Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/184

 in Asia or America was roasted and ground there; but, when merchants attempted to bring it into England as a manufactured article, the claim was refused by the law officers of the Crown. Again, mahogany, cut into veneers, was at first not allowed to be a manufactured article; but this decision was afterwards reversed, and veneers were deemed manufactures. In like manner, ostrich feathers, brought from Africa and manufactured in France, offered a very doubtful case, and was, in fact, left undecided, though the impression was, on the whole, adverse to their admission. Refined sugar was deemed a manufacture; and, thus, while raw sugar, the growth of Brazil or Cuba, could not come in from Holland, it could, when refined, be imported. A recent Act required that refined sugar should not only be the produce, but the growth of the country from which it was imported, thereby causing a new difficulty, and showing that the law discouraged the refining of sugar in Holland, and discouraged it at the place of growth.

Again: it was shown that, from the earliest period, foreign ships which could not carry goods from London to Plymouth, could, nevertheless, carry passengers, as such a trade was not considered by the Customs authorities to be trading coastwise. Nay, it further appeared that foreign vessels could have engaged in the internal trade of the country, there being no legal impediment to prevent a Dutch vessel from plying, either with goods or passengers, between London and Gravesend. The like principle might have prevailed on any of the rivers of the kingdom; but a foreign vessel would not have been allowed to