to put them beyond the reach of all but the richest individuals, they were burdened, down to 1834, with the exorbitant duty of 44s. 4d, a cwt. In that year, however, the duty was reduced a half, or to 22s. 2d. a cwt., and their importation was in consequence very materially increased. We, however, observed in a former edition of this work that as the price of currants in bond varied from 20s. to 35s. a cwt., a duty of 228. 2d. a cwt. was a great deal too high; and that it was, no doubt, owing to its amount that the consumption of currants was not materially greater. Sir Robert Peel, we are glad to say, took this view of the matter, and reduced the duty on currants, in 1844, to 15s. a cwt. The result has been such as had been antici pated. At an average of the 3 years ending with 1842, 183,836 cwts. currants were annually entered for consumption, producing an annual revenue of 212,8947. But, at an average of the years 1849 and 1850, no fewer than 419,846 cwts. were entered for consumption, while the annual revenue was increased to 330,2417! This, therefore, is one of the most memorable instances of the advantage of a judicious reduction of an excessive duty on an article in extensive demand. Besides increasing the comforts of the public and the amount of the revenue, it has given a considerable stimulus to the trade with Greece and the Ionian islands, currants being the principal product which they have to export. No abatement of duties is made on account of any damage received by currants. A Treasury letter of the 30th of March, 116, directs the following tares to be allowed, with liberty to the merchant and officers to take the actual tare when either party is dissatisfied. Currants in casks from Zante 13 per cent., Leghorn '0 per cent., Trieste 10 per cent. CUSTOM-HOUSE, the house or office where commodities are entered for importation or exportation; where the duties, bounties, or drawbacks payable or receivable upon such importation or exportation are paid or received; and where ships are cleared out, &c. For information as to the proceedings necessary at the Custom-house on importing or exporting commodities, see the article IMPORTATION AND EXPORTATION. The principal British Custom-house is in London; but there are Custom-houses subordinate to the latter in all considerable sea-port towns. CUSTOMS, are duties charged upon commodities on their being imported into or exported from a country. The Customs duties seem to have existed in every commercial country. The Athenians laid a tax of a fifth on the corn and other merchandise imported from foreign countries, and also on several of the commodities exported from Attica. The portoria, or customs payable on the commodities imported into, and exported from, the different ports in the Roman empire, formed a very ancient and important part of the public revenue. rates at which they were charged were fluctuating and various, and little is now known respecting them. Cicero informs us, that the duties on corn exported from the ports of Sicily were, in his time, 5 per cent. Under the Imperial government, the amount of the portoria depended as much on the caprice of the prince as on the real exigencies of the state. Though sometimes diminished, they were never entirely remitted, and were much more frequently increased. Under the Byzantine emperors, they were as high as 12 per cent. Customs duties existed in England previously to the Conquest. They appear to have derived their name from having been immemorially or customarily charged on certain articles when conveyed across the principal ferries, bridges, &c. within the kingdom, and on these and other articles of native and foreign produce, when exported from or imported into the kingdom. In 1206, the entire customs revenue of England, including that derived from tolls and fairs, amounted to only 4,958l. 78. 34d.! It is not, therefore, true, as has sometimes been stated, that the king's first claim to the customs was established in the reign of Edward I. But that able and politic prince, by rendering the levy of the old duties more effectual, and procuring the sanction of parliament to the imposition of new duties, was the first who made the customs revenue of any material importance. The duties were, at first, principally laid on wool, woolfels (sheep-skins), and leather when exported. There were also extraordinary duties paid by aliens, which were denominated parva costuma, to distinguish them from the former, or magna costuma. The duties of tonnage and poundage, of which mention is so frequently made in English history, were customs duties; the first being paid on wine by the tun, and the latter being an ad valorem duty of so much a pound on all other merchandise. When these duties were granted to the Crown, they were denominated subsidies; and as the duty of poundage had continued for a lengthened period at the rate of 1s. a pound, or 5 per cent., a subsidy came, in the language of the customs, to denote an ad valorem duty of 5 per cent. The new subsidy granted in the reign of William III. was an addition of 5 per cent. to the duties on most imported commodities. — (Treatise on Taxation, by the author of this work, p. 227.) The various customs duties were collected, for the first time, in a book of rates published in the reign of Charles II.; a new book of rates being again published in the reign of George I. But, exclusive of the duties entered in these two books, many more had been imposed at different times; so that the accumulation of the duties, and the complicated regulations to which they gave rise, were productive of the greatest embarrassment. The evil was increased by the careless manner in which new duties were added to the old; a percentage being sometimes added to the original tax; while at other times the commodity was estimated by a new standard of bulk, weight, number, or value, and charged with an additional impost, without any reference to the duties formerly imposed. The confusion arising from these sources was still further augmented by the special appropriation of each of the duties, and the consequent