THE WHISKY SMUGGLERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13455, 6 April 1907, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE WHISKY SMUGGLERS.

AN UNDERGROUND PIPE

EXCISE CLAIM OF £65,000. The most remarkable smuggling story of modern times has come to light, and concerns what is believed to be a gigantic system on the part of a certain Irish whisky firm to defraud the revenue and thus place honest firms in the trade at an enor- : mous disadvantage. It is stated that two writs have been issued at the suit of the Irish Inland Revenue . in connection with the alleged fraud. They > claim in one case penalties amounting to ■ £65,200 for breaches of the Revenue of Ex--1 cise Statutes, and in the second case, £200 ! for similar penalties for breach of Licensing , laws , For a considerable time past the members of the trade have been greatly under- { sold by a firm whose price for whisky was ' so low that the most stringent investiga- . tions were made. The Excise authorities were communicated with, and it was found that this particular firm had indulged in , smuggling to an almost unprecedented ex- , tent. By means of an underground pipe from a ; i distillery to a duty-paid warehouse the InI land Revenue is sa.id to have been defraud'ed of thousands of pounds. It was only by : digging up the streets that this ingenious ; scheme for evading duty was discovered. Amongst the "trade'' the story of this , " romance" of whisky is said to have been ; common property for some time past. At ; .nil events, Great Tower-street v.us not sur- • prised when the Wine and Spirit Association issued the following statement: — ' "It is an open .secret that there have been certain irregularities in the centre of ' Ireland, and it is rumoured that the matter J lias been compromised by the Excise authorities by the payment of a heavy fine." ,i Experienced brokers refuse to believe * that the authorities have made any com- . promise. Such a course, they say, is more than unusual. L It is alleged that by means of a pipe ; carried beneath the road the culprit con- , veyed spirit made in bond to his •'duty--paid." warehouse, defrauding the authorl ities ol a. duty of lis upon each gallon. The offence is said to have been committed f for something like two years. ' IJUESTKVN IN I'AKI.I AM FAT. Answering Mr. H. C. Lea in the House . of Commons, the Chancellor of the Ex- » chequer stated that the Board of Inland . Revenue were in possession of the evidence 3 which suggested irregularities on a somewhat extensive scale in connection with dealings in spirits, in Tullamore. Proceed- i ings had. in consequence, been initiated, j ; The whole matter would be investigated in - a court. Meanwhile discussion on the sub-1 1 ject could not properly be carried on. -| A well-known broker has supplied the L | following particulars : — I l "About two years ago it was noticed ' 'that the market was being deluged with a ' j whisky so cheap that it easily undersold all " others of its kind. If the cost of distilling 'la gallon of whisky in bond is 2s 6d ' per proof gallon, to which has to be added lis duty, and that whisky is sold to the trade for say, 12s, it is quite plain something is wrong. Merchants suspected a 3 |fraud, and gave notice to the Excise author-j i ities. , All the culprit's workmen were constantly questioned, but they were so faith-j 1 ful that not one iota of information could j be draw from them. Thrown entirely upon [ their own resources, the officers made other 3 investigations. Remarking the short dis--3 tance between the duty-paid warehouse and ' the distillery, they made a wild guess at) the means of evasion—a tube connecting 3 the two buildings. 3 "It was at once decided that the road '' between the two buildings should be dug s up. After some difficulty they are said to 1 have come across a pipe which they were 1 |able to trace from the duty-paid ware--3 house, across the road, beneath a wall, •' across the alleged culprit's yard, to a spot • beneath and connected with the storing 1 tank which the Excise officers had been 1 fruitlessly testing. . The extent of the evasion would, of ' course, depend on the size of the tube. With .some tubes it would be possible to ' run through £100 worth of duty-evaded * spirit in a night.' WHISKY OR WATER'! t The suggestion conies from Dublin that I the mysterious pipe which was stated to b have Iky used tor conveying whisky from i the distillery to the bonded warehouse is s nothing but an ordinary water pipe, which t has never been used tor any illegal pur- - pose. f One authority states: "No fraudulent i practices have been imputed to the distills lery, nor is apparently any penalty sued e for beyond what may turn out to be a - harmless, inoffensive, but ungeographically .1 laid down water-pipe. The character of e Irish distillers lor the past half-cent 1 has been above and beyond reproach: men t only of strictest business probity have been b engaged in the trade Millions in duty are - annually paid by Dublin firms alone, and - not a breath of suspicion has attached to , them or their country distillery brethren.".