FREE PORTS

—(1) Ports where no} custom duties are charged; (2) ports with @ ‘zone’ within which commerce is con-| ducted without exaction of import or export duties; (3) in China, ports open sense. to foreign trade, but not ‘open’ in fiscal ff. p's arose owing to desirability of having central markets on trade routes and refuges from pirates; greatly di-| minished by unification of customs and raising of tariff walls in European countries. F. p. zones exist at Hamburg and Copenhagen among other places; among colonial f. p’s are Hong Kong and Singapore. As the result of treaties made following the World War, Dantzig and restrictions. Hiume became See free Danrzic, ports, under Frum. certain -FREE SOIL PARTY, THE, the name! | given to a political party in U.S., formed | in 1848, which lasted till 1855, and then | became one with the Republican party. | It was originated by a union of the Liberal party with the Barn burners. It first the|nominated Van Buren for the presidency, | and afterwards, in 1852, under the name the Frea Democratic party, John P. | Hale became president. It was really a | combination of the political abolitionists, | many of whom had been formerly ident i- | fied with the more Radical Liberal party, the anti-slavery Whigs, and a faction of the|the Democratic party in the state of New York. _FREESTONE composed of sand or grit, used in arch. for; mouldings, etc., er called because it can be easily