REPORT OF THE Deputation to Lord John Russell. ON Tuesday, December 9th, the Deputation appointed at the great Meeting of Merchants, Bankers and Traders, held in the City on Wednesday, December 3rd, had an interview with Lord John Russell, at the Treasury, for the purpose of representing to his Lordship the general dissatisfaction of the mercantile community with the present administration of the Customs department, and of urging upon him the necessity for its speedy and thorough reform. Earl Granville was present during part of the proceedings. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was absent. The Deputation comprised JOHN MASTERMAN, ESQ., M.P. ADAMSON, ESQ., (a Deputation from Aberdeen.) J. I. TRAVERS, Esq. (J. Travers and Sons.) R. W. CRAWFORD, ESQ. (Crawford, Colvin and Co.) THOMAS TOOKE, Esq. THOMAS TOOKE, JUN., ESQ. (Sampson, Mitchell and Co.) J. P. GASSIOT, Esq. (Martinez, Gassiot and Co.) C. F. HUTH, Esq. (F. Huth and Co.) C. MARRYAT, Esq. (Joseph Marryat and Sons.) W. J. HALL, ESQ. B. B. GREENE, ESQ. (Blyth and Greene.) WM. WALLACE, ESQ. (Gledstanes and Co.) F. PATTISON, Esq. (James Pattison and Sons.) J. FORSTER, Esq. (Forster and Smith.) F. BENNOCH, Esq. (Bennoch, Twentyman, and Rigg.) WM. PYE, ESQ. (Pye, Field and Tanqueray.) PETER DICKSON, Esq. (Peter Dickson and Co.) R. HARRISON, ESQ. H. L. MORGAN, ESQ. JOHN DILLON, Esq. (Morrison, Dillon and Co.) A. BOSANQUET, Esq. THOMAS NAGHTEN, ESQ. J. D. ALLCROFT, Esq. (Dent, Allcroft and Co.) J. SIM, ESQ. (Churchill and Sim.) B. LANCASTER, ESQ. (Wilson and Lancaster.) FOSTER, ESQ. (Sandeman, Foster and Co.) HARRISON WATSON, ESQ. (J. R. Thompson and Co.) J. G. FRITH, Esq. (Frith, Sands and Co.) C. PARIS, ESQ. (Paris and Tower.) SAMUEL HARRISON, ESQ. R. S. BAGSHAW, ESQ. E. BURMESTER, ESQ. (Burmester Brothers.) - PEEL, ESQ. (Johnson and Peel.) JOSHUA WALKER, ESQ. (Walker, Parker and Co.) SIDNEY SMITH, Esq (Secretary to the Committee.) The Deputation was introduced to the noble Premier, by Mr. MASTERMAN, M.P., who explained to his Lordship that they waited upon him in consequence of the resolutions passed at the meeting of Merchants of Wednesday last, at which it was strongly felt that great hardship and inconvenience were occasioned by the present Custom-house system, which had long called for an alteration of some kind; and the recent proceedings against two respectable Dock Companies had, perhaps more than ever strengthened the demand for a reform. They did not come to dictate, at the present moment, any particular measures to his Lordship, for the purpose of working out the necessary improvements. The Noble Lord was aware that certain propositions had been made with that object; but how far they accorded with his Lordship's views it was not for them now to ascertain. But the main point was the necessity felt for some alteration, or at all events, the earnest wish for the re-appointment of the Select Committee which sat last session on the subject of the Customs. MR. TRAVERS then said, that as Chairman of the Committee of Merchants who had called the Meeting of the 3rd inst., the duty devolved on him of representing to his Lordship the views and feelings of the mercantile community; and the question involving such serious interests and such grave complaints, the Committee had thought it better to put their statement in the form of writing. It was to the following effect: Representation to the Right Hon. Lord John Russell, First Lord of Her Majesty's Treasury, and member for the City of London, by the Deputation appointed at a Public Meeting for Reform of the Customs, held at the London Tavern, December 3rd, 1851. "The report and resolutions unanimously adopted at the public meeting, from which this deputation derives its authority, have been already laid before your lordship, and explain the reasons which have induced us to solicit the favour of this interview. "Whether, for the purpose of further inquiry into the abuses and inefficiencies of the Customs department of the public service, or of proceeding at once to the recommendation of complete remedial measures, the deputation have been commissioned to express the earnest desire of the commercial classes that the select committee of last session on the Customs should be re-appointed at the earliest period after the reassembling of parliament; and explicitly to ascertain the intentions of government on this subject. We therefore take leave to solicit the favour of an intimation of your lordship's determination in reference to the reappointment of the select committee. "The deputation would be well contented here to close their duties, but they have been charged with a further commission, which, although as involving reflections on individuals, they should have been glad to be relieved from the painful necessity of fulfilling, they regard as not less