Fun with Google Books: This is from "The protective system considered in connection with the present tariff," by someone named Edmund Burke (this one, I'm pretty sure, but certainly not that one), published in the mid-1800s:
But have digressed from my purpose which was to give the original signification of the word tariff. I find on referring to a distinguished lexicographer that the word tariff was originally derived from the Arabic word d'araf which signifies "to know." Such was the meaning of the word from which the term tariff was derived; and it then must have been innocent of all evil designs and intents. But even that thing of Arab nativity, born in purity and innocence, was obliged to encounter all the perils and dangers which abound in this finite and fallible world; and as is sometimes the fate of innocence and virtue in fairer forms it has been corrupted and has fallen from its high estate to one of vice, wickedness and crime. At some stage of history -- the precise time I have not been able to ascertain -- it suffered itself to be prostituted to a vile purpose as the following extract from the fragments of Bolingbroke most clearly proves. In speaking of the sale of indulgences under which great frauds were alleged to have been practised by the Roman Catholic priests he says:
"This traffic (for such it was) became so frequent that even in times less ancient the church of Rome found it necessary to publish a TARIFF or BOOK OF RATES which I have seen in print, wherein the price is set over against every sin lest purchasers should be imposed upon."
Thus, it seems the term "tariff" was first applied to designate the "rates," or duties which the Roman Catholic priests levied upon sins. It cannot be supposed that, in that early age, they had arrived at a knowledge of all the curious devices by which duties may be collected, discovered and practised in modern times and by the high priests of protection. It is very likely the framers of the tariff on sins knew nothing of the fraudulent and cheating device of minimum duties discovered in this latter age and with which the existing tariff abounds. Nor could they very well, from the nature of the subject, have adopted in their system the honest and open handed principle of ad valorem duties, such as the democratic party advocates. But the particular kind of duties levied under this tariff devised to regulate the exactions of the priests was undoubtedly specific. That is to say, the church permitted the priest to absolve or let the offender off for so many dollars or pounds sterling no matter what the denomination for murder, so much for robbery, so much for theft so much for adultery etc., etc. Such was the original meaning and such the first authentic application of the word tariff in its modern signification. The history of the matter is curious, interesting and significant and proves that the fallen angel has never been restored that with the additional cognomen of protective under the guardianship of the high priests of the manufacturing monopoly, it has ministered to wicked uses, as it did under the care of the ancient priests of the Roman Catholic church.
I have not tried to verify whether this explanation is in any way accurate!