necessity of a separate calculation for each. The intricacy and confusion inseparable from such a state of things proved a serious injury to commerce, and led to many frauds and abuses. The Customs Consolidation Act, introduced by Mr. Pitt in 1787, did much to remedy these inconveniences. The method adopted was, to abolish the existing duties on all articles, and to substitute in their stead one single duty on each article, equivalent to the aggregate of the various duties by which it had previously been loaded. The resolutions on which the act was founded amounted to about 3,000. A more simple and uniform system was, at the same time introduced into the business of the Custom-house. These alterations were productive of the very best effects; and several similar consolidations have since been effected; particularly in 1825, when the various statutes then existing relative to the customs, amounting, including parts of statutes, to about 450, were consolidated and compressed into only 11 statutes of a reasonable bulk, and drawn up with great perspicuity. They were again amended in 1833, by the acts 3 & 4 Will. 4. cap. 51. 52. 56. and 58.; since which they have not been very materially varied. The Board of Customs consists at present (1843) of 9 commissioners. The Treasury may, if they see cause, appoint 1 commissioner and 2 assistant commissioners, to act for Scotland and Ireland. Officers of customs taking any fee or reward, whether pecuniary or of any other sort, on account of any thing done, or to be done, by them in the exercise of their duty, from any one, except by the order or permission of the commissioners of the customs, shall be dismissed their office; and the person giving, offering, or promising such gratuity, fee, &c. shall forfeit 100%. Any officer of customs who shall accept of any bribe, recompence, or reward, to induce him to neglect his duty, or to do, conceal, or connive at any act whereby any of the provisions of the customs laws shall be evaded, shall be dismissed the service, and be rendered incapable of serving his Majesty in future in any capacity whatever; and the person offering such bribe, recompence, &c. shall, whether the offer be accepted or not, forfeit 500l. Customs duties, like all duties on particular commodities, though advanced in the first instance by the merchant, are ultimately paid by those by whom they are consumed. When a government lays a duty on the foreign commodities which enter its ports, the duty falls entirely on such of its own subjects as purchase these commodities; for the foreigners would cease supplying its markets with them, if they did not get the full price of the commodities, exclusive of the tax; and, for the same reason, when a govern. ment lays a duty on the commodities which its subjects are about to export, the auty does not fall on them, but on the foreigners by whom they are bought. If, therefore, it were possible for a country to raise a sufficient revenue by laying duties on exported commodities, such revenue would be wholly derived from others, and it would be totally relieved from the burden of taxation, except in so far as duties might be imposed by foreigners on the goods it imports from them. Care, however, must be taken, in imposing duties on exportation, not to lay them on commodities that may be produced at the same, or nearly the same, cost by foreigners; for the effect of the duty would then be to make the market be supplied by others, and to put an entire stop to their exportation. But in the event of a country possessing any decided natural or acquired advan tage in the production of any sort of commodities, a duty on their exportation would seem to be the most unexceptionable of all taxes. If the Chinese chose to act on this principle, and had the power, they might derive a considerable revenue from a duty on exported teas, which would fall entirely on the English and other foreigners who buy them. The coal and tin, and perhaps, also, some of the manufactured goods produced in this country, seem to be in this predicament. The revenue derived from the custom duties in 1590, in the reign of Elizabeth, amounted to no more than 50,000l. In 1613, it had increased to 148,075l.; of which no less than 109,572. were collected in London. In 1660, at the Restoration, the customs produced 421,5824.; and at the Revolution, in 1688, they produced 781,9874 During the reigns of William III. and Anne, the customs revenue was considerably augmented, the nett payments into the exchequer in 1712 being 1,315,4231. During the war terminated by the peace of Paris in 1763, the nett produce of the customs revenue of Great Britain amounted to nearly 2,000,000l. In 1792, it amounted to 4,407,000l. In 1815, at the close of the war, it amounted to 11,360,000l., and last year (1850) it amounted to 19,958,279. 14s. 10d., and including Ireland, to 22,019,7831. 19s. 7d. Astonishing, however, as the increase of the customs revenue has certainly been, it is not quite so great as it appears. Formerly the duties on some considerable articles, such as sugar, brandy, wine, &c. imported from abroad, were divided partly into customs duties charged on their importation, and partly into excise duties on their being taken into consumption. But these duties have since been wholly transferred to the customs; the facilities afforded, by means of the warehousing system, for paying the duties in the way most convenient for the merchant, having obviated the necessity of dividing them into different portions. It will be seen from various articles in this work (see BRANDY, GENEVA, SMUGGLING, TEA, TOBACCO, &c.) that the exorbitant amount of the duties laid on various articles imported from abroad leads to much smuggling and fraud; and requires, besides, an extraordinary expense in many departments of the customs service, which might be avoided were these duties reduced within reasonable limits. This, however, is the business of government, and not of those intrusted with the management of the customs; and it would be unjust to the latter not to mention that this department has been es sentially