Page:Neutralterritory00hoch.djvu/14

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This disposition is defective, inasmuch as it does not explain that, on arriving at the upper part of the western limit of the canton of Eupen, the frontier should be inflected to the right to join the line which intersects the boundary of this canton; and also because it expressly provides that the line leading from the upper extremity of the western boundary of the canton of Eupen should leave on the right a small portion of the canton of Aubel, without stating that this part of the canton had already been adjudged to Prussia.

It is evident that the diplomatists who drew up the act at Vienna were unfortunate in their maps of reference, which the commissioners of Holland and Prussia fully realized when they visited the ground to trace the frontiers of their respective countries. Prussia adhered to Article 66, and Holland to Article 25.

The commissioners not being able to agree, nor the two governments which they represented, it resulted in a provisional arrangement, entered into June 25, 1815, which prescribed that "the line of demarcation shall remain undetermined, the commissioners not being of accord as to the manner in which a division shall be made of the small part of the canton of Aubel, which, according to the treaty of May 31st and other acts of the Congress of Vienna, should belong to Prussia. This difference of opinion shall be submitted to the two governments, who shall take such measures to decide it as they shall deem wise. Awaiting this decision [which has never been made], the provisional frontier of the commune of Moresnet shall be so formed that the part of it lying at the left of a straight line from the point of contact of the three cantons to that of the three departments shall belong under all circumstances to Holland; that the portion situated at the right of the limits of the canton of Eupen in a direct line from south to north to the point of contact of the three departments shall belong indisputably to Prussia; and, finally, that the part of the said commune situated between the two lines, being the only part which can be reasonably contested,