Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/60

* TARIFF. 40 TARIFF. pleasure, these being tlie 'hereditary customs' of the Crown, known in the hiw-Latin as custuma antiqua. Subsetjuently. under the same King, special duties to be paid by foreign merchants only were levied (custuma novu), which were protective in the'ir nature and not merely for revenue. The duty on ordinary goods in this reign was sixpence in the pound, which was raised to one shilling (5 per cent.) under Rich- ard II., reduced to si.pence and again raised to eightpence, and finally fi.xed at the shilling rate, where it remained as late as the ninth year of the reign of William III. (1697). The King also had the right of prisage, i.e. of taking from every wine-importing vessel of twenty tuns two tuns for the royal use. This duty was called 'tunnage' to distinguish it from the other duties called 'foundage.' Customs duties were originally granted 'for the defense of the realm,' and espe- cially for the protection of traffic on the high seas, and were at first given for a fixed period. To Henry VI., Edward IV., and their successors, they were given for life, until the reign of Charles I. whose unconstitutional levy of these duties without grant of Parliament formed one of the grievances against him. On the restora- tion of Charles II. the duties were again granted for life, and under William and Mary they were made jierpetual and assigned to the paj'ment of the national debt. From an early period it was the custom in England to base tariff duties upon official valu- ations of imports and exports. A 'book of rates' containing such valuations is known to have been printed in 1.t45. The struggle between the first Stuarts and Parliament over questions of taxation was precipitated by the arbitrary action of James I. in raising the official rates without the consent of Parliament. In 1642 the latter body itself issued a book of rates without the assent of the sovereign. After the Restoration a new book of rates was issued in 1668 with the assent of both authorities. This enumerated as man}' as 212 articles for taxation 'outward' (i.e. export duties) and 1139 articles for im- port duties. Official valuations continued to be the basis for tariff purposes all through the eighteenth century, and this is one circumstance which makes it difficult to estimate correctly the value of England's exports and imports dur- ing that period. Another confusing practice which prevailed until as late a date as 1787 was that of assigning the proceeds from the duties on imports and exports to a variety of different purposes or 'funds.' As a consequence it was often very ditlieult even for customs officials to determine what was the aggregate rate to which a particular article was subject. Pitt's Customs Consolidation Act of 1787 did away with the separate funds by assigning all revenue from du- ties to the 'consolidated fund.' In this act some 1200 articles were rated for import duties and 50 for export duties. Another important achieve- ment of Pitt's Ministry was the negotiation of a commercial treaty with France (1786) which went far toward freeing trade between the two countries from the restrictions by which it had long been hampered. The struggle a,gain.st Na- poleon caused the abrogation of this treaty, but it is no exa,cgeration to describe it as the first definite step in the direction of that free trade policy which England was to adopt some sixty years later. The next simplifications of the Eng- lish tariff were those etlected by Huskisson ia 1824 and 1825, which consolidated some 450 trade and tariff acts into eleven and reduced the rates of duty on many articles, particularly exports. One of the most important results of the long struggle for the abolition of the Corn Laws (q.v. ) was to simplify still further the English tariff. From 1842 to 1846, 390 duties, including all tho.se on exports, were abolished and 503 were reduced; in 1846, 54 were abolished and 112 were reduced; in 1853, 123 were abolished, and finally, in I860, 371 more were abolished and virtual free trade was achieved. An important incident of the latter year was the negotiation with France of a new commercial treaty which lowered the duty on wine and placed such im- portant French products as silks, gloves, etc., on the free list. For both countries the treaty marked a long step in the direction of free trade, but in the case of France the policy appears to have lacked the support of public opinion and was followed after the Franco- Prussian War by a reaction toward protection. Tlie reduction and abolition of duties continued in England after 1800, the ne.xt important change being the placing of sugar on the free list at a sacrifice of some £6,000,000 revenue in 1872. On the outbreak of the Boer War the English tariff' included only nine principal items, cocoa, coffee, chicory, dried fruit, tea, tobacco, wine, beer, and spirits. The extraordinary reve- nue required in connection with that struggle led to the restoration of the duty on sugar, to the imposition of an export duty on coal, and finally to the restoration of light registration duties on grain and flour (3d. and 5d. per cwt. respec- tively). In the tariff history of France the two com- mercial treaties with Great Britain that have been referred to stand out as prominent features. Down to the time of the first (1786) the tariff' policy of the countr.v had been dictated by ex- treme mercantilist views of trade. The importa- tion of many commodities was prohibited alto- gether, while others were admitted only on pay- ment of high duties. Nor was the tariff confined to foreign trade. Each petty province of France had its system of duties, with the result that it was not xmusual for the prices of even such com- mon articles as the grains and salt to differ by 100 per cent, or more on the same day in differ- ent parts of the country. It required nothing less than the Revolution (decree of 1790) to free the land from these restrictions on internal trade. The bitter national hostilities which grew out of the Revolution and the brilliant years of Napoleon's ascendency effectually stifled the aspirations for freer trade which ushered in the period. From 1815 until the negotiation of the second commercial treaty with Great Britain in 1860, the tariff policy of France was highly protectionist. The latter treat.v was one of the fruits of the Anglomania of Napoleon III. and was followed by treaties drafted on equallv lib- eral lines with the more important Continental States of Europe, including the German Zoll- verein (1865). These reduced the rates of duty on French imports to from 10 to 15 per cent, ad- valorem. The same liberal policy was continued substantially until 1881, when an act was passed substituting specific for ad valorem, duties and