DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 619 



like the cod, the mackerel, and the herrings (including the shad). At that time 

 a comparatively small quantity supplied the demand for fresh fish, and it was 

 easy to more than meet the demand. Now, however, the conditions are en- 

 tirely changed. 



In Appendix A will be found the " official correspondence, opin- 

 ions and decisions," on the subject of frozen fish, the record of which 

 will disclose to your honourable body the vast amount of labour 

 which even one ambiguous phrase in a tariff law throws upon your 

 Treasury Department and its customs officers. Our existing drag-net 

 war-tariff law contains not one only, but hundreds of such phrases, 

 and these are the least of its discreditable, scandalous, and easily 

 remediable imperfections. 



THE PRODUCTS OF AMERICAN FISHERIES EXEMPT FROM DUTY. 



The clause, already quoted from the law of 1883, which exempts 

 from seaport taxation all fish-oils of American fisheries, and " all 

 other articles the produce of such fisheries," has a large bearing on 

 the enquiry made of me by the House. That exemption stands in the 

 law of 1883, as it stood in the Revised Statutes, excepting the imma- 

 terial addition in the former of the word " oils " after '"fish." The 

 exactment is in the law of the 2nd March, 1861, which law secured the 

 freedom of such articles from tariff taxes down to the Eevised Stat- 

 utes. The tariff laws of 1857, and 1846, contain the clause of 1861. 

 The law of 1841 declares that " whale and other fish oils of American 

 fisheries," and all other articles the produce of such fisheries shall be 

 exempt from duty. Before 1841 the clause does not appear in the 

 statutes, and yet a manual issued in New York by Deputy Collector 

 Lyon in 1828, and another in 1832, put down as free : " fisheries of the 

 United States and their territories, all products." 



I also find substantially the same language in two compilations of 

 the tariff laws one by Meyer Moses in 1830, and one by E. D. Ogden 

 in 1840 and still another compilation, in 1828, by " James Campbell, 

 entry clerk, custom house, New- York," in which he enumerates fish 

 of the fisheries of the United States or its Territories, free." Mr. 

 Ogden was for many years chief entry clerk at the port of New 

 York, and a compiler of the revenue laws. In his edition for 1840 

 he cites as authority for the phrase the Acts of 14th July, 1832, 1840, 

 and 1841. The explanation is probably this : The final clause of the 

 first section of Act of 10th August, 1790, levies duties on a plan un- 

 like that now used. It taxes at five per cent, ad valorem certain 

 classes of merchandise, and then rescues from taxation certain speci- 

 fied commodities, " and, generally, all articles of the growth, the 

 product, or manufactures of the United States" The two sentences 

 next to the last in the first section of the law of 27th April, 1816, 

 impose duties " on spermaceti oil of foreign fishing, (and) on whale 

 and other fish oil of foreign fishing." The language in that law, as 

 to the products named, is precisely the same as that used in the pres- 

 ent tariff, with the single substitution in the latter " of American 

 fisheries " for the words " of foreign fishing " in the former. My 

 conclusion is that only the products of foreign fishing having been 

 provided for as dutiable, the products of American fisheries were by 

 a clear implication exempted from duty as the products of the United 

 States. That they were the products of the United States is, it seems 



