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and a landing-waiter to each ship, but a landing-surveyor and a landing-waiter would perform the duty with reference to several ships, and the expense of their additional payment would be divided among the ships that were discharging, and that would reduce the expense very much indeed; but the question in the first instance applied to one single ship, and I should add, that in London it is not the practice to unload sugar ships at extra hours.

Another turn may be given to the answer to the next interrogatory. Where no smuggling or fraud is ever dreamt of by the captain, he may require to propitiate a tide-waiter simply to induce him to abstain from that technical captiousness which may make him troublesome and officious whilst on

board.

(900. Mr. Forster.) Is not the owner of the ship obliged to feed the officers while on board?—He is not required to feed them; he is obliged to give them a place in which to lie down; sometimes they do feed the officers, but the practice is dis couraged, because we are aware that the officer is in that case placed under obligation to the captain, which may lead him not to be so vigilant in the discharge of his duty.

(901) In point of fact are not the officers provisioned by the ship? They are very often permitted to have the ship's provisions.

(902) Have they any perquisites, or emoluments, arising from seizures?—Yes, I apprehend they have.

(903) If they seize goods do they get any portion of the bounty, or reward, consequent upon those seizures?—I apprehend they have their share; the seizures on board ships would be cases of smuggling, and the officers would have their share.

(904. Chairman.) As regards taking the goods out of the docks in the day-time, which might have been smuggled out of a ship at night, would it not be quite as easy to take them from the goods in the warehouses, the doors being kept open as you describe -We are speaking of a different description of goods; it is in order to prevent smuggling in a small way from ships. that a tide-waiter is useful; not to prevent so much the smuggling from cargoes as to prevent the petty pilfering of boxes of cigars, and things of that kind; when goods come in the shape of merchandize, and are put into a warehouse, it is different.

(905) If a removal does take place of merchandize when in the warehouse, have not your own and the dock company's gate-keepers orders, if they notice anybody having a bulky appearance, to search him?—Yes, and they do perform that duty; they examine all parcels and baskets that are carried out.

(906. Mr. Forster.) Have the gate-keepers any share in the profits of seizures ?—Yes.

(907. Mr. Brown.) Are all the porters rubbed down, in going out, to see if there is any goods concealed about them?Yes, the weighers in the tobacco warehouses are very closely examined. The duties of the tide-waiters are very onerous; in wet and boisterous weather they are exposed to very great severities, and I am inclined to think that their remuneration is hardly adequate to the services they perform.

(908. Mr. Cornewall Lewis.) Do they stay on deck during the whole time? They stay on deck during the time they are on watch; and they are on board during the whole time, from the period they enter the vessel till she is cleared, they are visited from time to time by the tide-surveyors, who go on board at all hours of the night; those officers ascertain that the tide-waiters are employed in the discharge of their duty, and if it is found that they are not on duty, but that they have gone below, or have gone on shore, they are reported to the Board, and an inquiry is held upon them; if it is a first offence we generally degrade them a step in the service, but if the offence is repeated, we dismiss them from the service. Generally the explanation given by the officer for leaving the vessel is, that he was taken ill, and was obliged to go and consult his medical man; and if he makes out a good case and produces a medical certificate, we do not dismiss him.

(909. Chairman.) Do you continue an officer in the service who has connived at a fraud?-Certainly not, if the case is brought home to him; but there may be some cases where the circumstances were suspicious, and yet the officers have not been dismissed.

(910. Mr. Cornewall Lewis.) Are the dismissals of tidewaiters numerous ?-More numerous than of any other class. I should say that they are not numerous considering the duties they have to perform and their station in life, but there are a great many in the course of a year.

(911. Mr. Forster.) The rule is, that one tide-waiter must be on deck all night during the severest weather?-Yes; the deck of the vessel is never to be left unguarded. There are, besides, 82 watermen whose duty it is to row the tide-surveyor's boat from ship to ship, and dock to dock, and who assist the tidesurveyor in rummaging the vessels when the ultimate search takes place.

(912) Is that conducted by the tide surveyor?—Yes; after the rummaging of the vessel he clears it, but till he has rummaged it to see that there is no concealment, the vessel is not cleared.

(919. Mr. Brown.) As sailors on board ship would frequently look to the tide-waiter in the hope of getting assistance from him in smuggling little articles on shore, do you find that much valuable information is derived from those tide-waiters by their reporting to the Customs what is going forward ?-Certainly; I think, on the whole, they are a trustworthy set of officers, considering their station.

