The American Republics have adopted the bonding system. In 1896 a free wharf was opened at New Orleans in imitation of the recent European plan. Livingstone (Guatemala) was a free port during the period 1882-1888.
The privileges enjoyed under the old free port system benefited the towns and districts where they existed; and their abolition has been, locally, injurious. These places were, however, “foreign” to their own country, and their inland intercourse was restricted by the duties levied on their products, and by the precautions adopted to prevent evasion of these charges. With fiscal usages involving preferential and deferential treatment of goods and places, the drawbacks thus arising did not attract serious attention. Under the limited means of communication within and beyond the country, in former times, these conveniences were not much felt. But when finance departments became more completely organized, the free port system fell out of favour with fiscal authorities: it afforded opportunities for smuggling, and impeded uniformity of action and practice. It became, in fact, out of harmony with the administrative and financial policy of later times. Bonding and entrepot facilities, on a scale commensurate with local needs, now satisfy trade requirements. In countries where high customs duties are levied, and where fiscal regulations are minute and rigid, if an extension of foreign trade is desired, and the competition which it involves is a national aim, special facilities must be granted for this purpose. In these circumstances a free zone sufficiently large to admit of commercial operations and transhipments on a scale which will fulfil these conditions (watched but not interfered with by the customs) becomes indispensable. The German government have, as we have seen, maintained a free zone of this nature at Hamburg. And when the free port at Copenhagen was opened, counter measures were adopted at Danzig and Stettin. An agitation has arisen in France to provide at certain ports free zones similar to those at Copenhagen and Hamburg, and to open free ports in French possessions. A bill to this effect was submitted to the chamber of deputies on the 12th of April 1905. Colonial free ports, such as Hong-Kong and Singapore, do not interfere with the uniformity of the home customs and excise policy. These two harbours in particular have become great shipping resorts and distributing centres. The policy which led to their establishment as free ports has certainly promoted British commercial interests.
See the Parliamentary Paper on “Continental Free Ports,” 1904.
(C. M. K.)
[1] In China at the present time (1902) certain ports are designated “free and open.” This phrase means that the ports in question are (1) open to foreign trade, and (2) that vessels engaged in oversea voyages may freely resort there. Exemption from payment of customs duties is not implied, which is a matter distinct from the permission granted under treaty engagements to foreign vessels to carry cargoes to and from the “treaty ports.”
FREE REED VIBRATOR (Fr. anche libre, Ger. durchschlagende Zunge, Ital. ancia or lingua libera), in musical instruments, a thin metal tongue fixed at one end and vibrating freely either in surrounding space, as in the accordion and concertina, or enclosed in a pipe or channel, as in certain reed stops of the organ or in the harmonium. The enclosed reed, in its typical and theoretical form, is fixed over an aperture of the same shape but just large enough to allow it to swing freely backwards and forwards, alternately opening and closing the aperture, when driven by a current of compressed air. We have to deal with air under three different conditions in considering the phenomenon of the sound produced by free reeds. (1) The stationary column or stratum in pipe or channel containing the reed, which is normally at rest. (2) The wind or current of air fed from the bellows with a variable velocity and pressure, which is broken up into periodic air puffs as its entrance into pipe or channel is alternately checked or allowed by the vibrator. (3) The disturbed condition of No. 1 when acted upon by the metal vibrator and by No 2, whereby the air within the pipe is forced into alternate pulses of condensation and rarefaction. The free reed is therefore not the tone-producer but only the exciting agent, that is to say, the sound is not produced by the communication of the free reed’s vibrations to the surrounding air,[1] as in the case of a vibrating string, but by the series of air puffs punctuated by infinitesimal pauses, which it produces by alternately opening and almost closing the aperture.[2] A musical sound is thus produced the pitch of which depends on the length and thickness of the metal tongue; the greater the length, the slower the vibrations and the lower the pitch, while on the contrary, the thicker the reed near the shoulder at the fixed end, the higher the pitch. It must be borne in mind that the periodic vibrations of the reed determine the pitch of the sound solely by the frequency per second they impose upon the pulses of rarefaction and condensation within the pipe.
| From J. B. Biot, Traité de physique expérimentale. |
| Fig. 1.—Grenie’s organ pipe fitted with free-reed vibrator. |
| A, Tuning wire. D, Free reed. R, Reed-box. B, C, Feed pipe with conical foot. T, Part of resonating pipe, the upper end with cap and vent hole being shown separately at the side. |
The most valuable characteristic of the free reed is its power of producing all the delicate gradations of tone between forte and piano by virtue of a law of acoustics governing the vibration of free reeds, whereby increased pressure of wind produces a proportional increase in the volume of tone. The pitch of any sound depends upon the frequency of the sound-waves, that is, the number per second which reach the ear; the fullness of sound depends upon the amplitude of the waves, or, more strictly speaking, of the swing of the transmitting particles of the medium—greater pressure in the air current (No. 2 above) which sets the vibrator in motion producing amplitude of vibration in the air within the receptacle (No. 3 above) serving as resonating medium. The sound produced by the free reed itself is weak and requires to be reinforced by means of an additional stationary column or stratum of air. Free reed instruments are therefore classified according to the nature of the resonant medium provided:—(1) Free reeds vibrating in pipes, such as the reed stops of church organs on the continent of Europe (in England the reed pipes are generally provided with beating reeds, see [Reed Instruments] and [Clarinet]). (2) Free reeds vibrating in reed compartments and reinforced by air chambers of various shapes and sizes as in the harmonium (q.v.). (3) Instruments like the accordion and concertina having the free reed set in vibration through a valve, but having no reinforcing medium.