\Vith these countries the Cnited States stands in marked contrast. Ilere col valorem rates are abundant, hut the provisions of the act are so complex that a separation of rates into two classes only is not practicable, and it has become necessary, as is shown in our statement above given, to add a mixed class. This includes several cases (1) when two articles are named in the same paragraph, one reeek ing an ad valorem and the other a specific tax; (2) where one article receives both forms of tax; (3) rp an article is classed according to value and then receives a specific tax for each class. Other combinations also occur, as where an article is classed accord ing to value and receives a different ad valorem rate in each class, or again when classed accord ing to specific characteristics and taxed at dif ferent ad valorem rates, hut these combinations are classed as ad valorem rates. Specific rates Customs duties are specific and ad valorem, the former being reckoned by the quantity of the goods imported (weight, measure, or num ber), and the latter by the value. Theoretically, the ad valorem duties are the preferable, as they adjust the amount of the burden to the value of the article. But they offer great practical (lifficulties in ascertaining the value of the goods. As the statements of the importers, even when made under oath, arc not accepted as final evi dence as to the value of the goods, a complex machinery for the ascertainment of values is a necessary adjunct to all ad valorem taxes. Hence the preference for specific ditties, which can he imposed readily according to the physical char acteristics of the objects imported. Such spe cific duties fall unequally upon objects of high value and low value in the same class. Thus, if all textiles were taxed 15 cents a square yard, such a tax would lie prohibitive on print cloths, but insignificant upon silks. It is the plaint of the protectionist that specific duties protect only the lower grades of goods from foreign competi tion. The only method of mitigating this is to make a minute division into classes. The greater predominate in the schedules A, C, F, U. and H, but in the others ad valorem and mixed rates prevail.
But if rates be ninny, they are not all equally significant. As indicated above. rates are fixed
in 414 paragraphs of the tariff law, hut many impose several rates, so that neither the number of objects taxed nor the rates of taxation cor respond to the number of paragraphs. The sta stisties of imports deal with individual articles Or closely allied groups. From the figures for 11101 it appears that 78.3 per cent. of the entire customs revenue of the t lifted States was de rived from ten articles or groups. The figures are given in the preceding table, which also em braces the average all valorem rate of taxation, found by comparing the amount of duty collected with the value of the goods imported.
The same concentration of revenue produced upon a few articles of importation is generally observed in other countries. Thus in England in 1901, tobacco and snuff, tea, and spirits produced 90.1 per cent. of the customs revenue, while in the German Empire in 1901, breadstuffs, petro leum, and coffee produced 55.8 per cent. of the customs revenue. The important role of the customs duties in the fiscal arrangements of mod ern States is shown in the following statement: sure, impact, movement, resistance, weight, touch; hardness, roughness, wetness, and their opposites; warmth, heat, cold; pain, tickling, goose-flesh, pricking, tingling, creeping. When, however, the organ is explored, point for point, by mechanical, thermal, and electrical stimuli, it proves to be capable of four sensation qualities, and of four only: pressure, warmth, cold, pain. The so-called sensations of contact, weight, re sistance, touch, smoothness, etc., are really per ceptions, made up of sensations from the skin and from the underlying tissues. Pricking, tin gling, etc., are in all probability circulatory sen sations, aroused by change of blood-flow or blood supply; their organs and mode of excitation are imperfectly known. We shall return to heat and tickling below; we now take up the neous qualities in order.
(1) Pressurc.—If a small point of cork or soft wood be set down firmly upon the skin surface, e.g. on the back of the hand, one of Consult: United States Tariff Law of 1897; Annual Reports of Commerce and Navigation; Statistical Abstracts of the United Kingdom and of the principal foreign countries. See FREE TRADE; TARIFF; Tax.