122 F. 538 | 3rd Cir. | 1903
This case involves the classification under the tariff law of tungsten ores. Such ores are found in various parts of Europe, South America, and the United States. Their primary extracted product, taking the form of tungstate of soda, is used as a mordant in dyeing cloth and for various other commercial purposes. Another of their extracted products is used to make high-grade steel, and imparts thereto extreme hardness, density, weight, and durability. The proofs in this case (and in that they are confirmed by standard authorities on metallurgy and chemistry) show that the ore does not contain particles of metal, but these are obtained by chemical treatment. The powdered ore is treated with soda and some- saltpeter in a reverbatory furnace. The melted material is subjected to acid, and on evaporation, crystallizes into tungstate of soda. On adding muriatic acid to the latter, tungstic acid is precipitated. By igniting tungstic acid with charcoal or in a current of hydrogen, metallic tungsten can be obtained, in the form of a powder. Tungsten iron or ferro-tungsten is made from tungsten or wolframate by roasting it, freeing it from sulphur and arsenic by treatment with muriatic acid, and strongly igniting it with charcoal in a closed crucible. This gives a sintered or scaly mass, which is fusible with iron ore. Dammer’s Handbuch der Chemischer, Stuttgart (1895). “Tungsten, in the metallic state, is one of the rare elements, occurring neither in nature nor in the arts.” Article “Tungsten,” 2 Mineral Industry, p. 614. “In the pure metallic state the metal is considered only as a curiosity.” Title “Tungsten,” 3 Mineral Industry, p. 484. “Metallic tungsten is .obtained by reducing.” Bloxem’s Chemistry, p. 397. The question here involved is whether this ore should be classified under section 614 (free list) of the tariff of 1897 (Act July 24, 1897, c. 11, 30 Stat. 151 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 1685]), which embraces “minerals, crude or not advanced in value or condition by refining or grinding, or by other process not specially provided for in this act,” or under section 183, which covers “metallic mineral substances in a crude state and metals unwrought, not specially provided for in this act, twenty per cent, ad valorem.” In determining that question the canon of construction is that tax laws, being in derogation of common right, must be construed strictly. Hartranft v. Wiegmann, 121 U. S. 615, 7 Sup. Ct. 1240, 30 L. Ed. 1012. The burden of showing the ore is covered by section 183 is upon the government, and, if its classification is open to a construction which would as well place it on the free list, the course most favorable to the importer must be adopted (American Co. v. Worthington, 141 U. S. 468, 12 Sup. Ct. 55, 35 L. Ed. 821), “as duties are never imposed on the citizen upon vague or doubtful interpretations” (Hartranft v. Wiegmann, supra). In Marvell v. Merrill, 116 U. S. 11, 6 Sup. Ct. 207, 29 L. Ed. 550, the court, in construing a prior tariff law, accepted Webster’s definition of a mineral as “any inorganic species having a definite chemical composition,” and an ore as “the compound of a metal and some other substance, as oxygen, sulphur, or arsenic, called its mineralizer, by which its properties are disguised or lost.” Presumably with this decision in view, when Congress subsequently placed “minerals, crude,” under section 614, it used a term of ascer
Finding, therefore, as we do, that tungsten ore is aptly described by the term “minerals, crude,” of section 614, and that it does not answer the description “metallic mineral substances in a crude state,”' used in section 183, the decree of the court below is reversed, with, direction to enter one in favor of the appellant.
2. See Custom Duties, vol. 15, Cent. Dig. § 13.