Duties based upon Weight. While there is a general rule of construction to the effect that a proviso is to be construed as limiting legislation to the subject-matter with which it is immediately connected, this rule is by no means of universal application. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, May 4, 1891. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 28th ultimo, asking a construction of the second proviso in section 50 of the tariff act of October 1, 1890. That section reads as follows: "That, on and after the day when this act shall go into effect, all goods, wares, and merchandise previously imported for which no entry has been made, and all goods, wares, and merchandise previously entered without payment of duty, and under bond for warehousing, transportation, or any other purpose, for which no permit of delivery to the importer or his agent has been issued, shall be subjected to no other duty upon the entry or the withdrawal thereof than if the same were imported respectively after that day: Provided, That any imported merchandise deposited in bond in any public or private bonded warehouse having been so deposited prior to the first day of October, eighteen hundred and ninety, may be withdrawn for consumption at any time prior to February first, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, upon the payment of duties at the rates in force prior to the passage of this act: Provided, further, That when duties are based upon the weight of merchandise deposited in any public or private bonded warehouse, said duties shall be levied and collected upon the weight of such merchandise at the time of its withdrawal." The question submitted is whether the second proviso is confined in its application to the subject-matter of the section in which it is found, namely, importations made prior to the taking effect of this act, or whether it applies to importations under the act generally, upon which duties are levied according to weight. In my opinion the latter is the correct construction. The language of the proviso is general, and, independently of the fact that it is found in section 50, a construction limiting it to the subject-matter of that section would have no support. It is true there is a general rule of construction to the effect that a proviso is to be construed as limiting legislation to the subject matter with which it is 5687-VOL 20-6 Duties based upon Weight. immediately connected; but this rule is by no means of universal application. The enactment of general legislation by Congress in provisos to acts relating to particular subjects is not uncommon. Thus, in the sundry civil act of August 7, 1882 (22 Stat L., 305), after a number of appropriations for the purchase of sites for public buildings, we find the following: "Provided, That no act passed authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase a site and erect a public building thereon shall be held and construed to appropriate money, unless the act in express language makes such appropriation." It is clear that this proviso is general, and not limited to the appropriations in the act in which it is found. Other provisos with similar effect might be cited. I am aware that under former tariff acts the rule has been to levy duties upon weighable merchandise according to the weight at the date of importation, but this proviso seems to be intended to change that rule, and there seems to be sufficient reason for such change. To limit the effect of this proviso to the subject matter of section 50 would be to discriminate in favor of importations made prior to the taking effect of this act as against importations under the act. Such construction would not only put prior importations upon an equality with importations under the act as to rate, but would give them an advantage in the matter of weight. Such intention is not to be presumed. Moreover, there seems to be no reason why the duty should not be levied according to the weight when the importation is actually consummated by taking the goods out of bond for consumption. During all the time the goods are held in bond they are at the expense of the importer; the interest on the investment, the charges for warehousing and insurance are all paid by him, and no reason is apparent why he should not have the corresponding benefit, if there be a benefit, resulting from the delay within the limits prescribed by law in the final act of importation. At least legislation to that end seems reasonable, and such appears to me to be the effect of this proviso. Respectfully, yours, W. H. H. MILLER. The SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. Artificial Limbs-Commutation into Money. ARTIFICIAL LIMBS-COMMUTATION INTO MONEY. An amendment of March 3, 1891, to section 4787 of the Revised Statutes having provided that soldiers and seamen wounded in the rebellion, who had been entitled to receive artificial limbs every five years, shall now receive the same every three years, and a question having arisen as to whether sections 4788 and 4790 of the Revised Statutes providing for a money commutation in place of said limb stood in the same relation to the amended section 4787 as to the original section and whether now such money commutation can be had every three years, it is decided that it can be had. The word "thereafter," now appearing in section 4787 of the Revised Statutes refers not to July 17, 1870, but to the time when the artificial limb shall have been furnished after that date; consequently the periods of three years run from the time when such limb was furnished, and not from July 17, 1870. