CUSTOMS, in political economy, or the duties, toll,
tribute, or tariff, payable to the king upon merchandise
exported and imported, form a branch of the perpetual
taxes. See TAX.
The considerations upon which this revenue (or the
more ancient part of it, which arose only from exports)
was invested in the king, were said to be two: 1. Be-
cause he gave the subject leave to depart the kingdom,
and to carry his goods along with him. 2. Because the
king was bound of common right to maintain and keep
up the port and havens, and to protect the merchant
from pirates. Some have imagined they are called with
us customs, because they were the inheritance of the
king by immemorial usage and the common law, and
not granted him by any statute: but Sir Edward Coke
bath clearly shown, that the king's first claim to them
was by grant of parliament 3 Edw. I. though the re-
cord thereof is not now extant. And indeed this is
in express words confessed by statute 25 Edw. I. c. 7,
wherein the king promises to take no customs from
merchants, without the common assent of the realm,
"saving to us and our heirs the customs on wool,
skins, and leather, formerly granted to us by the
commonalty aforesaid." These were formerly called
hereditary customs of the crown; and were due on the
exportation only of the said three commodities, and
of none other: which were styled the staple commodi-
ties of the kingdom, because they were obliged to be
brought to those ports where the king's staple was
established, in order to be there first rated, and then
exported. They were denominated in the barbarous
Latin of our ancient records, custuma (an appellation
which seems to be derived from the French word costum
or coutum, which signifies toll or tribute, and
owes its own etymology to the word cost, which sig-
nifies price, charge, or as we have adopted it in Eng-
lish, cost); not consuetudines, which is the language of
our law whenever it means merely usages. The du-
ties on wool, sheep-skins or woolfells, and leather ex-
ported, were called custuma antiqua sive magna, and
were payable by every merchant, as well native as
stranger: with this difference, that merchant-stran-
gers paid an additional toll, viz. half as much again as
was paid by natives. The custuma parva et nova were
an impost of 3d. in the pound, due from merchant-
strangers only, for all commodities as well imported as
exported; which was usually called the aliens duty,
and was first granted in 31 Edw. I. But these ancient
hereditary customs, especially those on wool and wool-
fells, came to be of little account, when the nation be-
came sensible of the advantages of a home manufacture,
and prohibited the exportation of wool by statute 11
Edw. III. c. 1.
Other customs payable upon exports and imports
were distinguished into subsidies, tonnage, poundage,
and other imposts. Subsidies were such as were im-
posed by parliament upon any of the staple commodi-
ties before mentioned, over and above the custuma
antiqua et magna: tonnage was a duty upon all wines
imported, over and above the prisage and butlerage
aforesaid: poundage was a duty imposed ad valorem,
at the rate of 12d. in the pound, on all other merchan-
dise whatsoever: and the other imposts were such as
were occasionally laid on by parliament, as circum-
stances and times required. These distinctions are
now in a manner forgotten, except by the officers im-
mediately concerned in this department; their produce
being in effect all blended together, under the one de-
nomination of the customs.
By these we understand, at present, a duty or sub-
sidy paid by the merchants at the quay upon all im-
ported as well as exported commodities, by authority
of parliament; unless where, for particular national
reasons, certain rewards, bounties or drawbacks, are
allowed for particular exports or imports. The cus-
toms thus imposed by parliament are chiefly contain-
ed in two books of rates, set forth by parliamentary
authority; one signed by Sir Harbottle Grimeston,
speaker of the house of commons in Charles II.'s
time; and the other an additional one, signed by Sir
Spencer Compton, speaker in the reign of George I.
to which also subsequent additions have been made.
Aliens pay a larger proportion than natural subjects,
which is what is now generally understood by the aliens
duty; to be exempted from which is one principal
cause of the frequent applications to parliament for
acts of naturalization.
These customs are then, we see, a tax immediately
paid by the merchant, although ultimately by the
consumer. And yet these are the duties felt least by
the people: and if prudently managed, the people
hardly consider that they pay them at all. For the
merchant is easy, being sensible he does not pay them
for himself; and the consumer, who really pays them,
confounds them with the price of the commodity;
in the same manner as Tacitus observes, that the em-
peror Nero gained the reputation of abolishing the
tax of the sale of slaves, though he only transferred it
from the buyer to the seller: so that it was, as he ex-
presses it, remissum magis specie, quam vi: quia cum
venditor pendere juberetur, in partem pretii emptoribus
accrescebat. But this inconvenience attends it on the
other hand, that these imposts, if too heavy, are a
check and cramp upon trade; and especially when the
value of the commodity bears little or no proportion
to the quantity of the duty imposed. This in conse-
quence gives rise also to smuggling, which then be-
comes a very lucrative employment: and its natural
and most reasonable punishment, viz. confiscation of
the commodity, is in such cases quite ineffectual; the
intrinsic value of the goods, which is all that the
smuggler has paid, and therefore all that he can lose,
being very inconsiderable when compared with his
prospect of advantage in evading the duty. Recourse
must therefore be had to extraordinary punishments
to prevent it; perhaps even to capital ones: which
destroys all proportion of punishment, and puts
murderers upon an equal footing with such as are
really guilty of no natural, but merely a positive of-
fence.
There is also another ill consequence attending high
imposts on merchandise, not frequently considered,
but indisputably certain; that the earlier any tax is
laid on a commodity, the heavier it falls upon the
consumer in the end; for every trader, through
whose
whose hands it passes, must have a profit, not only upon the raw materials and his own labour and time in preparing it, but also upon the very tax itself, which he advances to the government; otherwise he loses the use and interest of the money which he so advances. To instance in the article for foreign paper. The merchant pays a duty upon importation, which he does not receive again till he sells the commodity, perhaps at the end of three months. He is therefore equally entitled to a profit upon that duty which he pays at the customhouse, as to a profit upon the original price which he pays to the manufacturer abroad; and considers it accordingly in the price he demands of the stationer. When the stationer sells it again, he requires a profit of the printer or bookseller upon the whole sum advanced by him to the merchants: and the bookseller does not fail to charge the full proportion to the student or ultimate consumer; who therefore does not only pay the original duty, but the profits of these three intermediate traders who have successively advanced it for him. This might be carried much farther in any mechanical, or more complicated, branch of trade.