Merritt v. Welsh/Dissent Matthews

by Stanley Matthews

United States Supreme Court

104 U.S. 694

Merritt  v.  Welsh

MR. JUSTICE MATTHEWS, with whom concurred MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, dissenting.

It seems not to be denied by the opinion of the majority of the court, as it was expressly conceded by the court below, that if an artificial color had been imparted to the sugar after its manufacture, by which it was made identical in appearance with the color of the sample of the Dutch standard of a particular number, below that with which it would have been classified but for such adulteration, the government would have been entitled to prove the fact, and exact duties according to the classification of sugar of equal grade in its natural color.

This admission is not gratuitous, but is required upon any just construction of the law. And yet I cannot perceive what difference there ought to be if, during the process of manufacture, the same color is artificially produced by foreign matter, not necessary to the production of the sugar, and introduced for the express purpose of counterfeiting a color of a lower grade, in order to evade the law and escape the duties imposed by it. This is precisely what the plaintiff in error offered to prove on the trial, and what, by the rulings of the court, he was not permitted to do. In my opinion, this was error, for which the judgment should be reversed.

The admission that it would be unlawful to produce artificially the color of the Dutch standard, after manufacture, to disguise the grade of the article, is inconsistent with with the proposition that the color of that standard, as a visual impression, is the sole ground of distinction for rating duties on sugar; and yet that proposition is the only foundation that supports the judgment of the court below.

The phrase 'No. 7 Dutch standard in color,' and other similar phrases in the act of Congress, were not, in my opinion, intended to establish mere sensible color as the test for distinguishing the grades of sugar, for the purposes of the act; so as to embrace every description of sugar that could not, by the unaided eye, be differentiated in color from the sample. If so, sugar of the highest grade in other respects might be painted on the surface of its grains, after its manufacture was complete, without affecting its nature or quality commercially as sugar, so as perfectly to imitate an article of inferior strength and value, whose color had been naturally produced, and thus be imported at a lower rate of duty than would otherwise be lawful. For it mere color is the sole test to be regarded at the custom-house, as it may be determined by the eye alone, on comparison with the color of the standard, the officer has no right to inquire when or how the color was produced, so that it does not destroy the commercial character of the article. If the article is, and continues to be, sugar, and corresponds in color with the color of the sample used as the standard, it is to be rated accordingly.

A color imparted to sugar artificially, either during the process of manufacture or after its completion, and which it would not contract by means of any of the processes necessary merely to the production of sugar, is, in my opinion, not its natural color, and not the real and true color of the Dutch standard, however closely it may resemble it, or however impossible it may be, by sight merely, to distinguish it from the color of the sample. It is a mere imitation and counterfeit of the Dutch standard in color; for that means, not merely an abstract color, of a certain hue, but a concrete color inhering in, and belonging only to, sugar when produced according to the processes which, in the Dutch standard, result in differences of color, according to differences in the quality of the sugar itself. Congress, by the use of the phrase in question, intended to refer to color as resulting from and indicating a certain quality of sugar, considered in reference to its strength and corresponi ng value; and hence used words, not descriptive of color, in reference to the various hues into which the ray of light is divided by the differences of refrangibility as it passes through the prism, and which are represented as primitive colors to the human eye, and designated by their associated names. Congress did not mean to scale the duty, as the sugar might be considered, according to such a standard, light yellow, yellow, dark yellow, light brown, brown, dark brown, &c. It meant to divide sugars for purposes of duties, according as they corresponded with certain samples of other sugars, produced according to a certain known mode of manufacture and designated in commerce, as well as in the statute, as of the Dutch standard, and classified by numbers, according to a gradation of color, resulting from that mode of manufacture, and not otherwise. So that to correspond with the color designated as a particular number of the Dutch standard, the sample produced must have to the sight not merely a color so like it that the eye cannot distinguish between them, but the resemblance must be, in all respects, such that it is manifest that it is not a mere similarity by reason of imitation, but an identity of color, because it has resulted from the necessary processes of the manufacture, and belongs, by necessity of its nature, to the sugar itself, and not to a foreign ingredient, mixed with it as a coloring matter. In other words, sugar which is classed as No. 7, Dutch standard in color, must be sugar of that quality in other respects, which, in the Dutch standard, has a color known as No. 7.

For these reasons I feel compelled to dissent from the opinion of the court.

Notes