The Danube

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26516, 3 September 1951, Page 6

The Danube

Almost exactly five years ago the Jugoslav Government and the United States Government were at loggerheads over navigation on the Danube. The United States then jhad 167 captured barges and other

Iships on the river; and it tried unsuccessfully to use these vessels as !a lever to induce Russia’s Danubian satellites to agree to freedom of navigation on this important international waterway. Jugoslavia, which then appealed to the United Nations, is now a party to another Danube dispute. But the fortunes of cold war have so altered the situation that Jugoslavia how has an “ unwritten alliance ” with the United States. The other party is Russia, which is in effective control of navigation on the Danube, in spite of Jugoslavia’s strategic grip on the Iron Gate (where the river narrows from nearly a mile to 130 yards).

The Note sent by Jugoslavia to the Danube Commission is* described by cable messages as defiant; but it is evidently not so defiant as to invite war with Russia, and only in war would Jugoslavia’s strategic position be valuable. In peace, the important thing is that Russia commands the obedient votes of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Rumania. Germany and Austria, the other riparian countries, have no voice o.i the new Danube Commission, because peace treaties have not yet been concluded. The Note does, however, again put on record Jugoslavia’s objection to the continued Russian violation of the spirit of international agreements dating back to 1815, when the Congress of Vienna laid it down that the navigation of rivers which crossed and formed the boundaries of more than one State “ should not, in respect of “commerce, be prohibited to any- “ one ” and that police regulations on such rivers should be “ framed "alike for all, and as’favourable as “ possible to the commerce of all

“ nations ”. Tsarist Russia flouted this principle’ in the interests of the new port of Odessa until the Crimean war. After that, international control of the Danube worked fairly well in times of peace. The waterway was improved; and before the last war traffic had grown so that 40 per cent, of Hungary’s trade moved on the Danube and Austria used it for the transport of 1,000,000 tons of goods a year. After the defeat of Germany in 1945, the Western Powers restated the principle of the Congress of Vienna and, in spite of Russian opposition, managed to get a provision in the peace treaties with Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria that “navi-

gation on the Danube shall be

free and open to nationals, vessels of commerce, and goods for all

“ States on a footing of equality in “regard to port and navigational “ charges and conditions for mer- “ chant shipping ”, That was all very well as far as it went; but then the question of the authority to control navigation on the Danube arose. By the 1921 Convention France and the United Kingdom believed they were entitled to continued membership. They were supported in this view by the United States, but were outvoted at a conference at Belgrade in 1948 by the riparian countries (excluding, of course, Germany and Austria). Jugoslavia then voted with Russia, Rumania, Hungary, the Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria. A new commission, not recognised by the Western Powers, was then set up with representation confined to the riparian Powers, with separate authorities for the lower reaches and the Iron Gate section. Jugoslavia, though even then possibly unhappy about. Russian and Rumanian control of the mouth, accepted the new arrangement. But by the time the commission held its first meeting in November, 1949, to draft its rules, the Danubian States were no longer a close corporation. So Jugoslavia was free to protest against the election of a Russian as chairman with extraordinary powers, including the right to appoint all officials, and to negotiate with Governments on behalf of the commission. The Jugoslav News Agency accused the Russians of attempting to “fulfil the previously

“ unrealised desires of Tsarist “diplomacy*’. It was clear enough then that Russia had obtained effective control of the Danube. Political obstacles to East-West trade have reduced the river’s importance as a channel of commerce, and thus lessened the practical.interest of the Western Powers; but Jugoslavia still has a special interest—her deeprooted dislike of Russian control,of an internal transport channel. There does not seem to be much possibility of any change in this situation until Russia and the West are able to reach a general composition of their differences'.