(920. Mr. Forster.) Are the tidewaiters authorized to make seizures themselves?-Yes, to put goods under stop; if a tidewaiter were to see a person going on shore with smuggled goods, he would undoubtedly detain him.

On the same subject Mr. Boyd observes

(1117. Chairman.) Why should the officer receive a portion of the proceeds of smuggling; why should it be necessary to hold out that inducement to him to do his duty ?—It has always been deemed necessary to remunerate the officer in that way; we have had no experience of a different course; and I should not depend so much upon the exertion of the officers, sometimes at the risk of their lives, to go and make a seizure, if they did not anticipate that they would derive emolument if they succeeded.

(1118) Are you aware that police constables receive no emolument for discovering the proceeds of a robbery ?—I do not know how that is; that is not within my province: but I thought that constables got rewards in such cases.

(1119) Would it not, in your opinion, be a better plan to reward them by letting it become known to the officers that those who were zealous and sharp, without being over zealous and over sharp, would be promoted more rapidly than the others ?— There would be this difficulty in that: it might happen that a

person who was a very excellent seizing officer, and who would run all hazards to detect kegs of spirits, cases of tobacco, and things of that description, would not be at all the kind of person that we could hold out the promise of a rapid promotion to; he might be a man of that kind of habit that nothing else would suit him. It does not at all follow that the man who made seizures in that way would the best man to promote; but if the goods which are seized are sold, instead of the Crown taking the whole proceeds of the seizure, I think it is desirable that the officer, who has been the means of making the seizure, should derive a portion of the proceeds.

(1120) Are there not different classes of officers in the different departments of the Customs service?-Yes, there are.

(1121) Would it not be perfectly easy to reward officers of the kind of which you speak by promoting them from a lower grade to a higher grade in the same department ?-Yes, but that is only raising them from one class to another; they would have 6d. a day more in day pay, or something of that kind; it would not, I think, have the same effect as giving them a share in the proceeds.

(1131) You have stated that frequently there is personal danger attending seizures, and you have stated also in answer to the proposal of rewarding the officers by promotion, that such a system would not apply to that description of officers who generally make the seizures; my question, therefore, is this: do you mean to state that there is danger in a seizure for undervalue, or that the officers making such seizures are of such a description that they could not be rewarded by promotion ?Certainly my observation did not at all apply in either of those views to goods stopped for un-valu.

(1132. Chairman.) Then why should the officer be remunerated by a share of the profit of the under-value, while he bears no share of any loss?-That is a matter quite fit for consideration. I think some alteration in that respect might perhaps be of advantage, but I should not like off-hand to express a decided opinion upon it.

(1185. Mr. Cornewall Lewis.) Are not the profits of a successful venture, in smuggling particular articles of merchandize, very great?I should suppose they must be very great, when they can afford every now and then, to lose a cargo from the profits they derive from the other cargoes.

(1136) Are they not sufficiently great to enable smugglers to offer a large sum to the Custom-house officer for a dereliction of his duty-Yes.

(1137) Is it not, therefore, necessary to meet that motive by some counter inducement on the side of the revenue in the shape of a reward?—I should think so; that would be one reason against not paying the officer in cases of that kind of smuggling, that the other party would pay him if he would not see the goods being run; and if, when he does stop them, the Crown will not pay him, between the two I think the revenue would be in jeopardy.

(1138. Chairman.) Would it not be to the interest of one merchant to ascertain the secrets of the counting-house of another merchant ?—Yes, I dare say it would.

(1139) Do you believe it is found necessary to prevent the clerks of one merchant selling the secrets to another merchant by holding out extra emoluments to them?-No.

(1140) Why should the officers of the Board of Customs not do their duty without holding out that extra emolument to them as well as clerks in a mercantile office ?-I should like to consider that point before I give an answer.

§ 3. APPOINTMENT AND PROMOTION.

The Commission have on this subject thus reported to the Lords of the Treasury (App. No. 7, p. 32).

"We have found in the course of our enquiries, what we consider to be a defective system prevailing in respect to the appointment of persons to fill the vacant clerkships in the junior ranks.

"The nominations to meet vacancies are in your Lordships' hands, and are made upon probation, the succession to the higher classes taking place by promotion on the recommendation of the Commissioners of Customs. This system if properly acted upon, appears to us to be well calculated to ensure that none but persons likely to become qualified for the higher situations shall be permanently appointed. But we do not think that the test by which their qualifications are tried is sufficiently high, nor the period of probation sufficiently long

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