Opinion of the Court.

324 U.S.

the immunity derives from the prohibition upon taxation of the imported merchandise itself. In the other the immunity is only from such local regulation by taxation, as interferes with the constitutional power of Congress to regulate the commerce, whether the taxed merchandise is in the original package or not. The regulatory effect of a tax, otherwise permissible, is not in general affected by retention of the merchandise in the original package in which it has been transported. Woodruff v. Parham, 8 Wall. 123; Brown v. Houston, 114 U. S. 622; American Steel & Wire Co. v. Speed, 192 U. S. 500, 521; Sonneborn Bros. v. Cureton, 262 U. S. 506, 508-513; Baldwin v. Seelig, 294 U. S. 511, 526–527.

This Court has pointed out on several occasions that imports for manufacture cease to be such and lose their constitutional immunity from state taxation when they are subjected to the manufacture for which they were imported, May v. New Orleans, supra, 501; Gulf Fisheries Co. v. MacInerney, supra, 126; McGoldrick v. Gulf Oil Corp., supra, 423, or when the original packages in which they were imported are broken, Low v. Austin, supra, 34; May v. New Orleans, supra, 508–509. But no opinion of this Court has ever said or intimated that imports held by the importer in the original package and before they were subjected to the manufacture for which they were imported, are liable to state taxation. On the contrary, Chief Justice Taney, in affirming the doctrine of Brown v. Maryland, in which he appeared as counsel for the State, declared, as we now affirm: "Indeed, goods imported, while they remain in the hands of the importer, in the form and shape in which they were brought into the country, can in no just sense be regarded as a part of that mass of property in the state usually taxed for the support of state government." License Cases, 5 How. 504, 575.

In Brown v. Maryland, supra, the imported merchandise held in original packages in the importer's warehouse for sale, was deemed tax immune. We do not perceive upon what grounds it can be thought that imports for manufacture lose their character as imports any sooner or more readily than imports for sale. The constitutional necessity that the immunity, if it is to be preserved at all, survive the landing of the merchandise in the United States and continue until a point is reached, capable of practical determination, when it can fairly be said that it has become a part of the mass of taxable property within a state, is the same in both cases.

It cannot be said that the fibers were subjected to manufacture when they were placed in petitioner's warehouse in their original packages. And it is unnecessary to decide whether, for purposes of the constitutional immunity, the presence of some fibers in the factory was so essential to current manufacturing requirements that they could be said to have entered the process of manufacture, and hence were already put to the use for which they were imported, before they were removed from the original packages. Even though the inventory of raw material required to be kept on hand to meet the current operational needs of a manufacturing business could be thought to have then entered the manufacturing process, the decision of the Ohio Supreme Court did not rest on that ground, and the record affords no basis for saying that any part of petitioner's fibers, stored in its warehouse, were required to meet such immediate current needs. Hence we have no occasion to consider that question.

It is said that our decision will result in discrimination against domestic and in favor of foreign producers of goods. But such discriminations as there may be are implicit in the constitutional provision and in its pur

Opinion of the Court.

324 U.S.

pose to protect imports from state taxation. It is also suggested that it will be difficult to ascertain in particular cases when an original package is broken, a difficulty which arises, not out of the present decision, but out of the original package rule itself, which we do not understand to be challenged here. Moreover, this supposed difficulty does not seem to have baffled judicial decision in any case in the more than a hundred years which have followed the decision in Brown v. Maryland, supra.

As was emphasized in Brown v. Maryland, supra, the reconciliation of the competing demands of the constitutional immunity and of the state's power to tax, is an extremely practical matter. In view of the fact that the Constitution gives Congress authority to consent to state taxation of imports and hence to lay down its own test for determining when the immunity ends, we see no convincing practical reason for abandoning the test which has been applied for more than a century, or why, if we are to retain it in the case of imports for sale, we should reject it in the case of imports for manufacture. Unless we are to ignore the constitutional prohibition we cannot say that imports for manufacture are not entitled to the immunity which the Constitution commands, and we see no theoretical or practical grounds for saying, more than in the case of goods imported for sale, that the immunity ends while they are in the original package and before they are devoted to the purpose for which they were imported.

III

There remains the question whether the fibers which petitioner brought from the Philippine Islands and stored in its warehouse in the original packages are also imports, constitutionally immune from state taxation.

Respondents argue that the Philippine Islands are not a foreign country and that only articles brought here

from foreign countries are imports within the meaning of the constitutional provision. Goods transported from one state to another are not imports, since they are articles originating in the United States and not brought into it. Woodruff v. Parham, supra; Sonneborn Bros. v. Cureton, supra; Baldwin v. Seelig, supra. It is petitioner's argument that merchandise brought from the Philippines to the United States is an import because it is brought into the United States from a place without, even though not from a foreign country. Implicit in this argument is the contention that the Philippines, while belonging to the United States as a sovereign, are not part of it; and that merchandise brought from the Philippines is an import because it originates outside of and is brought into the territory comprising the several states which are united under and by the Constitution, territory in which the constitutional prohibition against the state taxation of imports, is alone applicable.

The Constitution provides us with no definition of the term "imports" other than such as is implicit in the word itself. Imports were defined by Chief Justice Marshall in Brown v. Maryland, supra, 437, as "things imported" and "articles brought into a country." He added: "If we appeal to usage for the meaning of the word, we shall receive the same answer. They are the articles themselves which are brought into the country."

He thus defined imports by reference not to their foreign origin but to the physical fact that they are articles brought into the country from some place without it. Since most imports originate in foreign countries, courts have not unnaturally fallen into the habit of referring to imports as things brought into this country from a foreign country. Waring v. The Mayor, supra; Woodruff v. Parham, supra; Pittsburgh & Southern Coal Co. v. Louisiana, 156 U. S. 590, 600; Patapsco Guano Co. v. North Carolina,

Opinion of the Court.

324 U.S.

But the

171 U. S. 345, 350; May v. New Orleans, supra. Constitution says nothing of the foreign origin of imports, and in none of these cases was it necessary to decision to formulate the rule in terms of origin in a foreign country. In each case the result would have been the same if the Court had treated imports merely as articles brought into the country from a point without.

Chief Justice Marshall's definition has received support in cases holding or suggesting that fish caught in the open sea and brought into this country are imports entitled to the constitutional protection, although they did not come from a foreign country. Gulf Fisheries Co. v. Darrouzet, 17 F. 2d 374, 376; Booth Fisheries Corp. v. Case, 182 Wash. 392, 395, 47 P. 2d 834. In Gulf Fisheries Co. v. MacInerney, supra, we found it unnecessary to decide the point. In that case the fish had been subjected to a manufacturing process after their arrival in port and before they were taxed. Hence, even if originally imports, they had ceased to be such and were no longer immune from the challenged state tax. See also Fishermen's Cooperative Assn. v. State, 198 Wash. 413, 88 P. 2d 593. The definition of imports as articles brought into the country finds support also in the circumstance that it has never been seriously doubted that merchandise brought into the United States from without is subject to the power of Congress to impose customs duties, even though the merchandise is not of foreign origin. And the occasion for protecting the

5 In Dooley v. United States, 183 U. S. 151, the Court sustained under the Foraker Act of April 12, 1900, c. 191, 31 Stat. 77, the levy and collection of a tax in Puerto Rico upon goods brought there from New York. The tax was held to be a valid exercise of the power of Congress to enact laws for the government of a dependency acquired by treaty, see Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 244. The Court stated also as an alternative ground, but one unnecessary for decision, that the levy was not a prohibited tax on exports, since Puerto Rico was not a foreign country.