TARIFF (OF., Fr. tariffe, Fr. tarif, from Sp. tarifa. price-list, rate-book, from Ar, ta'rifa, tariff, notification. inventory. from 'arafa, to know). A schedule of duties or imposts levied upon goods as they pass from one State to an other. A tariff may be levied upon foreign goods: (1) simply as a means of augmenting, the reve nues of a government, in which case it is a form of taxation (see TAX; FREE TRADE) ; or (2) as a means of retaliating upon foreign gov ernments for similar restrictions imposed by them, in which ease it becomes an instrument of warfare serving a temporary purpose and de signed in the end to secure commercial reci procity; or (3) as a means of fostering arti ficially particular industries by protecting them wholly or in part against foreign competition. lice PROTECTION.
1.;E:sIERAL I IISTORY OF TARIFF LEGISLATION. Tariffs for revenue seem to have been usual among the civilized nations of antiquity, Among the Greeks, especially the Athenians, a tariff was regularly resorted to as a means of revenue. This tariff was laid upon both exports and imports, and an additional tax was collected from vessels engaged in foreign traffic for the use of the harbors in which they anchored. The regular export and import duty at Athens was 2 per cent., though in time of war, when the State was in pressing need of large sums of money, it was often considerably aug mented.
• Import and export duties were regularly levied by the Roman State also for revenue. The name for this tax used by the Latin writers is torium, a name applied likewise to transit duties and bridge tolls. In the provinces and in newly conquered countries, duties were collected by Roman officials known as portitores and Dubli caul, and the sums were transmitted to the Ro man treasury. In some cases, however, the central Government, as a particular favor, allowed the subject State to make its own customs laws, stipulating only that Roman citizens should be exempted from paying any duties that might be imposed. In B.C. 60 all portoria were abolished by the Lex CNcilia so far as concerned the ports of Italy; but Julius Cesar soon after restored them. Augustus Cesar still further increased the number of dutiable commodities, and a long list of those which under the later emperors were subject to the payment of a duty is given in the Digest of Justinian. The rate of duty at Rome seems generally to have been 5 per cent., but under the later emperors a duty of per cent. (octava) is mentioned as the ordinary tax on imports.
In the Middle Ages the feudal lords individu ally claimed and exercised the right of imposing transit duties levied on all goods that passed by or through their possessions. Hence, says a
recent writer, "the rivers and high-roads were fairly lined with custom-houses and toll-gates." When feudalism gave way to monarchy and strong central government, the kings transferred to themselves the rights that had previously been exercised by the barons. They, too, erected custom-houses at all their frontiers, and even on the boundaries of their different provinces. So universal did these duties, local a-nd national, become, that every Continental nation was cov ered with a network of customs lines. Various cities also had their local customs duties, of which the octroi collected at the entrance to sev eral cities on the Continent, notably Paris, is a survival.
In England we first hear of a tariff for reve nue under King Ethelred in or about the year 9S0. At that time duties on ships and goods ware levied and ordered to be paid at Billings gate, London. They were first acknowledged as a part of the King's revenue in the reign of Edward I., who received them by regular grant from Parliament, if We may accept the assertion of Sir Edward Coke. quoted by Blackstone. But wool, skins, and leather were taxable at the royal pleasure, these being the 'hereditary customs' of the Crown, known in the law-Latin as custuma (Inagua. Subsequently, under the same King, special duties to lie paid by foreign merchants only were levied (custuma nova), which were protective in thjir 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 IL, reduced to sixpence and again raised to eightpenee, and finally fixed 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 prisa,gc, i.e. of taking from every wine-importing vessel of twenty tuns two tuns for the royal use. This duty was called `tonnage' 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 1V., and their successors, they were given for life, until the reign of Charles 1. 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 perpetual and assigned to the payment of the national debt.