improved, during the last few years, in respect of economy, whatever may be thought of its efficiency. The following extracts from a letter to the Right Hon. H. Goulburn, ascribed to the late chairman of the Board of Customs (R. B. Dean, Esq.), give a brief but satisfactory view of the improvements that have been effected : "As regards the department of customs in 1792, the principal officers engaged in the receipt of the duties in the port of London were patent officers. "The first Earl of Liverpool was collector inwards. "The late Duke of Manchester, collector outwards. "The Duke of Newcastle, and afterwards the Earl of Guilford, comptroller inwards and outwards. "Lord Stowell, surveyor of subsidies and petty customs. "These noblemen took no part in the official duties, but merely exercised the right of appointing deputies and clerks. Both principals and deputies were remunerated by fees. The patentees received the fees denominated patent, and the deputies retained the fees called the fees of usage for their own use. In addition to these fees, both deputies and clerks received fees for despatch. "The same system prevailed throughout the whole department. The salaries of the officers were nominal; and the principal proportion of all official income was derived from fees. These fees were constantly varying both in rate and amount, and formed a continual source of dispute and complaint between the merchant and the officer. "This system (after having been repeatedly objected to by various commissions of inquiry, and finally by the committee of finance in 1797,) was put an end to in the year 1812, by the act 51 Geo. 3. c. 71., by which all patent offices and fees were abolished, and compensation allowances granted to the patent officers, and fixed salaries established. "The additional salaries granted under this arrangement amounted to about 200,000%., and the temporary compensation allowances to about 40,000l. per annum. "The fees abolished, and from which the public were relieved, amounted to about 160,000l. per annum. "In addition to the amount of fees from which the public were relieved, various allowances made by the Crown to officers for quarantine, coal poundage, poundage on seizures, and many other incidental allowances, which did not appear on the establishment, were also abolished, and the salaries of every officer placed at one view upon the establishment. "The effect of these salutary measures has been to give a great apparent increase to officers' salaries since 1791; and, upon a mere comparison of the establishment of 1792 with 1830, without the above explanation, it would appear that the pay of the officers had been most materially augmented, whereas, in point of fact, the difference is in the mode of payment: and the incomes of the officers at the present period (as compared with 1792) are in general less; and, consequently, the public are less taxed for the performance of the same duty now than in 1792. “In the year 1792, the warehousing system had not been established. Officers were admitted at all ages, and there was no system of classification or promotion. The officers at the out-ports and in London were generally appointed through local influence; and were too often persons who had failed in trade, or had been in menial service, and who regarded their situations rather as a comfortable provision for their families than as offices for which efficient services were required. The superintendence and powers of the Board were cramped and interfered with by circumstances and considerations which prevented the enforcement of wholesome regulation. The whole system was so imperfect, so far back only as 1818, that a special commission was appointed to inquire into the department; and, upon the recommendation of that commission, various regulations have been adopted. "The age of admission has been limited; a system of classification and promotion of officers, and a graduated scale of salaries, established throughout the whole department; and, by this means, local interference in the promotion of officers has been abolished; the attendance of officers increased, regulated, and strictly enforced; holidays reduced from 46 in the year to 3; viz. Good Friday, the King's birthday, and Christmas-day; useless oaths, and bonds, and forms of documents of various kinds, discontinued; increased facility and despatch afforded to the merchants' business; the accounts kept in the different offices, and returns of all kinds, revised, simplified, and reduced; and various minor regulations of detail established; the whole machinery of the department remodelled, and adapted to the trade and commerce of the country. "In Ireland, the number of officers employed at all the ports, in the year ended the 5th of January, 1830, and the salaries and charges, did not much exceed the number and expense at the port of Dublin alone in 1818: and within the space of 11 years, nearly two thirds of the officers employed at the ports in Ireland have been discontinued; the number having been, in 1818, 1755; in 1829, 544: and an annual reduction in salaries and charges has been effected to the extent of 173,7241; the amount having been, in 1818,285,1154; in 1829, 111,3917. (103,8131. of that amount having been reduced between the years 1823 and 1828), upon an expenditure of 285,1157.; and the receipts were nearly equal, in 1827, to those of 1818 and 1823, notwithstanding the total repeal of the cross Channel duties, amounting to about 340,000l. per annum, subsequent to the latter period. "Influence is no longer allowed to prevail; and in many cases which have recently occurred, and in which the patronage of government might have been fairly exercised, it has been at once abandoned, in order to give way to arrangements by which the services of some very intelligent and highly respectable officers, whose offices had been abolished, could be again rendered available with a material saving to the public. "By an order from the Lords of the Treasury, of the 20th of February, 1830, the salaries of the commissioners, and of other officers, have been prospectively