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, May 4, 1891. SIR: Section 4787 of the Revised Statutes provides as follows: "Every officer, soldier, seaman, and marine who was disabled during the war for the suppression of the rebellion, in the military or naval service, and in the line of duty, or in consequence of wounds received or disease contracted therein, and who was furnished by the War Department, since the seventeenth day of June, eighteen hundred and seventy, with an artificial limb or apparatus for resection, or who was entitled to receive such limb or apparatus since said date, shall be entitled to receive a new limb or apparatus at the expiration of every five years thereafter, under such regulations as have been or may be prescribed by the Surgeon-General of the Army. (The provisions of this section shall apply to all officers, noncommissioned officers, enlisted and hired men of the land and naval forces of the United States who, in the line of their duty as such, shall have lost limbs or sustained bodily injuries depriving them of the use of any of their limbs, to be determined by the Surgeon-General of the Army; and the term of five years herein specified shall be held to commence in each case with the filing of the application for the benefits of this section.)" On March 3, 1891, Congress passed the following act, amending section 4787, to wit: "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Artificial Limbs--Commutation into Money. section forty-seven hundred and eighty-seven of the Revised Statutes of the United States be amended by striking out the word 'five' where it occurs therein, and inserting in lieu thereof the word 'three,' so that when amended said section will read as follows: Every officer, soldier, seaman, and marine who was disabled during the war for the suppression of the rebellion in the military or naval service, and in the line of duty, or in consequence of wounds received or disease contracted therein, and who was furnished by the War Department since the seventeenth day of June, eighteen hundred and seventy, with an artificial limb or apparatus for resection, who was entitled to receive such limb or apparatus since that date, shall be entitled to receive a new limb or apparatus at the expiration of every three years thereafter, under such regulations as have been or may be prescribed by the Surgeon-General of the Army." Section 4788 of the Revised Statutes provides as follows: "Every person entitled to the benefits of the preceding section may, if he so elects, receive, instead of such limb or apparatus, the money value thereof, at the following rates, namely: For artificial legs, seventy-five dollars; for arms, fifty dollars; for feet, fifty dollars; for apparatus for resection, fifty dollars." Section 4790 of the Revised Statutes provides as follows: "Every person in the military or naval service who lost a limb during the war of the rebellion (or is entitled to the benefits of section forty-seven hundred and eighty-seven), but from the nature of his injury is not able to use an artificial limb, shall be entitled to the benefits of section fortyseven hundred and eighty-eight, and shall receive money commutation as therein provided." The following questions, arising upon this legislation, have been submitted by you for an opinion, namely: First. Whether sections 4788 and 4790 stand in the same relation to section 4787, as amended, as they stood to that section before the amendment. In other words, the question is, whether the commutation in money for an artificial limb or apparatus can be claimed now every three years instead of every five? It seems to me quite clear that sections 4788 and 4790 give the right to the commutation for artificial limbs or apparatus Artificial Limbs-Commutation into Money. upon the same terms as the right to artificial limbs or apparatus themselves is given by section 4787, as that section may stand, at the time any application for commutation money is made. If this view be sound, it follows that, as an artificial limb or apparatus is demandable under section 4787, as amended, every three years, instead of every five, the money commutation for such limb or apparatus is also demandable every three years. The language of section 4788 compels this interpretation. It declares that "every person entitled to the benefits of the preceding section may, if he so elects, receive, instead of such limb or apparatus, the money value thereof, at the following rates," etc., by which it clearly appears that the money value of the limb is demandable at whatever time the limb itself is demandable. It can not be that Congress intended that the limb should be demandable every three years, but "the money value thereof" every five years only. The words of the law will bear no such construction. Second. The next question is, whether the said act of March 3, 1891, is retrospective in its operation. In other words, whether persons who have been drawing money commutation under section 4787 every five years are entitled, under the section as amended, to have their commutation computed for every three years since June 17, 1870, and to demand the difference between the result of the calculation on a basis of five years and that on a basis of three years. This question grows out of a doubt as to the meaning of the word "thereafter" in section 4787. The context in which this word is found is as follows: "Every officer, soldier, seaman, and marine who was disabled and who was furnished by the War Department since the seventeenth day of June, eighteen hundred and seventy, with an artificial limb or apparatus for resection, * shall be entitled to receive a new limb or apparatus at the expiration of every three years thereafter, under such regulations," etc. To my mind the word "thereafter" has no reference to June 17, 1870, but refers to the time since that date when any artificial limb or apparatus should have been furnished, which time is to be the point from which are to be reckoned the periods of three years. There is no ground in the law |