d differential duties were renewed, and
prevailed on the continent until the sixth decade of the 19th century.
In 1860 a government existed in France sufficiently strong and liberal
to revert to the policy of 1786. The bases of the Anglo-French treaty of
1860, beyond its most favoured nation provisions, were in France a
general transition from prohibition or high customs duties to a moderate
tariff; in the United Kingdom abandonment of all protective imposts, and
reduction of duties maintained for fiscal purposes to the lowest rates
compatible with these exigencies. Other European countries were obliged
to obtain for their trade the benefit of the conventional tariff thus
established in France, as an alternative to the high rates inscribed in
the general tariff. A series of commercial treaties was accordingly
concluded by different European states between 1861 and 1866, which
effected further reductions of customs duties in the several countries
that came within this treaty system. In 1871 the Republican government
sought to terminate the treaties of the empire. The British negotiators
nevertheless obtained the relinquishment of the attempt to levy
protective duties under the guise of compensation for imposts on raw
materials; the duration of the treaty of 1860 was prolonged; and
stipulations better worded than those before in force were agreed to for
shipping and most favoured nation treatment. In 1882, however, France
terminated her existing European tariff treaties. Belgium and some other
countries concluded fresh treaties, less liberal than those of the
system of 1860, yet much better than anterior arrangements. Great
Britain did not formally accept these higher duties; the treaty of the
28th of February 1882, with France, which secured most favoured nation
treatment in other matters, provided that customs duties should be
"henceforth regulated by the internal legislation of each of the two
states." In 1892 France also fell out of international tariff
arrangements; and adopted the system of double columns of customs
duties--one, of lower rates, to be applied to the goods of all nations
receiving most favoured treatment; and the other, of higher rates, for
countries not on this footing. Germany then took up the treaty tariff
policy; and between 1891 and 1894 concluded several commercial treaties.

International trade in Europe in 1909 was regulated by a series of
tariffs which came into operation, mainly on the initia