THE NEW YORK CUSTOMS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 131, 26 July 1911, Page 2

THE NEW YORK CUSTOMS.

HOW THEY ABE EVADED. (“Manchester Guardian.”) If vigilance in the public service Canute toward promotion, Mr. William .Loch ought soon to reach high place. During the two years that ne nas been Collector of the Fort of .iciv York he has recovered for the Tieasnry—in lines, settlements, and increased roeeip fcs—abont £1,000,000, which would have escaped if the former lax system of administration had continued. Last year the income from passengers amounted to £149,000, an increase of £252,000 over the year before he took olnee. Ho can put to his credit, outside the passenger income, such astonishing hauls as £139,000 from Arbnckie Brothers, £200,000 from the Duveens, and £600,000 from the Sugar Trust, in lines or arrears of duties. The pressure of the impending Customs examination begins to be felt by the incoming traveller before the liner passes Sandy Hook. There are always a lew persons on board, however, who have nothing to uVead. Members of foreign . Embassies and American officials returning from Government missions abroad a'e entitled to the “courtesies of the port,” and may enter without scrutiny. Visitors and immigrants may bring in their personal effects without payment. But residents in America, whether American citizens or aliens, have to prepare and sign a declaration recording every item they have acquired while abroad liy puretiase or in other nays, witli its foreign cost or value. They must give similar particulars of every article taken with them when they left home which has been so remodelled or improved as to increase its value. As the vessel comes np the bay it is boarded by Customs officers from a revenue cutter. 1 hey collect the forms from the purser, • while the passengers comment on the excellent taste shown by the Government in selecting an islet in the harbour ns the site for the Statue of Liberty.

Oji landing at Liverpool few passengers are unlucky enough to miss the special train which starts half an hour after the boat arrives. At New York, on the other hand, the Customs ordeal may last lor an hour 01 two. Ffrst you have to see that all your luggage is collected at the part of the dock allotted to your initial. You then proceed ro the suiveyor’s desk and wait your turn for the assistance, of an inspector. Possibly there is another delay through some irregularity in the declaration, hut if not the overhauling of your trunks can now begin. By this time the wharf as a whole has probably assumed the aspect of a fancy bazaar. Your own luggage supplies the materials for another stall while the inspector sees that it tallies with the manifest. For many years American residents returning from abroad were allowed a n exemption of wearing apparel “suitable for the voyage.” Since the Dinglcy Act the value of such free entries has been limited to £2O. The official definitions were once much stricter than at present. Not long ago, for instance, steamer rugs used to be field contraband, Regulations issued last March gave permission to include under tlie £2O privilege clothing, toilet articles, jewellery, personal ornaments, cameras, lishmg tackle, golf sticks, guns, musical instruments, steamer rugs, toys (for oneself, of course, not for one’s children), shawls,\valises, and thmss. The r.trill rates on some oi these imports’ show that it is quite worth while to avail oneself of such exemption. By the Payne Law tiie duty on cotton clothing is TO per cent.,' on woollen clothing is IGd a lb and GO per cent., on women’s and children’s dress goods from 3kl to o.UI a square yard, and from 50 to 55 per cent., on si Ik wearing apparel GO per cent., on gloves from 5s to 21s a dozen, on lace GO per' cent., on musical instruments 45 per cent., on toys 25 per cent., on perfumery from 50 per cent, upwards, and on pearls and precious stones from 10 to 20 per cent. On one of my visits home while living in America 1 bought clothing in London close up to too £2O limit, and reckoned that I had thereby saved about £lO on the current Now York prices—just enough to pay my saloon passage one way at the winter rates. To the American tourist who has 'spout a summer in Europe the most irritating exaction is the tax on souvenirs. A sin or spoon, a bit of Dresden china, a Swiss wood-caiving, even photographs, photograph albums, and illustrated giddes to the Lake District—they must all lie thrown overboard if they are not to pay tribute to the protection of American industries. 'Jims, by a curious inversion of common sense, the American traveller is allowed to purchase abroad articles winch really do compote with home manufactures, while he is penalised for bringing in foreign products that will not alfcct the custom he gives to his home shopkeepoi s. The most profitable captures are, of course, made in connection with attempts at smuggling articles within the permissible categories, but exceeding the legal limit. A £2O exemption is not a great boon to a wealthy traveller, who has a taste for lace and jewellery. Sometimes a trunk is discovered with a double bottom full of lace. A woman recently tried to smuggle in some Russian sable by winding some of it found one leg, wearing a muff on the other, and concealing a, boa under iier hat. A few years ago hundreds of thousands of dollars were lost to the Treasury by the “sleeper trunk” device. By collusion witn grafting officials, apparently unclaimed trunks were allowed to remain on the docks until they could he quietly removed when no one was looking. Other methods of evasion have to he devised in the case of imports that do not arrive in the guise of passengers’ luggage. Discoveries have lately been made of elaborate schemes tor defrauding the Government by undervaluations in the invoices of goods sent through the express companies, which are themselves, of course, quite free from complicity. There is reason to believe that frauds by undervaluation, underweighing, and so on have been carried out on so huge a scale as to discredit altogether the official statistics of American imports. Here, too, the greatest temp- I tations are offered >o Customs e-iipCy-

cos, lor on ;i. large consignment of cotton ( loth it wili make a did'ermce of hundreds of dollars to the impartor if the inspector can he person lei in count JOO threads to the square inch instead of 101, or Iof) instead of 101. for a sei ios of frauds on a really heroic scale nothing yet revealed comes anywhere near the classic example of the deni dilations committed hv the Sug.u Trust from 1902 to ]907. When a new surveyor took office in the former year he found a dilferenee of IS pei cent, between the invoiced and real weights of the sugar imported. This was explained by the Company as due to evaporation, which was found, however, to he less than 1.0 per cent, at other ports. This fraud inn nig been stopped, the Company hit upon the dodge of using for some of the sugar lighter trucks than those whose weight had been ascertained and allowed for. When this trick was played out the Company’s agents tried

other schemes ; m succession. They threw ttT.tci on the scale platforms every morning before the Government weigher bahuiced th.o scales; this was ostensibly to clean them, but actually that the Company might profit by the weight of the evaporated water on every load weighed. Last of all came the crowning artifice. in each of seventeen large weighing machines along the river front there was amide a small hole through which was passed a corset spring communicating with a lever. The checker, as lie sat and wrote by the side of the unsuspecting Government weigher, would press this spring on to the mechanism of the scale so as to reduce the registered weight by about 1-1 lb. This plot was not discovered until an old employee gave a hint to the Treasury at Washington.