moval, requiring the incumbent, unless otherwise directed by the Secretary of the Treasury, to continue to discharge the duties until a successor takes charge, and continuing the liability of the officer and his sureties, to embrace such additional service; or the Secretary may depute another person, under proper bonds, to discharge the duties during such interval.

In case of vacancy by death, the deputy of the collector, naval officer, surveyor, or appraiser, or chief clerk, (as the case may be,) may discharge the duties of the office of his deceased principal, until appointment of successor, or designation by the Secretary of some other person to act, the estate of the deceased and sureties on his bond to be liable for due discharge of duties and revenue collected in the interval. The Secretary of the Treasury has also the power to appoint, in the several departments of the customs, on the nomination, respectively, of collector, naval officer, surveyor and appraiser, deputies to collectors, naval officers, surveyors and appraisers, inspectors, assistant appraisers, examiners, weighers, measurers and gaugers; the Secretary of the Treasury to have the power of limiting the number and compensation of such subordinate officers, but not to increase their compensation beyond the amount limited by law.

Collectors, naval officers, surveyors and appraisers are authorized to employ in their respective districts, with the approbation of the secretary, as many clerks, night inspectors, laborers, messengers, watchmen, and other persons in aid of the revenue as shall be found necessary; the secretary to limit the number and fix the compensation of persons. so employed; but no clerk to receive a greater compensation than five dollars per diem.

In all the districts to which naval officers are not assigned, the secretary is authorized to appoint a clerk to keep the accounts and act as auditor in the settlement thereof, thus providing at such ports, when deemed expedient, a check corresponding in an important respect with that of the naval officer at the principal ports.

The President, with the consent of the Senate, is also authorized to appoint six appraisers at large, being one more than the Board, as now constituted; one being designed for the ports on the Pacific, and the residue for ports on the Atlantic coast of the United States.

The collectors, naval officers, surveyors and appraisers are required to give adequate bonds for the faithful discharge of the duties of their respective offices, and the Secretary of the Treasury, with the approval of the President, is authorized to regulate and increase the amount of their bonds, from time to time, whenever. the interests of the United States are deemed to require it.

The compensation of collectors for the unclassified districts and for the first and second of the classified, is by fixed salaries, ranging from $10,000 per annum, as in San Francisco, to $4,000, as in Charleston, and in the residue of the districts they are paid by salaries ranging from $1,500 per annum, and half of one per cent. commission on the amount of collections, as in the third class, to eight per cent. commission, as in the eighth class.

In the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh classes, collectors are allowed. additional pay for services actually rendered, in the form of prescribed

fees, to be paid out of the public treasury; and the secretary is authorized, with the approbation of the President, to grant additional compensation to collectors in districts seven and eight, reporting such changes in salaries, classifications, districts, changes of districts, or new ports established, annually, to Congress.

The naval officers, surveyors and appraisers are all compensated by fixed salaries proportioned to the salaries of the collectors at their respective ports, and the general appraisers are also paid fixed salaries, and salaries or per diem compensations are also assigned to all the other permanent officers connected with the customs.

The present mode of compensation is by salaries, commissions, and fees, and being fixed by law, and the amount of collections and other business, on which, especially, the two latter elements depend, being fluctuating, there is a want of just proportion maintained between the compensation and the service, to say nothing of the door open to fraud and oppression by exaction of illegal fees, without the knowledge of the department, and therefore beyond its control.

The proposed system, dispensing with fees, granting fixed salaries, or salaries and commissions to the collectors of the districts arranged in classes, proportioned to the amount of revenue collected, and providing for transfer of districts from class to class, with the increase or diminution of revenue, combines, with an adequate scale of compensation, a principle of self-adjustment by which, without any additional legislation or exercise of executive discretion, it is designed and hoped that the pay will always be kept in due proportion to the service and responsibility.

Chapter 3. "Concerning the registry of vessels, and regulating the coasting trade."

In this chapter are brought together the several provisions of the existing laws regulating the issuing of registers, emoluments, and licenses, and the coasting trade, with such additions and modifications as to adapt the law to the present condition of navigation and com

merce.

