TO ZION

Thy God desires thee for his dwelling,
And happy is the man he has chosen

To be brought near to dwell in thy courts.
Happy is he that watches,

And, drawing near, sees the rising of thy lights,

And upon whom breaks forth thy dawn,

Who sees the welfare of thy chosen ones,

And exults in thy joy,

And thy return to the olden ways of thy youth.20

HERBERT BENTWICH.

20 Jehuda Halevi in The Zionide.

OUR CUSTOM HOUSE REGULATIONS

It was Sir Roger de Coverley, I think, who made an entry in his diary to the following effect: Returned from all the horrid noises of the country to my nice quiet lodging over the Blacksmith's at Charing Cross.'

There must be thousands of our countrymen who at this moment are coming back from the Continent-some of whom have enjoyed themselves, but many more worn and jaded in their search for amusement which they have not found-whose return home, otherwise so joyfully anticipated, is clouded by the thoughts of the inconveniences they will necessarily be subjected to in passing through the Custom House.

Their grievances are duly aired in the columns of the Times and then forgotten for another year. I once heard a comparison drawn between two prominent politicians who were both said invariably to object to every proposal that was ever made by their colleagues in the Cabinet. The one never suggested, while the other always did, an alternative scheme. I am anxious to emulate the example of the latter, and while taking exceptions to the existing Customs Regulations as antiquated, out of date, and unworthy of this country, the mother of Free Trade, to suggest an alternative. Hooker says, 'Laws have been made upon special occasions, which occasions ceasing, laws of that kind do abrogate themselves.' It is not so with the laws, which I shall endeavour to show so needlessly excite the wrath and complaints of the travelling public at the present day, which I should like to see, if not abrogated, materially improved. These laws were all very well at a time when probably a week was occupied in crossing the Channel, and the weary and windbuffeted passengers were too glad to sleep at the port of their arrival, and pursue their journeys in easy stages by coach or post to the metropolis.

There was no hurry then. But in these days of rapid communication and frantic haste-when ladies even cross the Channel to try on a gown at Worth's and return within twenty-four hours-there is no room for the delays and interruptions which were so patiently endured by our ancestors. In the memory of men who are not yet

old, before those two great financial reformers Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Gladstone had revised the British Customs Tariff, there were 1,046 articles charged with distinct rates of duty. As Sydney Smith wittily said in an article of the Quarterly Review

There were taxes upon every article which enters into the mouth or covers the back or is placed under the foot; taxes on everything on the earth and the waters under the earth, on everything that comes from abroad or is grown at home; taxes on the raw material; taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man; taxes on the sauce that pampers man's appetite, and the drug that restores him to health; on the ermine which decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal; on the poor man's salt and the rich man's spice; on the brass nails of the coffin, and the ribands of the bride.

In 1859 the number of dutiable articles was reduced to 397, and in 1875 to 53. But we have changed all that, for at the present moment the only articles liable to Customs duties at all worth mentioning are alcohol, tobacco, tea, coffee, and cocoa.

There is no longer any need for ambassadors to stuff the cushions of their carriages with contraband lace, contraband gloves, and contraband watches. The temptation to smuggle inferior tobacco, spirits, tea, or coffee in small quantities is very slight. To smuggle them in large quantities is next to impossible; for the difficulty in evading the Custom House officials, who would probably have received information of the smuggler, would be great, but not half so great as the difficulty of their disposal in this country. The only instance I have ever heard of smuggling by any one on a big scale was the case of a traveller who had brought from Cuba a large quantity of cigars for his own smoking. He was honest up to a certain point; for on being asked by the Customs officer if he had anything to declare, he pointed to his portmanteau, saying, 'That is full of cigars.' "Oh, I dare say,' said the official, laughing, and writing his cabalistic hieroglyphics in chalk let him go free. I regret to say that the traveller's honesty was not proof against such a temptation to evade the proper duties.

Lord Granville once told me that on arriving at Dover he was anxious to get his luggage rapidly through the Custom House. So he gave the officer his name and told him that he was a member of a committee then sitting on the Customs establishment. The officer was equal to the occasion. He collected all the impedimenta, and examined every one of them with the utmost scrutiny, to show how scrupulously he performed his duties, and Lord Granville was foiled in his object.

I know I shall be believed if I say that I hate statistics with all the loathing that may reasonably be expected of a man who has passed seventeen years of his life in our great Revenue Department, and I will promise that I will avoid them as far as possible.

There are, as far as I can ascertain, about 350,000 passengers

crossing the Channel and landing in this country yearly, not including those who come from America, Australasia, West Indies, and South Africa, and other distant countries. Yet out of this enormous number there were, in the year past, only an infinitesimal number of prosecutions for smuggling instituted, and the penalties were as nothing.

Now I am not likely to forget any axiom ever inculcated on me by my great master Mr. Gladstone, and one of them was when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, that in making any proposal of a change there should always be a balance in favour of the Revenue.

Bearing that instruction in mind, my proposal shortly amounts to this that every passenger crossing the Channel should be furnished on embarkation with a declaration which might, by arrangement, be procured at the booking-office or on board the vessel. The form of it should be prepared by my very able friend the Solicitor to the Board of Customs.

On this document the passenger electing to make use of it should declare that his baggage contains, or does not contain, any dutiable article.

If it does it must be stated in a schedule, and he must pay the proper duty to the Customs.

If there exists no liability his luggage should be labelled and allowed to be landed without any examination. I am not so enamoured of my own scheme as to imagine that no objections can be made to it. Is there any scheme, or has there ever been any reform, to which some objections cannot be urged?

It may be said that the knowledge of luggage being liable to examination in transit or on arrival acts as a deterrent of smuggling.

I know well the inherent love which exists, particularly in the female mind, of evading any duty imposed by the Legislature; but I think that even the most careless would shrink from signing deliberately a false declaration, particularly when, if it shall be false or untrue in any material particular, the person wilfully making such false declaration shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanour.

Should it be asked, How would it ever be ascertained that a declaration was false? I should say that the astuteness of the Solicitor to the Board of Customs would take very good care that full power should be reserved to them to open the baggage of any person suspected of having contraband goods in his possession.

The whole of the commercial transactions of the country and of the civilised world are conducted on the basis of mutual trust tempered by reasonable suspicion. Even Schedule D of the Income Tax and the much-abused Death Duties are charged, with due safeguards, on individual declarations, and I am at a loss to conceive why travellers should be considered as endowed with what Mr. Gladstone calls a double dose of original sin.

The idea, if entertained by any one, that explosives would be more

easily imported under this new system than under the old one, may be readily dismissed now it is well known that enough can be carried on the person to blow up London Bridge. The matter is one of slight revenue importance, for the sums are so small. Yet I will bear in mind Mr. Gladstone's directions and suggest that every declaration should bear a stamp of the value of 18. on it-a declaration would cover all the luggage of a family.

Assuming that a small proportion of passengers would take advantage of this concession, the Revenue would gain something in money; but what is of far more importance in a Chancellor of the Exchequer's view is that this scheme would be followed by a considerable reduction of Customs officers at the ports.

I am not vain enough to suppose that my humble and simple proposal will be adopted; but, if it be considered a reform, I am sure that for that reason alone it would be welcomed by the present Chairman of the Customs Board, and if it becomes the law of the land I think I should have not only the gratitude of the travelling public, but that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who will gain a slight increase of revenue and a great amount of popularity.

ALGERNON WEST.