Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/460

 imposed on the French nation by the treaties of November, 1815. Consequently, most of such articles as were admitted free under the French flag, were charged with duty under a foreign one. For goods liable to duty, when imported in French bottoms, the foreign carrying trade was generally mulcted with an additional charge through the instrumentality of a series of differential duties called, respectively, surtaxes de pavillon and surtaxes d'entrepôt.

The surtaxe de pavillon was the additional duty levied on such commodities when arriving under a foreign flag. The surtaxe d'entrepôt was an increase in the rate of duty on the same merchandise, though imported under the French flag, coming from the warehouses of intermediate countries. An example of both these taxes with reference to coffee may be drawn from the tariff of the Finance Law, Article 3, of the 28th of April, 1816; and, by a further decree of the 26th June, 1841, it was laid down, as a general rule, that all goods under a foreign flag should pay the highest rate of duties.

But, although this system of differential duties levied on goods conveyed from their place of production in foreign vessels, was somewhat modified by subsequent decrees and treaties of reciprocity, it remained, practically, in force, or to a considerable extent, up to a very recent period, while the ''droits de tonnage'' levied on foreign ships alone, were not abolished until 1867: these tonnage duties were of the most objectionable and purely protective character, all French vessels being exempted from this