These returns are instructive, and strengthen the opinion expressed by implication by the Select Committee, and unequivocally declared by the Customs authorities, that ad valorem duties ought to be abolished. They are the cause of much dissatisfaction to the merchant; the seizures under them are, it will be seen, a loss to the Crown; and the whole amount they yield to the Revenue is a consideration of no financial importance whatever.

CHAPTER V.

DUTY-FREE GOODS.-TRANSIT AND

TRANSHIPMENT.

The repeal of the Navigation Laws, and the general adoption of the principles of Free-trade, have rendered our ship-owners and ports necessarily dependent on the good will of our customers, and the superior inducements we could offer to foreigners for making this country the entrepôt of the world. Many obstructions are presented to the successful pursuit of this object in the regulations of our Custom-house, whereby an expensive and vexatious inspection is exacted on free goods, or goods passing from one foreign country through these islands to another, under bond. The following evidence should be read in connection with the same title of Part I.

§ 1. EXAMINATION AND WAREHOUSING OF DUTY-FREE GOODS.

THE evidence of Mr. Thomas Chandler, Superintendent of the London Dock Company, appears to exhaust this part of the subject; and without further preface it is now presented to the consideration of the reader.

(7073) Since the importation of free goods have the Customs authorities relaxed in any way the regulations as to the treatment of them?-No; they have been rather more rigid with regard to the examination of free goods since they were exempt from duty. There are many articles which are now duty free which are subject to an excessive examination, and the consequence of that is additional expense to the merchant, and delay to his business. I have several instances recorded here of the examination of packages. Out of 276 chests of indigo, twentyeight were required to be laid down and opened, and those were required to be laid down and opened on the deck quays. The Dock Company were not permitted to do that which, when indigo was subject to a duty, they were permitted to do, viz., to carry it into the warehouse, that there it might be weighed.

(7074. Mr. Cornewall Lewis.) Had the Customs any specific information in that case which made them suspect that there was anything secreted in the indigo?-Certainly not; this is the general practice.

(7075) You are giving that as an illustration of the ordinary practice?—I am. Then with respect to cotton, out of 572 bales, fifty-seven were opened. In most instances every tenth package of a parcel is opened for examination, and sometimes more. Out of a parcel of 296 bales of rags, twenty-four were cut open; and out of another parcel of sixty-seven bales, seven were cut open, and a great portion of their contents were pulled out in order to ascertain what they were. As many as one

half of the casks of whale and other oils has been examined on some occasions, and a great number tasted. Out of 770 casks of pork, ninety-nine were opened and twenty-five unpacked, and the whole of the contents were taken out of the packages. Out of fifty-nine boxes of bacon there were nine opened and three entirely unpacked. The merchants in the latter instance considered the number of packages required to be opened very excessive, and stated that had the goods been landed at their own wharf instead of at the London Docks, the Customs would not have had above one-third of them opened. I mentioned before that when there was a duty payable upon many articles, such as indigo, drugs, and others which I have not enumerated, they were permitted to go into the warehouse immediately after landing, and no Customs' examination took place until they were bulked or opened for sampling, which operations follow as soon as practicable, after their getting into the warehouse. But now that those articles are duty free, the Customs require an examination of a portion of those goods on the quay; so that the merchant is subject to the expense which the dock company has to charge for opening those packages on the quays, notwithstanding immediately on getting into the warehouse the whole are bulked and opened on to the floor for working purposes.

(7076) Would there not be a chance of injuring it in wet weather? It is done under a shed. But, with reference to valuable articles, there is a risk of plunder; if chests of indigo are allowed to remain under the shed open for some time, till the landing waiter can come round to examine them, there is

It appears

a great danger of abstraction of some portion. singular that those goods which, when they were subject to duty, were allowed to be conveyed from the ship's side to the warehouse where the Customs officers were stationed to take the account after the bulking of those goods, now that they have become exempt from duty should be subject to an examination on the quays at the expense of the merchant,

(7077. Mr. Cornewall Lewis.) Is the examination of free goods in fact more strict than the examination of those goods formerly?—I have reason to think that it is.

(7078) Is that a recent regulation ?-I do not think that there is any regulation which prescribes the examination. There is another subject which I would beg to urge upon the Committee: under the present system, one landing-surveyor would be satisfied with having five parcels opened; he has, of course, an opportunity of selecting which packages he pleases; and another landing-surveyor will require ten parcels to be opened, so that it is quite optional with the Customs officers as to the number of packages they will have opened on the dock quays. As far as the merchant is concerned in the extent of the examination, if the Customs were satisfied when those goods were subject to duty that they were the goods that were described, and they allowed them to be taken from the ship's side to the dock warehouses, and there to be bulked and then examined when they saw that they were what they were described to be, surely there ought not to be a change in the practice now that the article has become duty free; but the practice has prevailed recently, of a certain number of the packages being examined on the dock quays which formerly might have gone at once into the warehouses without any examination.

(7083. Mr. Forster.) Do you think that security of the revenue?-Not in the least.

this adds to the With reference to

the question of exempting particular goods from examination, if those goods, instead of being entered as goods to be landed at the London Docks, were entered as goods to be landed between London Bridge and Greenwich at one of the legal quays, they might be taken out of the ship and put into a lighter, and conveyed to that wharf without being subject to examination, until they arrived at the wharf to ascertain what they contained.