ARTICLE 323.—Germany undertakes to make no discrimination or preference, direct or indirect, in the duties, charges, and prohibitions relating to importations into or exportations from her territories, or, subject to the special engagements contained in the present treaty, in the charges and conditions of transport of goods or persons entering or leaving her territories, based on the frontier crossed; or on the kind, ownership, or flag of the means of transport (including aircraft) employed; or on the original or immediate place of departure of the vessel, wagon, or aircraft or other means of transport employed, or its ultimate or intermediate destination; or on the route of or places of transshipment on the journey; or on whether any port through which the goods are imported or exported is a German port or a port belonging to any foreign country or on whether the goods are imported or exported by sea, by land, or by air.
Germany particularly undertakes not to establish against the ports and vessels of any of the Allied and Associated Powers any surtax or any direct or indirect bounty for export or import by German ports of vessels, or by those of another power, for example by means of combined tariffs. She further undertakes that persons or goods passing through a port or using a vessel of any of the Allied and Associated Powers shall not be subjected to any formality or delay whatever to which such persons or goods would not be subjected if they passed through a German port or a port of any other power, or used a German vessel or a vessel of any other power.
ARTICLE 324.—All necessary administrative and technical measures shall be taken to shorten, as much as possible, the transmission of goods across the German frontiers and to insure their forwarding and transport from such frontiers, irrespective of whether such goods are coming from or going to the territories of the Allied and Associated Powers or are in transit from or to those territories, under the same material conditions in such matters as rapidity of carriage and care en route as are enjoyed by other goods of the same kind carried on German territory under similar conditions of transport.
In particular, the transport of perishable goods shall be promptly and regularly carried out, and the customs formalities shall be effected in such a way as to allow the goods to be carried straight through by trains which make connection.
ARTICLE 325.—The seaports of the Allied and Associated Powers are entitled to all favors and to all reduced tariffs granted on German railways or navigable waterways for the benefit of German ports or of any port of another power.
ARTICLE 326.—Germany may not refuse to participate in the tariffs or combinations of tariffs intended to secure for ports of any of the Allied and Associated Powers advantages similar to those granted by Germany to her own ports or the ports of any other power.
SECTION II.—Navigation
CHAPTER I.—FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION
ARTICLE 327.—The nationals of any of the Allied and Associated Powers as well as their vessels and property shall enjoy in all German ports and in the inland navigation routes of Germany, the same treatment in all respects as German nationals, vessels and property.
In particular the vessels of any one of the Allied or Associated Powers shall be entitled to transport goods of any description, and passengers, to or from any ports or places in German territory to which German vessels may have access, under conditions which shall not be more onerous than those applied in the case of national vessels; they shall be treated on a footing of equality with national vessels as regards port and harbor facilities and charges of every description, including facilities for stationing, loading and unloading, and duties and charges of tonnage, harbor, pilotage, lighthouse, quarantine, and all analogous duties and charges of whatsoever nature, levied in the name of or for the profit of the Government, public functionaries, private individuals, corporations or establishments of any kind.