CHAPTER II.

THE COLLISION BETWEEN THE BOARD AND THE LONDON DOCK DIRECTORS.

THE aversion which Parliament and the public manifest towards those piles of printed matter which have been indicated as "Blue-books," has arisen from their drawing a wise distinction betwixt the luminous, and the merely vo-luminous. As it is their length which has led to the suspicion of their obscurity, it is not merely classification and arrangement which are required at the hands of an adapter, but chiefly condensation— the sole condition upon which the generality of society will be induced to encounter an examination of the subject. Much conversational and desultory matter has been introduced into the evidence which breaks the continuity of the narrative of events and facts; and many intricate discussions and minute analyses of particulars are run to earth and to seed, by the eager interest of the parties and principals in the investigation; which, however useful, or even important in an investigation before Parliament or a court of law, would dissipate the attention, and repel the public from the enquiry; and thus frustrate the very object of the Report.

The editors of this Digest must, therefore, at the very outset, protest that they do not undertake to preserve all that is material, or even important, to the exhaustion of the unseemly controversy which still continues to embitter the relations indispensable to the transaction of public business betwixt the Dock Companies and the Board of Customs. They cannot be minute at the expense of driving away readers in despair; or full and comprehensive to the effect of only frustrating the sole object of this Digest, which is that of rendering the general features of the question intelligible, and their embodiment in print read. By far the largest portion, at least two-thirds, of the five volumes, embracing the first and second Reports of the Select Committee, are occupied by what are termed the Dock Casesand, as the fairest and most convenient condensation of the

statements of the London Dock Company, the editors proceed now to give their own opening of their case as contained in their Representation to the Board of Trade, wherein are collected the facts and correspondence which are scattered over the whole of the Parliamentary Report, in the necessarily undigested and desultory shape of oral testimony. There is the greater reason for the adoption of this course, in that the only persons and documents examined before the Select Committee were such as alone had taken part in the preliminary proceedings and correspondence.

$1. PREFATORY STATEMENT OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES INTRO

DUCTORY TO THE PROSECUTIONS.

On the 15th June, 1850, the Chairman of the London Dock Company addressed to the Board of Trade a Representation which embraces a consecutive and sufficiently clear condensation of the various acts of the Board and Officers of Customs which drove the Company into collision with the Government. Of that document there is now presented a slight abridgement.

"I have to intreat your Lordships to peruse the correspondence, which has been passing between this Company and the Honourable Board of Customs, for the last three months.

The Directors complain of the spirit in which the proceedings of the Board have originated of their total inconsistency with the relative position of the Board of Customs and the London Dock Company-of the want of a just apprehension of that position on the part of the Board-of the ignorance of the practical working of business in the Port of London on the part of the Customs, disclosed in these proceedings of the unworthy and degrading methods pursued by the officers of the Customs in seeking to obtain information—and, lastly, of the utterly unjustifiable character of the legal proceedings taken against some of the Company's principal officers.

The London Dock Company being, as I have already stated, responsible to the Crown, for the duties on all goods in the Docks, it follows, that if the Board of Customs had obtained any information showing that irregularities of any kind were practised in the Docks, they could not have rendered a more acceptable service to this Company, than in imparting such information to the Directors. The London Dock Company is not a trading company. It neither buys nor

H h

sells. It neither does, nor can occupy any antagonist position towards the Customs. No merchandise enters the Docks, that is not taken account of by the Customs. If any part thereof be surreptitiously abstracted, the Company is liable to the Customs for the duty thereon, The Company cannot escape. The goods are recorded in the books of the Customs, and until the duty be paid thereon, or they be exported the Company has no means of being discharged from its responsibility. Assuredly, then, looking merely to its accountability to the Crown, the Company has the most direct and positive interest in guarding against fraud in every shape. But when it is further recollected, that the Company is answerable, not only to the Crown for the duties—but to the merchant for the property itself—it is manifest, that every conceivable motive is in operation, to lead to the highest degree of vigilance on the part of the Company for the suppression of every kind of irregularity in the Docks, and to its receiving with cordiality any information that might assist it therein.

Self-evident as this is, the Board of Customs has thought it fitting— acting on information derived from polluted sources, and proving, in fact, as events have shown, of no real value whatever--instead of approaching this Company as a co-operative instrument (which, in truth, it most effectively is) in the protection of the revenue, to treat it, as it would deal with a low and disreputable trader seeking to defraud the revenue; it has employed, for weeks together, a body of forty or fifty Custom-house officers to ransack the whole of the Company's warehouses; it has placed goods under seizure for which it has no pretence in law; its officers have circulated throughout the City of London the most atrocious mis-statements of proceedings in the Docks; and, finally, it has arrested the superintendent of the London Docks-the inspectorone of the principal warehouse-keepers—and six other persons in the Company's service, on a charge of fraud of the most frivolous and contemptible character.