imperative upon them than important in its own results. We have been desired emphatically to express the great dissatisfaction experienced by the mercantile body with that department of your lordship's government which directs the administration of the Customhouse system. When the merchant complains to the officers charged with the collection of foreign revenue of irksome restrictions, useless forms, improper detentions, or unjust seizures, the latter place in justification of their acts a board's order or the letter of the law. When the party aggrieved appeals to the board, that tribunal refers to the obligation of acts of parliament as its warrant; or to the want of power to dispense with the requisitions of statutes, the provisions of the tariff, or the absence of a discretionary faculty, as its excuse, and throw the responsibility on the Treasury, as the sole depositories of discretionary powers in the last resort to grant dispensations from obviously unjust regulations or oppressive applications of the law. "The public are thus induced to regard the government as ultimately responsible for the abuses of which they complain, either by a misapplication of the powers it possesses, or by neglecting to apply to Parliament for the ability to introduce such reforms as it never refuses to the reasonable representations of an administration in which it reposes confidence. Regarding the Treasury as the head of the whole revenue branch of the public service, we are instructed to charge it upon that department that "1. The Board of Customs, of which it is or ought to be the master, is generally inefficient and incompetent, and that it has been suffered to regulate its own time and attendance on its public duties, and to neglect the recommendations of successive commissions, and even the instructions of the Treasury. "2. That no improvement has been adopted in the system of appointments, either of commissioners or inferior officers, so as to secure to the public the benefits of a competent administration of the system. "3. That the commissioners are inaccessible, their proceedings con ducted in secret, the official representations on which they decide concealed from the parties they affect, and that their acts are therefore altogether removed from accountability to the public. "4. That their responsibility even to their superiors is rendered practically a dead letter, inasmuch as an appeal from the board results only in a reference to the very tribunal from whose decision the appeal is made. 5. That the very fact of the co-existence of a Treasury commission and parliamentary committee to inquire into and remove the acknowledged abuses of the department, is substantially an evidence of the general conviction of the necessity of delegating to other parties the duties which properly devolve on the Treasury; and of interposing to exercise its functions to avert the consequences of its negleet, or to remove complaints which are caused solely by the want of a proper supervision of its officers On referring to the 12 heads of measures of reform suggested in the report adopted by the public meeting, it may be said that many of them might have been carried into effect by the simple exertion of the authority of the Treasury; and that, with regard to such as required the interposition of Parliament, to that department of the government must be attributed the omission or refusal to propose the necessary measures for effecting the desired alteration. "6. While many examples have been forwarded to the committee, duly authenticated, of gross mal-administration of the Customs' department, the deputation confine themselves to circumstances judicially recorded, or reported to the legislature, and therefore known to your lordship, for the justification of the public meeting in committing to this deputation the painful duty they now discharge. From the proceedings connected with the prosecutions at the instance of the Crown against the London and St. Katherine Dock Companies, the following conclusions are but too plainly deducible : "1. That if the acts charged against these companies have been illegal, indictable, and fraudulent, they have been practised for many years with the sanction and concurrence of that board which now charges these acts upon them as highly penal offences. "2. That if the nominal fines' accepted by government as a compromise satisfies the justice of the case against the Dock Companies, the prosecutions were totally without excuse; while if the counts of the indictments, and especially the charge of the then Solicitor General, were true, the withdrawal of the several prosecutions cannot easily be distinguished from compromising of felony. 3. That the attempt of the Solicitor of the Customs to withhold from the accused before trial all information of the particulars of the |