Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ...inspiration, even if the mere text were presented without the accompanying scale of duties. In one respect it does differ from the United States tariff, and that for the worse, inasmuch as it has no free list worth speaking of. Fresh food, it is true, is free of duty, as are certain fertilisers and medicinal products, otherwise raw materials as well as manufactured articles are required to run the gauntlet of the custom house, and none pass through it unscathed. As far as the import tariff is concerned there are no preferences or differential duties of any sort,--consequently the United States have acted up to their new creed in one respect, though the whole thing is arranged in such a manner as to afford the easiest possible opportunity for a lapse from the faith. The duties, almost universal, are frequently heavy as well, and often graded with that fineness dear to the heart of every American protectionist, the result being that it has required 366 distinct articles, most of them with numerous sub-sections, to embrace the somewhat attenuated complement of goods that the Philippines stand in any urgent need of. There are no manufacturing industries extant, nor for the present the prospect of any, and it might have been supposed that in cotton goods at least, which constitute one of the most urgent requirements, a three, or five, or at the outside ten per cent. ad valorem duty would have had the double advantage of simplicity and cash revenue. Yet not even yarns escape the occidental gradation of counts. The duties begin at 10 cents per kilo. (American currency has been introduced, but the metrical system of weights and measures retained), and go no higher than 25 cents, but the measuring and calculating involved--that is, if yarns are imported...
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