondence;
- 2d. At the expiration of a year after the date of the last account.
The provisions of the present Article are not applicable to the Indian mail, nor to the mails conveyed across the territory of the United States of America by the railways between New York and San Francisco. Those services shall continue to form the object of special arrangements between the Administrations concerned.
Article 11
The relations of the countries of the Union with countries foreign to the Union shall be regulated by the separate conventions which now exist or which may be concluded between them.
The rates of postage chargeable for the conveyance beyond the limits of the Union shall be determined by those conventions; they shall be added, in such case, to the Union rate.
In conformity with the stipulations of Article 9, the Union rate shall be apportioned in the following manner:
- 1st. The despatching Office of the Union shall keep the whole of the Union rate for the prepaid correspondence addressed to foreign countries.
- 2d. The receiving Office of the Union shall keep the whole of the Union rate for the unpaid correspondence originating in foreign countries.
- 3d. The Office of the Union which exchanges closed mails with foreign countries shall keep the whole of the Union rate for the paid correspondence originating in foreign countries and for the unpaid correspondence addressed to foreign countries.
