34 Vegetable Materials for Cordage, &c. 
: 
fibre of the “sun-plant” for rope makers ; and a question arose on 
the duties to be charged on each. Mr. F. said that in importing 
them, he had been influenced by the edition of the tariff law of 
1828, republished in that year by two clerks of the custom house, 
and revised by the late collector, in which the duty on coir rope, 
is charged at 15 per cent. ad valorem; and the “sun-plant” not 
being mentioned at all, he concluded that the duty would be the same 
as on the other “ non-enumerated articles,” viz. 15 per cent. Tt was 
however determined to charge the coir at the same rate as that paid 
hy imported hempen cordage, viz. five cents per pound, and Mr. F. 
accordingly paid that duty. Sometime after, another parcel of coir 
rope was imported into Boston, and the owners resisting the attempt 
to class it with foreign hempen cordage, the collector finally assented 
to their construction of the tariff law. The extra duty, therefore, 
which had been paid by Mr. F’., amounting to seven hundred and 
seventy five dollars, was refunded to him. With respect to the sun- 
plant fibre, the question was, whether it should be charged with the 
duty of imported hemp, which was fifty dollars per ton, or be classed 
with the non-enumerated articles, paying an ad valorem duty of 15 
per cent. and which, in the case of the sun-plant fibre, would lower 
the duty to nine dollars and ninety cents per ton. This last sum was 
finally fixed on. The decision of the Boston collector as to the 
coir, and that of the Philadelphia collector on the sun fibre, were 
in strict accordance with justice, propriety and reason; for the 
framers of the tariff law of 1828, when fixing the high rates on im- 
ported cordage and hemp, had alone in view, the hemp of Europe, 
(Cannabis sativa,) and cordage made from it, never dreaming of any 
other material for cordage than that yielded by this vegetable. The 
officers of the customs, therefore, might with as much propriety have 
classed a cargo of Paraguay tea (maté) with some of the varieties 
of green or black tea of China, and charged the duty accordingly, 
merely because the daily beverage is prepared for millions of peo- 
ple in South America, from one of these vegetables, and from the 
others in China, Europe and North America, as to equalize the duties 
on two articles made from substances so opposite in their natures, as 
the coco-nut husk strings and the hemp fibre. The same remark 
is applicable to the hemp and sun-plant. It would have been quite 
as unreasonable to charge at the same rate, two raw materials, such 
as hemp and the fibres of the sun-plant, which are the produce of 
