NEW CUSTOMS ACT

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 January 1914, Page 5

NEW CUSTOMS ACT

IMPORTERS' GRIEVANCES

(Isy Telegraph—Special to the Star)

DUNEDIN, This Day

The new Customs Act, several of the features of which are the result of -recommendations made by the Public Service Commissioners, docs not in some instances meet with the support of im ; porters or Customs House agents on one or two points, indeed those disapproving allege an absolute grievance. For example, the .'id valorem declaration can be made "under the older Act before an officer of the Customs, a postmaster, a solicitor, or a Customs House agent, but in April, when the new Act comes into force such declaration will have to be matfe before either a solicitor or an officer of the Customs. In practice, so importersr say, this confines them to the Customs House officer, and will prove a serious inconvenience to traders as well as a source of great work in the Department itself.

And what about the country importer, the storekeeper in the small township, which has neither solicitor nor Customs House officer, nor any public official other than a postmaster?

"It will do away with the small importer altogether," was the pronouncement of one man approached on the subjoct. "and concentrate everything with the hig city importers." There is another matter, as yet, it is true, merely a request to importers and not mandatory, obedience to which will apparently cause a vast accretion of labour to importers. Instead of an entry form being filled in line after line it is requested that a line be left blank between each invoice entry for the purposes of statistical numerals, and in future the country of origin is to Fe shown against each set of entries. Obviously obedience involves (lie use of double the number of entry forms.

The Import Committee nf the Chamber of Commerce are considering the"fnattter.