CUSTOMS (see also TARIFF). The use of the British term "Customs" is of early origin, and arose as an abbreviated form of "customary" dues. It was anciently used to describe any cus tomary payment, whether to king or church, but in process of time it came to be restricted to taxes on the import or export of commodities. As early as the reign of Richard I. a tax called prise was levied on wine imports. In the Exchequer Statute of 1 266 we find reference made to the yield of the customs duty on wool. The ancient customs were three. There was the grant by Parliament to the Throne of export duties on wool and leather. Then there were the import duties on wine at so much a ton— "tonnage," and at so much a pound on the value of all other goods—"poundage." Poundage at i/- the pound, or 5%, became customary for a long period. In 1303 a charter of Edward I. to alien merchants granted them liberty of trading on payment of certain duties on wine, wool, hides, cloth, etc., known variously as "new customs," "butlerage," "alien duty," or "petty custom." The first complete legal grant of tonnage and poundage imposed by Parliament, extending to English citizens, was in 1373, in the reign of Edward III. This was called, as indeed it was, a "sub sidy" to the sovereign, and after 1373 Parliament renewed the subsidy to each sovereign at the beginning of his reign. Much later we find the Act of Tonnage and Poundage of 1660 (Charles II.) setting out certain scheduled rates of duty—the book of rates —as the figures at which the ad valorem poundage duties were to be assessed. In 1689 the English customs yielded a revenue of £687,188, mainly the produce of the act of 166o, the "Old Sub sidy" as it was called.
In the reign of William III. the system began of mortgaging the customs yield in return for war loans, and many complicated additional dues were exacted; thus in 1698 there was an additional levy on Scottish and coastwise coals. So, in 1702, the yield of the customs rose to 11,285,605. Further heavy additions were made under Queen Anne, and in 1714 the yield was
In 1751, in the reign of George II., a competent authority, quoted by Pittar in his history of the Customs Tariffs, wrote : "What a maze our mer chants must be in . . . Can we wonder at the decay of our commerce . . . should we not wonder that we have any left?" In 1784 the complexities had become so great that a consignment of 2,000 ells of Russian linen paid duty under ten different heads to the tune of £69 17s. od., and this sum was earmarked in detail and painfully divided up amongst many different public funds. In 1785 a committee of public accounts investigated 68 cumbrous heads of customs, in addition to five plantation duties, and di rected attention to "the intricacy and perplexity that involve the collection of accounts." As a result Pitt, in 1787, consolidated the customs into single rates for each article, and enacted that all their produce should be paid into a single account to be called the "Consolidated Fund." Nevertheless, the Customs Rate Book of 1787 was a formidable compilation, and the regulations remained numerous and complicated; a shipmaster could not tackle them without expert aid. In 1793 came the war with France and heavy customs increases, and in 1798 convoy duties were enacted to pay for naval protection. Until the unions with Scotland and Ireland, there were vexatious customs duties against Scottish and Irish imports which greatly impaired trade with those countries; William III., for example, was moved to use the customs to dis courage the Irish in the woollen manufacture while permitting them to trade with England in linens. Ireland, although a pas toral country, might not export her cattle or produce to England.
In 1801, the United Kingdom had no less than 1,50o specific rates of customs duty, and each article imported bore four different rates; a hundredweight of copper had to pay 12 5s. 8d. on importation. In 1826, and again in 1833, there were codifications, but excessive restrictions and prohibitions remained until 1842, when Sir Robert Peel began his great reforms, sweeping away many imposts and simplifying others. The customs tariff of 1842 reduced the import taxes on raw materials to rates not exceeding 5%, and those on manuf a c tures to rates not exceeding 20%. Then followed the Free Trade Acts of 1845 and 1846, which cancelled hundreds of duties, virtu ally repealed the Corn Laws, and gave free entry to animals, meat and vegetables. By his budget of 186o, Mr. Gladstone re duced the customs tariff, for practical purposes, to a revenue tariff on a few articles not produced in the United Kingdom, and the customs duties thus ceased to have any protective effect. The duties were reduced to 26 denominations, of which ten, viz., those on beer, cards, chicory, dice, spruce, hops, malt, paper, vinegar and plate were solely imposed as countervailing duties to balance excise revenue taxes on the like articles produced at home.
Thus the British customs sys tem became a very simple one, used for revenue purposes, and so it remained until the World War, when (1915-16) import duties were imposed on a few imported luxuries, which, not being countervailed by excise duties, had a certain protective effect. Mr. McKenna, the chancellor of the exchequer who imposed these duties, chose cinematograph films, clocks and watches, pleasure motor-vehicles, and musical instruments for his purpose as proper articles upon which to levy sumptuary taxes, and these war time customs duties came to be called the "McKenna duties." In 1924, the Labour Government, in its brief tenure of office, repealed these duties, notwithstanding their incidence upon wealth, in the cause of Free Trade, but Mr. Churchill reimposed them in 1925, and in addition imposed a sumptuary customs duty on silk and artificial silk largely countervailed by an excise duty. The policy of safeguarding "key" and other industries also led, after the war. to the enactment of the safeguarding of industries act, 1921, which scheduled certain groups of articles as "key" or indis pensable industries to be chargeable to customs duty at 33% ad valorem; these were optical glass, optical instruments, scien tific glassware, laboratory porcelain, scientific instruments, meas uring instruments of precision, certain compounds (not ores or minerals) of the rare metals, and certain chemicals. Few as these classifications seem, they cover in practice thousands of articles, and fill an official book of 68 pages. The safeguarding of in dustries act also made dutiable competing imports in cases in which it could be demonstrated by official enquiry that home in dustries were unfairly competed with through foreign currency depreciation, subsidies, or inferior labour conditions. Under this provision, lace, embroidery, gas mantles, leather and fabric gloves, cutlery, packing and wrapping paper, tableware and translucent pottery were made dutiable. So the British import duties grew again, but by far the greater part of the British cus toms tariff in 1928 was levied for revenue purposes only. (See
