Article 23. With the view of providing for the technical and administrative expenses which it may incur, the International Commission created by Article 17 may, in its own name, negotiate loans to be exclusively guaranteed by the revenues raised by the said Commission.
The decisions of the Commission dealing with the conclusion of a loan must be come to by a majority of two thirds. It is understood that the Governments represented on the Commission shall not in any case be held as assuming any guarantee, or as contracting any engagement or joint liability (solidarité) with respect to the said loans, unless under special Conventions concluded by them to this effect.
The revenue yielded by the dues specified in paragraph 3 of Article 14 shall bear, as a first charge, the payment of the interest and sinking fund of the said loans, according to agreement with the lenders.
Article 24. At the mouth of the Congo there shall be founded, either on the initiative of the Riverain Powers, or by the intervention of the International Commission, a quarantine establishment for the control of vessels passing out of as well as into the river.
Later on, the Powers will decide whether and on what conditions a sanitary control shall be exercised over vessels engaged in the navigation of the river itself.
Article 25. The provisions of the present Act of Navigation shall remain in force in time of war. Consequently all nations, whether neutral or belligerent, shall always be free, for the purposes of trade, to navigate the Congo, its branches, affluents, and mouths, as well as the territorial waters fronting the embouchure of the river.
Traffic will similarly remain free, despite a state of war, on the roads, railways, lakes, and canals mentioned in Articles 15 and 16.
There will be no exception to this principle except in so far as concerns the transport of articles intended for a belligerent and, in virtue of the law of nations, regarded as contraband of war.
All the works and establishments created in pursuance of the present Act, especially the tax-collecting offices and their treasuries, as well as the permanent service staff of these establishments, shall enjoy the benefits of neutrality (places sous le régime de la neutralité), and shall therefore be respected and protected by belligerents.
Chapter V.—Act of Navigation for the Niger