reduced, and directions given to revise the whole establishment in the spirit of that order, with a view to every possible reduction." Defective Organisation of the Customs Establishment. · The above are great improvements, and reflect credit alike on the government and the board of customs. But the latter is, notwithstanding, very unpopular, and it would appear to be the general opinion of the mercantile world that its constitution may be greatly improved. A few years ago it was found that extensive frauds had been carried on in the port of London for a lengthened period, in the entry of silks, gloves, and other highly taxed articles, through the connivance of the customs officers. The origin, no doubt, of these, as of most similar frauds, may be traced to the exorbitancy of the then existing duties, and to the consequent temptation which they held out to smuggling on the part of the importers and the corruption of the officers. But, admitting this, it is, at the same time, abundantly clear that had anything like an efficient supervision and check been exercised by the commissioners and their superior officers, these frauds could not have been carried on so long, or to such an extent. It would, however, appear that the former do little more than decide on the claims of private parties for a remission of duties, or on references made to them by the Treasury; and that they are in the habit of cominitting the enforcement of the regulations necessary to be observed in the entry of goods and the payment of duties to the care of the surveyors-general. But this, as it appears to us, is to abdicate or neglect what is the most important part of their peculiar duty. They are appointed to carry the Customs Acts into effect, so that every possible facility and accommodation may be given to the trader consistent with the security of the revenue; and it is impossible they can do this without being thoroughly acquainted with the details of every department, and with the abuses to which it may be peculiarly liable. The commissioners could not but suspect that frauds of no common magnitude were taking place in the entry of goods in the Thames. Private parties had assured them that such was the case; and, independently of this, the fact must have been established to the conviction of every reasonable person by comparing the accounts given by the French custom-house of the exportation of silks, gloves, &c. from France for England, with the entries of the same in our customs returns; and it was the duty of the commissioners, on seeing this extraordinary discrepancy, to have themselves immediately entered into a searching inquiry into its origin, and not to have devolved that duty on others, or waited till the frauds were discovered by the confessions of some of those engaged in carrying them on. We hope it will not be supposed, from anything now stated, that we have any wish to extenuate the guilt of the officers who participate in the plunder of the revenue; but, how much and how deservedly soever we may blame them, we need not be sur prised, considering their situation in life, the smallness of their salaries, and the carelessness of their superiors, that they should sometimes yield to the powerful temptations to which they are exposed. Very recently the Commissioners of Customs have instituted numerous actions, some of them of a very paltry description, against two of the principal London Dock Companies, the result of which is still uncertain; but which, however they may terminate, can hardly do more than show some little irregularity or neglect on the part of the latter, whose interests, in so far as the collection of the revenue is concerned, are in effect identical with those of government. The commissioners have, also, whether rightly or not, been accused of vexatious conduct in the administration of their department, and of interposing needless delays and forms in the transaction of the important business entrusted to their care. Indeed, there is a very prevalent opinion amongst the mercantile classes that, as now constituted, the Board of Customs is an inefficient and an unsuitable instrument, and that it should be either wholly abolished, or reconstructed on a new principle. Perhaps, if it is to be continued, the better plan would be to reduce the number of commissioners to three, and to make their duties entirely executive. All questions as to the mitigation and remission of duties and references from the Treasury on such matters, might be submitted to a lawyer well versed in mercantile law, connected with the customs department, and acting on his undivided responsibility; so that the duties of the Board might be entirely confined to the administration of the laws and regulations for the collection of the revenue and the facilitating of trade. The smuggling that is still carried on, despite the officers, is principally occasioned by the high duties on tea, tobacco, and a few other articles. It is difficult, indeed, seeing that the probability is that these duties would be more productive were they considerably reduced, to discover for what good purpose they are kept up. The land guard, and the preventive water guard, costing together about 460,000l. a year, might be dispensed with, were the duties now referred to adequately reduced. In Scotland, separate Custom-houses seem to be multiplied to a useless extent. It is true that some years ago a very considerable change for the better was effected in the Scotch Customs department; but it is still susceptible of, and should be subjected to, great curtailment. Why should a collector, comptroller, clerks, &c. be employed to transact business that in many instances would not afford half employment for a single officer ? The reader will find, in the accounts of most imported articles of any consequence given in this work, statements of the customs duty paid on their importation. It may be useful, however, to have them all brought together in one point of view, as in the following Table: An Account of the Gross and Nett Produce of the Customs Revenue of Great Britain, in the Year ended |
