MERCANTILE HONOR.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2043, 22 July 1875, Page 3

MERCANTILE HONOR.

The Melbourne Argus of the 11th June tells the following pretty story; —"A few months ago- a- highly respectable Melbourne merchant had occasion .to enter into business relations, for the first time, with an apparently equally respectable London merchant. ■ The.first sent an experimental order to the second for a few hundred] pounds worthy of goods, and these arrived at our port in due.time, and in good condition. .But there was a cer' tain eccentricity about the accompanying invoices. Two invoices were sent, one re presenting the actual value of the goods, and the amount that had to be remitted, the other being intended for Custom-house purposes, and .representing exactly half the amount of' the genuine document. The - duty -on- the goods mentioned" in the true and false invoices is 20 per cent, and if our, "Melbourne merchant had been sufficiently elastic of conscience to use the false one, he would hare received his goods by paying to the. Government. 10 per cent, on their real value. . But he happened. to be one pf those .impracticable Ifind of- people jib at perjury, and he. paid the full duty on his importation,- though, in

doing so, he destroyed his opportunity to compete successfully with less scrupulous respectable merchant in the same line of business. No doubt all this is due, primarily, to our own emph'ical fiscal legislation ; but we think there is at the same time some ground for complaint against the highly respectable British merchant. Why should bo, of his own motion, send out fraudulent invoices^ to Melbourne, in order to cheat the Victorian Customhouse ? The fact that he did so uninvited points to the conclusion that the practice.is not uncommon, and seems to imply that our import duties are syste-' matically evaded. But it also goes to show that the British merchant, exemplar as he is of all that is blunt, honest, and straightforward (in novels and comedies), is -sometimes quite as capable of a little Sharp practice as anybody else when favorable opportunities present themselves." ......