The particulars of the case on which this step has been taken, will be found at page 95 of the Correspondence. It may be stated shortly thusa quantity of rubbish, denominated black stuff,' consisting of filth-sawdust-oil from the truck wheels-lime-and other kinds of matter, scraped from the main gangways of the sugar warehouse-had, previously to the year 1845, been thrown upon the dirt-heap, and removed from the Docks by the scavenger. In that year, a person carrying on the business of a scum boiler, offered to purchase it. The Company sold it to him in the same manner that dung, or any other refuse stuff, would be sold by any one. It produced nett to the Company, after deducting the expenses attending it, about two shillings and elevenpence per hundred weight.

All this was done in open day. The officers of the Customs, who are never absent from the Docks, must continually have seen it, in the act of being removed from time to time. It is not pretended that their attention was specially called to it. It never occurred to any person in the Company's service, that refuse stuff of this description could be liable to a duty. The only question that presented itself for consideration was, between throwing this stuff away--or getting something for it. And yet, upon this state of facts, of which your Lordships have here a plain and unvarnished account, three of the principal persons in the Company's service-the Superintendent, who has the whole administration of the Docks under his control-and two other officers next in authority to him-men of the highest integrity and most respectable personal conduct-who have been from twenty-eight to thirty-six years each in the Company's service-have been arrested and held to bail on a charge of defrauding the revenue.

do,

If the Board of Customs had discovered some practice to exist in the Docks which it conceived to be irregular and detrimental to the interests of the revenue-if it believed that some particles of sugar, liable to duty, might be incorporated with this rubbish-what had the Board' to my Lords, but to call for an investigation into the circumstances of the case, that the state of the facts might be ascertained ? Instead of this, what has been the course pursued by the Board? It writes to the Company on the 20th May, that the Board had been informed that it had been the practice to sell and deliver certain sweepings and scrapings of sugar out of the London Docks without the knowledge or examination of the proper officers of the Customs;' and it inquires by what authority such practice has been pursued.' While an investigation was going forward, to ascertain to what this referred—the Board not having given any specification of the particular case-another letter is received from the Board, dated the 30th May, stating that a person named Smith, an Assistant Foreman in the Company's service, had communi. cated information to the Customs Solicitor, which had confirmed the information previously received by the Board, and that it had been 'deemed expedient to take Smith's evidence on the part of the Crown.'

It will be seen by the correspondence what had been the proceedings of this man Smith. In order to possess himself of the rewards held out by officers of the Customs to any person in the Company's service who would give information, he kept up a communication with the Customs while remaining in the pay of the Company, and in order to provide a case that should ensure his own remuneration, he was detected in introducing sugar into the casks of Black Stuff. (See page 98 of the correspondence.) Nothing could be more likely to lead to such pro

ceedings, with persons of weak principle, than the allurements held out by officers of the Customs.

Would it not, my Lords, have been a measure of only common civility -I might add, of common decency-for the Board to have waited an answer to these two letters, before taking any further proceedings? There would be no great danger, that persons who had been thirty years in the Company's service would suddenly elude the grasp of its Solicitor. The answer of this Company was written on the 4th June, giving a full history of this Black Stuff'-its quantity-the sum it had produced, and every particular connected with it. On the following morning, it was dispatched to the Custom-house; but before the messenger had left the Dock House to deliver it, the Superintendent presented himself at the Company's office in the City in the custody of an officer of justice, to call on the Directors to give bail for him!

I venture to say, my Lords, that the annals of the most despotic state in Europe will hardly disclose a case of more arbitrary and uncalled for exercise of power than this. No one can deny the right of the Crown to appeal to the powers of the law, for the enforcement of its rights. But it is, at least, usual to precede such an appeal by a statement of the demand which is made. The most petty tradesman in this metropolis would not think of annoying a brother tradesman with legal proceedings, until he had at least delivered to him a statement of the demand which he made upon him. If the Board believed that this stuff was liable to the payment of duty, it was incumbent on the Board to state what amount of duty it claimed thereupon. No difficulty could have presented itself in ascertaining, by a competent examination, whether this stuff did or did not contain ingredients of a nature liable to duty, and, if it did, in adjusting the payment of the same : or, if it was found that the claim for duty exceeded the nett value of the stuff, the obvious alternative was to restore to the dirt heap. Either of these courses would have been as practicable as intelligible-instead of which, the Board of Customs, without stating what amount of duty it claimed, or making any previous demand for the payment of duty at all, issues this most offensive process, charging nine persons in the Company's service with a fraud of which they are just as innocent, as the members of the Honorable Board itself.

It may be perfectly true to say, that the powers of the law only have been put in motion, and that a jury of the country will have to decide on the merits of the case. But what compensation can the Board of Customs offer to the respectable Superintendent of this Company-a man esteemed and respected by all persons transacting business in the Docks-for placing him in the hands of an officer of justice until he had given bail for his appearance on a charge of this utterly groundless cha