By the present law registers are granted for the foreign trade, and emoluments and licenses, or licenses alone, according to tonnage, for the coastwise trade. It is proposed to dispense with emoluments and licenses, and issue instead a register for the coast wise trade, as well as the foreign trade; the coasting register to be renewed annually, and a register also to vessels engaged in the various fisheries. This will, it is believed, be more simple than the present arrangement, and will distinguish quite as well the tonnage of the United States engaged in the various branches of commerce.

As to the vessels which may be documented as vessels of the United States no change in the present law is proposed, except that vessels, wherever built, wrecked, and properly condemned as unseaworthy, purchased by a citizen of, and repaired in the United States, at a cost equal to two-thirds the value when repaired, and wholly owned and commanded by American citizens, may be registered, as also vessels of the United States sold to foreigners and afterwards repurchased in the United States, and wholly owned and commanded by citizens of the United States not having been engaged in any unlawful trade, on

payment of a duty on the appraised value of 5 per cent., to be carried to the marine hospital fund.

It is proposed to substitute for the present arbitrary and inexact mode of ascertaining the tonnage of vessels a method that shall ascertain the precise carrying capacity of a vessel, as near as may be, and instead of prescribing any fixed mode by law, in view of the frequent change of model and improvements in ship building, the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to prescribe, from time to time, uniform rules for the ascertainment of tonnage for vessels of different build, shapes, and dimensions.

Ample provision is made for the exchange of registers from one branch of commerce to another without the payment of any fee or charge therefor.

The change effected in our coastwise and interior commerce by the use of steam has rendered inapplicable many of the provisions of the existing coasting law enacted in 1793, and among these are the requirements in regard to manifests. By the proposed law the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to prescribe the form of the manifest to be used by steam and other vessels engaged in the coasting trade, and so to alter the same from time to time as to make them conform to the convenience of trade and prevention of smuggling. And, to interfere as little as possible with the course and arrangements of steam and other coasting vessels, collectors are authorized to station a deputy at the place of their departure, to receive there the oath of the master to his manifest, without requiring his presence at the custom-house.

As the law now stands, on the sale of a part interest in a ship owned by several persons, new papers must be issued, and all the owners must give new bonds. It is proposed in such cases to require only new bonds to be given by the new parties in interest.

In order to prevent American vessels from being engaged in the slave trade, it is proposed to prohibit, under heavy penalties, any American vessels engaging in trade on the western coast of Africa, or between any country and that coast, without a special license therefor in addition to her register for the foreign trade. This is designed not as superseding, but as auxiliary to other laws in force or which may be adopted for the prevention of the slave trade.

The foregoing are the principal changes introduced into this chapter in regard to the issue of marine papers and regulating the coasting

trade.

Chapter 4. "For the government and regulation of seamen in the merchant service of the United States."

This chapter embraces all the essential provisions of the existing law regulating seamen in the merchant service, with no other change (besides a few trifling verbal amendments) than the bringing together, in immediate juxtaposition, the provisions now scattered through various laws on the same subject matter, and presenting them in clear, simple, and intelligible arrangement.

It prescribes the shipping contract to be entered into by the seamen and master; the list of crew; the bond for the return of the seamen or their proper discharge abroad; the payment of wages, and recovery if withheld; the furnishing of proper medicines and provisions; the dis

charge of and provision for seamen in foreign ports; surveys of the vessel on the allegation of unseaworthiness, and the mode of enforcing the shipping contract by the master as well as the mariner.

The existing laws have been found, in general, to work well, and their essential provisions have been retained.

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Chapter 5. To regulate the duties of officers of the customs and masters of vessels on entry of vessels from foreign ports."

This chapter is composed, with few additions and modifications, of provisions taken from the general collection law of 1799 and its amendatory acts and the laws of 1821 and 1823, regulating importations from territories adjacent to the United States. It prescribes the duties of collectors, naval officers, surveyors, and inspectors; the form of and examination of manifest; the report and entry of the vessel; the transportation of imported goods destined to be landed in different districts, or part to be landed in the United States, and the residue exported; importations and entry of goods from foreign adjacent territories; transportation over portages; treatment of vessels putting into port in distress, with appropriate forfeitures and fines and penalties for violations of these respective provisions.

