People: Free Port

There are eleven Freeports in the U. S.*, but last week the U. S. got its first free port—a small, ugly plot at Stapleton, Staten Island, in New York Harbor's Narrows.

Much as customs inspection pains the homing U. S. tourist, it irks shippers more. For their relief and even more for the relief of U. S. ports that felt they were losing harbor business because of red tape, Congress passed the Foreign Trade Zones Act in 1934, making a limited type of free port permissible for the first time in the highly protectionist...

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