ORGY OF SMUGGLING

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 285, 5 November 1925, Page 6

ORGY OF SMUGGLING

RESULT OF SILK TAX. NEW RACE OF SMUGGLERS. LONDON, Sept. 17. Smuggling is ono of those civic lapses which most pooplo cannot resist any more than they can resist the temptation to diddle the income tax collector. Even the best of men has delighted in sneaking matches into Franco or cigars into England. And when to the feat —always a matter for boasting about afterwards—or deceiving the Customs is added all tho glamour of a bargain in wearing apparel tho game enjoys an added fascination. ’That, at least, is what the British Customs authorities are discovering ns a resuit of the imposition of the tax upon both real and artificial silk. Never has there been such an orgy of smuggling at tho ports where boats from the Continent arrive. The two months during which the tax lias so far been in existence have been sufficient to create an entirely new race of smugglers, and the officials are having the busiest and most worrying time trying to secure tho revenue duo upon nil classes of silk articles. All tho well-known dodges are being employed as well as many new and most ingenious plans. Silk in lengths, made up in frocks and cloaks, silk stockings, handkerchiefs, shawls, vanity bags, ribbons, are coining in concealed in. the cushions, beneath tho seats, and in tho tool boxes of motor cars, hidden in the falso bottoms of trunks, crushed into travelling cushions and handbags, inserted into the lining of coats and hidden inside rugs carelessly flung over the arm. Silk stockings are pushed into hats and furs and handbags. Lengths of silk are wrapped round the body like bandages. One dress is worn over another.

One mannequin, given the task of getting six sets -of costly silk underclothing over from France, successfully solved the problem by wearing tiie' whole e.f tho wonderfully embroidered and otherwise decorated lingerie. Others who gamble on the Customs officials not demanding that every bag shall lie opened, travel with many packages hoping that the one which is the most guilty parcel will escape notice. Some smugglers bring invoices from the foreign firms from which the goods were purchased, but the invoices state that the value of the goods is so much loss than the real cost. Of course, the professional gangs of smugglers arc in the game up to the neck. The profits on a successful entry are large, for the duty on a tenguinea silk dress is about £3 10s. And gangs of five and six, taking week-end tickets to Paris, return laden with as much dutiable stuff as they can safely hide in clever fashion. Firms engaged in tho silk trade are not attempting to evade the duties, but tho gangs manage to get rid of the smuggled goods privately. The Customs officials are by no means powerless or unsuccessful. Indeed, it is stated that the warehouses in Dover devoted to goods which have been seized—that is, those upon which the owners will not pay duty aro crammed with silk goods. But even then the officials cannot detect every offence, if only on the score of time at their disposal. They cannot open every portmanteau or suitcase, oi search every handbag. Still less can they insist upon every lady passenger undergoing examination to tho extent of disrobing, as would be necessary to discover the Parisian midinetto who was wearing six sets of lingerie, or the stout lady who had ten yards of georgette wrapped round her waist.

AN ORGANISED BUSINESS. Already there are complaints of annoying delays at the channel ports, of trains being delayed and of passengers missing their trains, until one critic declares that tho British frontier is flic most irritating to cross in Europe. Police court convictions for smuggling are growing. A London woman charged with concealing silk and other dutiable goods, including hats and a bottle ol suine spirit preparation, was fined £25, which was letting her off lightly when it is remembered that the treble duty to which she was liable amounted to over £OO. She had declared that she bought the dresses and other goods in England and taken them abroad, and 1 she signed a declaration to that effect. Then it was discovered that she had acquired them at Dinard. A dentist, arriving at Dover, said he had nothing to declare, but among his baggage was found a gold watch, lour clocks, a pair of opera glasses, a revolver and 25 cartridges, all of which are dutiable. He was fined £77. His excuse was that he did not know that the goods were subject to duty, as they are under the McKenna list. But it is not only at the ports that smuggling is carried on. The old-time practice of contraband-running in the Channel, that happy hunting ground of smugglers in the past, has been revived. Kudyard Kipling’s poem, “Poor Holiest Alell”’Twixt the Lizard and Dover We hand our stuff over, Though 1 may not inform how we do it or when; But a light on each quarter Low down on the water Js well understood by poor, honest men! is gaining a new significance. It is well known that the whole of the southern coast of England was at one time packed with smugglers. Hardly any family was not involved in some way. Even'to-day one may hit upon various evidences of the greatness of the traffic. Jn the face of cliffs rising sheer from the sea are caves to which kegs of French brandy and tobacco were raised in the bight of a rope from boats rocking in the darkness among the waves that beat back in spray from the hard rocks. Still across the Downs run the bridlepaths by which the kegs were run inland, on the backs of paekhorses, to the cellars of farmhouses and other distributing centres. To-day the motor boat and motor car have largely replaced the brigantine, and caves and paekhorses of a century ago. But many fishing-boats are also concerned. Flares burn at

niglit in lonely waters, and stealthy shipments are carried out, these connecting witli motor cars waiting at unfrequented beaches. The authorities are handicapped in dealing with this type of smuggling by the fact that the coastguards liavo been reduced in the search for economy. The business is thoroughly organised and money is available to enable the payment of the fishing boat’s percentage when tho goods are handed over to the motors that meet them.