REPORT OF THE BOARD OF CUSTOMS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XVI, 25 November 1857, Page 3

REPORT OF THE BOARD OF CUSTOMS.

[From the Economist."]

It has been determined by the Lords of the Treaf ary to require from the different departments under Jieir control annual reports of their respective proceedings, analogous to those now furnished to the Privy Council and the Home Office, by the Inspectors of Prisons, the Civil Service Commissioners, Factoiy and School Inspectors, &c. These will be regularly laid before Parliament as prepared ; and will supply in time a very complete history of the progress of the various branches of the public revenue, and the changes made in the mode of collection and administration. They will also serve the double purpose of keeping the public well informed as to measures taken or contemplated, of explaining in a semi-official manner the grounds of misunderstood or disputable proceedings, and of defending the several services from the misrepresentations now so often and so recklessly heaped upon them by disappointed or ill-disposed individuals. The official and administrative view of contested questions can thu3 be stated with dignity and calmness, and the various departments be relieved from their now sole alternatives — either of quietly submitting to misstatements and slander, or of setting themselves right by a scarcely decorous appeal to the public press.

We have not yet seen the report from the Commissioners of Inland Ee venue, but that just presented to Parliament from the Board of Customs is now before us. It contains a very clear and concise historical sketch of the rise and progress of the customs' revenue and administration, and the various phases through which theae have passed before arriving at their present form ; gives a compendious account of the multifarious functions of the department, as they were before the improvements and simplifications of recent years, and as they are now ; aud concludes with a series of tables displaying with much condensation the wonderful and rapid development of the commerce of this country in the last quarter of a century. Altogether it is a volume well worthy of perusal, and so brief (the report itself only extending to 50 pages) as to be easily perused ; and leaves on the reader's mind a very strong impression as to the admirable degree of efficiency to which the organization of that branch of the public service to which it relates has been brought, the unusual facilities now given to commercial operations by the official spirit of accommodation, and the disposition manifested still further to increase those facilities, the marvellous energy of England's trade, and the still more marvellous elasticity of England's revenue.

The present working chiefs of the department are a very different order of men from their predecessors of earlier days. Towards the close of the last century, among the principal collectors and comptrollers at the port of London we find the names of the Earl of Liverpool, the Duke of Manchester, the Duke of Newcastle, the Earl of Guildford, and Lord Stowell, which noblemen of course made their places sinecures, and did nothing but appoint deputies. In 178 i, of the three principal customs' officers at Hull, one was resident at Glasgow, another in London, and a third at Dorchester. The controller of Chester, of which Liverpool was a sub-port, on a most important occasion, was found to be away larking in the East Indies ; " and, of 63 patent offices at the outports, all but ten were sinecures." This golden age, alas ! is gone for ever. The 23 commissioners who flourished in 1792 were first reduced to 13, and are now cut down to a miserable 6 ; between 1820 and 1830 the number of offices abolished amounted to above 3,000, -with salaries amounting to a quarter of a million ; and since 1849 many further reductions have taken place. The result of all these various economies is shown in a single table, by which it appears that, while the import trade of the country since 1830 has increased 163 per cent., the number of officers who have to watch and tax this trade has increased only 14 per cent., and then' salaries only 18 per cent. The work done increases in a tenfold ratio to the number of hands employed to do it. This surely is enough to satisfy the cravings of the fiercest advocates of retrenchment, and may suggest to soberer minds whether there is not some danger lest retrenchment should be carried too far. The enormous amount of business transacted by the customs' officers may be estimated by the fact that 44,000,000 packages in London alone passed through the hands of 2,100 officers— 26 millions being disposed of by the landing department, and 18 millions by the water guard.

In the appointment and promotion of officers, the greatest caution and the mo3t scrupulous purity appear ts prevail. All original nominations emanate from the Treasury, but the qualifications of the nominee must be tested by the Civil Service Commissioners before he can take up his appointment, and he must undergo six months' probation before he can be placed on the estnbliahmbnt. In case he proves unfit, the Board cancels the appointment. All promotions within the service are decided by the commissioners themselves on a special consideration of the merits and capacities of eligible officers ; no extraneous influence of any description is allowed to interfere.

A graphic picture is drawn in the Eeport of the progressive advance from the fearfully complicated customs' duties of former times to the simplified system now in vogue. Before Mr. Pitt's consolidation in 1784, the calculation of the amount to be paid by the merchant was a long and abstruse business — there being often ten or twelve separate dues leviable on the same article under the authority of different Acts of Parliament, and applicable to different purposes. The number of dutiable articles specified in the tariff has been successively reduced from 1630 in Charles ll.'s time, and 1280 as late as 1826, to 414 in 1856. The articles charged with ad valorem duties were 300 in 1797, 156 in 1840, and only 40 now. The prosperity of the country, the elasticity of the revenue, and the entire success of the liberal commercial policy which has been pursued for so many years, are shown in a remarkable manner by the circumstance that, whatever has been the reduction in the rates of duties and the number of articles erased from the tariff, the amount of customs' revenue received has remained stationary for above 20 years. Between 1835 and 1855, duties were remitted to the extent of £10,613,000 annually, yet the yearly receipt scarcely varied. It was £23,149,000 in the former, and £23,482,000 in the latter year.

The following table is strinkingly illustrative of the vast and rapid increase of the commerce of the United Kingdom : —

and coffee, to meet the increased expenses of the war, is thus remarked upon in the report : — " No more striking illustration could be adduced of the continued prosperity and the vast consuming power of the country than the very trifling degree to which this augmentation in the lax affected the use of the articles in question. The duty on coffee was raised 33 per cent., the utmost diminution of consumption was only 6 per cent. The duty on tea was raised 17 per cent., the falling off in consumption was not a quarter per cent. The duty on sugar was raised on the average about 25 per cent., and at the same time the price of the article in bond roso also upwards of 30 per cent, between 1851 and 1856; yet the entire difference of consumption in these two years was short of 10 per cent. In all three articles, too, it must be remembered, the duty forms a very large proportion of the entire cost to the consumer."

Vverage ol Imports, Exports, Export 3, 3 Years. Official Value. Official Value. Real Value. £ £ £ LBl4-5-6 ... 31,400,000 ... 53,800,000 ... 46,200,000 L 823-4-5... 38,800,000... 55,900,000 ... 37,500,000 L 833-4-5... 48,100,000 ... 85,400,000 .42,900,000 L 843-4-5... 73,600,000 ... 142,900,000 ... 57,000,000 L 853-4-5... 121,600,000 ... 248,100,000 ... 97,200,000 The effect of the augmented duties on sugar, tea,