The principal addition to the existing laws in this chapter, and an important one, is that which authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to require the payment of duties directly by the importer, or due ascertainment by the collecting officers, to the Assistant Treasurer of the United States, under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, thus making the collector's office a registry of the duties, and the assistant treasurer the receiver of the same; and at ports where no such depositary exists, to transfer by drafts on the collector the public money in his hands to any assistant treasurer and pay the expense thereof; to direct an outgoing collector to pay over moneys to his successor, and one collector to pay over money to another-the collector recovering the same and his sureties to be liable therefor as if for money collected. This provision, it is believed, would afford great additional security against the misuse or embezzlement of the public revenue, and furnish desirable facilities for the transfer of the public money from the various points of collection to the treasury of the United States.

The only other important addition is that authorizing, in case of vessels from foreign ports and destined for the United States stranded upon the coasts, the cargo to be landed, stored or forwarded in lighters or other vessels, under the charge of the officers of the customs and with proper manifests, to the port of destination, to be entered as if imported in the vessel in which it was originally shipped. This is a useful addition to the present law and applicable to cases of not unfrequent

occurrence.

Chapter 6. "Regulating the entry of goods, unlading of cargoes, ascertainment of quantities and damage, entry of baggage and sea stores." The provisions of this chapter are mainly provisions of the general collection act of 1799 and the supplemental collection act of 1823, arranged according to the subject matter, and, nearly as practicable, according to the order of proceedings on the entry of imports at the custom house. It regulates the production of invoices, their verification and authentication; the value of foreign currencies at the custom

houses; the oath to be taken by the owner and consignee of imports; the estimation and payment of duties; unlading of merchandise; the duties of the weigher, measurer and gauger, and inspector, and the form of their returns and the examination and comparison thereof with the manifests; entry of sea stores and baggage and articles of American origin exported and returned to the United States; the times within which vessels must discharge; the disposition of unclaimed goods and ascertainment and allowance for damage occurring on the voyage of importation. A new provision is made in this chapter, in case the importer does not produce an invoice, or produces an invoice not properly verified and authenticated. By the present law, the goods may be admitted to entry on appraisement, and a bond taken for the production of the invoice. It is proposed to require, instead of a bond, a deposit of five per cent. on the estimated value of the goods, to the credit of the Treasurer of the United States, to be forfeited unless the invoice is produced within four months. This requirement, it is believed, will better insure the production of an invoice, or indemnify the United States for its non-production.

Another change from the present law is the requirement that American productions exported and returned to the United States shall be admitted free of duty only when they are returned within one year, the ownership remaining unchanged. The difficulty of identification of merchandise, where the time within which it may be returned is unlimited, as under the present law, after its frequent change of ownership in a foreign country, renders the proposed restriction necessary against fraud on the public revenue.

The time now prescribed by law for the unlading of vessels is fifteen and twenty days. It is proposed to prescribe eight and twelve working days for that purpose, according to the tonnage of the vessel; but the goods may be taken possession of by the collector at any time, with the consent of the owner or consignee of the goods, or with the consent of the owner or master of the vessel; and to facilitate the unlading of steam-packets or vessels, it is proposed to authorize the collector, if the owner or consignee of the vessel will furnish a suitable fire-proof warehouse, to be approved by the Secretary of the Treasury, to cause the cargo to be transferred at any time he may think proper, on the request of the owner or consignee in writing, to such warehouse, to be treated therein and delivered therefrom as in or from the vessel, and to continue the discharge of the vessel during the night, should the owner desire it, on his paying an additional compensation therefor, to be distributed among the customs officers attending to the night discharge.

The present law limits the time within which proof of damage of merchandise on the voyage of importation must be lodged with the collector to ten days after landing. This has been found too brief a period, and it is proposed that the Secretary of the Treasury may, in cquitable cases, extend the time not exceeding thirty days.

Chapter 7. "To regulate the appraisement of imported merchandise."

The provisions of this chapter, with some important additions, are mainly those of existing laws. It designates the officers who are to make the appraisements, what shall constitute the value on which the