MODERN SMUGGLERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22708, 22 October 1935, Page 5

MODERN SMUGGLERS

In the old days smuggling was regarded not as a crime but as a dangerous ami romantic calling (says the Daily Express). Now. quite suddenly, the old sentimental tolerance has died —and not before its time.

Last year there ivere 7110 seizures of smuggled goods and 3000 people were convicted in Britain. Who dare, in face of this, estimate the number of undetected cases, the amount of loss to the revenue or the damage to some deliberately protected British industries —watch and camera manufacturing, for example? There have, of course, been many stories of fleets of speed boats running cargoes of brandy and tobacco and silks from the Continent to the Isle of Wight, of mysterious lorries along the Essex marshes in the dead of night, of flashing lights from the sea, and of boats gliding silently with muffled oars into remote Devonshire coves. But this for the most part is imagination. Modern smuggling is a much more subtle affair. It consists for the most part of subterfuges and the signing of false declarations; of aviators who break a gentleman’s agreement whereby aeroplanes are rarely subjected to close search; of cargoes of tobacco brought out of bond in London for consignment to a Continental Port only to be brought back into the country by a devious route; of sooietv women smugglers who, acting for dressmakers, bring in Paris models duty free; of owners of private yachts who (again breaking faith with revenue officers prepared to trust them) deliberately smupKle quantities of articles, of professionals who pick on any device (such as using the book post) to introduce drugs into the country. There is nothing romantic about any of this. At its worst it is common fraud, and at its best petty meanness.