The Express.
London, England, 1851-11-15 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 15, IPSI.

LONDON DOCKS AND THE CUSTOMS.

have been, to confer with the Honourable Board on any
regulation. which may be provased for the tr.m.saction of
business at the London Docks. .

The following is the correspondence, the purport
of which was given in Cho Express of Tuesday :

I remain, Sir, your (o)edient servant,
(Signed) J. D. Powsas.

TNT ISCIUSTAItIf OF THIS LONDON DOCK COMPANT TO
Till commiastoitans Of' CUSTONS.
London Dock Hnuse, Oct. 29.1851.
81r,—The time being at hand when the courts of law will
resume their sittings, the directors of this company trust
that it will not appear unsuitable to the Hon. Board of
Customs that they request the favour of being informed, for
their guidance, whether it be the intention of the hon.
board to proceed with any of the remaining suits pe.ading
against this company in respect of the goods under seizure ?
Under ordinary circumstances, such an inquiry from this
company, as the defendants in these suits, would have been
irregular. But considering that the whole of the internal
management of the London Decks has been the subject of
the most scrutinising investigation, both in the lengthened
suit which was tried in the Court of Exchequer, end in the
elaborate examination which has subsequently followed
before a committee of the House of Commons, the directors
trust that they are not assuming too much in expressing
their belief that further investigation in a court of law can
hardly be expected to elicit any additional facts or informa-
tion thereon.

The Daily Yews of Wednesday has the following
on the subject to which die foregoing correspondence
relates :

Public surprise at the extraordinary conduct of
the chairman and directors of the London Dock
Company, excited by our statement yesterday,
will be increased by the correspondence which the
publish to-day. So discreditable is it to all the
bodies concerned—to the Dock Company, to the
Board of Customs, and the Treasury, that the real'
difficult), is to decide which of the three has acted
worst in a transaction that has not a redeeming
feature in it. Let us consider the matter again.
The Customs had made grave charges of fraud on
the revenue, robbery of its customers, and an evasion
of the QUEEN'S taxes against this Dock Company, over
1 the affairs of which presided a body of English mer- 1
chants: and when these charges were tried before
the LORD CHIEF BARON and a special jury, after
eleven long and tedious days, investigated at a cost
of 20,0004, all they could establish was, that the
Dock Company had not entered two boxes of sugar ;
but, added the jury, net for the evasion of duty."
The Customs' ease against the docks, therefore,
disappeared. They could, of course, go. on as
they did, teasing and worrying and annoyiv g and
persecuting the Dock Company ; but from all the
grave and atrocious accusations which they. had set
out with, their eouli*A were driven from point after
point at the trial, and the CHIEF BARON stated
they were wholly unsupported by any credible testi-
mony.
Then followed the parliamentary inquiry; in the
0011T8C of it the Customs were even more signally da-
maged, and the more than Oriental tyranny of the
revenue laws, regulations, and practices over trade
was completely laid bare as to London. Further ex-
poeures as to the provinces were sure to be produced
by the excitement caused by the Exchequer trial and
the parliamentary investigation at the outports ;
when, to save themselves, and to break their
fall, the Customs' commissioners, wise in their
generation, began to visit and busy them-
selves in the London Docks. " Personal communi-
cations" (as the directors of the docks in their last
humiliating letter to the Customs mildly call a scan-
dalous intrigue) between them and the dock officers
took place, and after much jobbery " things were
made pleasant." "If you "—this was the arrange-
ment—" will say you might have been in fault, as to
some portion of the goods seized, we on our part will
stop all proceedings. Suffi were the terms on which
the London Docks and the Customs were to kiss and
be friends.

Looking at the possible issue of any further suit or suits
which might be tried, it would appear that it could only be
expected to establish the fact that in respect of some ef the
goods wider seizure, there hare existed legal grounds for
milking such seizure.
This is a fact which the directors do not deny. They
admit that in respect to some of these gaols there may
exist .ega' grounds of seizure on the score of irregularity.
The directors of this company would therefore gladly learn
that proceedings attended with suck enormous expense and
trouble—having in prospect, as it appears to them in any
point of view in which it can be considered, so very barren
a result—were to be discontinued, and that the hon. board
had seen fit to direct the goods under seizure to be released.
The directors are sure that this application will not be
misunderstood. On the occasion of the last trial, the com-
pany had a hundred witnesses in attendance, day after day,
in the Court of Exchequer; the attention of its principal
officers and servants was distracted from the discharge of their
ordinary and important duties, and the company incurred
an expenditure of many thousand pounds. In expressing a
desire to be relieved from the recurrence of evils of such
serious magnitude, the directors feel that they are neither
compromising their own position nee the reputation of the
company, nor in adding the further expression of their
hope that confidence and harmony may be restored between
the hon. board and the London hock Company, to the ad-
vantage of the public service and the welfare of the com-
mercial interests of the port of London—to the maintenance
of which friendly relations nothing will be left undone by
the company.
I remain, sir, your obedient servant,
W. Maclean, Esq., Customs. J. I). PovrLes.

On this state of things we must first express a
doubt whether the customs revenue can be safely
intrusted to commissioners mean enough to plot such
a flight as this from a public prosecution in which
they had spent not less than 8,000/. of the public
money. It is indicative of a state of morals and
practices that might make a capital gauger, but that
must produce a very bad Chairman of Customs. And
this the Treasury seem to have felt; for though eager
enough to get the promised admission from the
Docks, "my lords altogether repudiated the
Customs' arrangement as to letting the Docks off so
easily.
The case then stands thus—the Customs intrigue
with the Docks; the Docks yield to the Customs'
intrigue; the Treasury accepts the advantage the
Customs had secured from the Docks, and uses it to
condemn, and censure, and reproach, and stigmatise
the Docks for charges which, after eleven days trial,
the law officers of the crown had been disastrously
repulsed in attempting to establish before a jury.
This is not the way in which the revenue service,
when it affects the majestic commerce of the Thames,
ought to be carried on. Public prosecutions ought
not to be instituted for light matters or trivial
irregularities; grave imputations that cannot be
surely proved ought not to be ventured on. To do
that is bad enough. But it is fur worse when two
departments of the State referse to accept the verdict of
the jury they appealed to, and attempt to shuffle off
the responsibility of the original prosecution, and the
discredit of its failure, by a miserable intrigue with
men who are unworthy of the position they fill, or
who betray the interests they were hound to protect.
For the Treasury will find that the triumph
thus filched from the dock officers cannot over-
ride the verdict which substantially acquitted
the company. If its chairman and directors
never knew, or have forgotten its value,
the mercantile community will recollect and appre-
ciate it. If, in the judgment of "my lords," non
obstante riredieto, the company had plundered
the merchants, and defrauded the revenue, it was
their bounden duty to have persevered in their mo-
tion for a new trial. If the evidence and the verdict
of the February trials produced the same convictions
on their minds as they did on the understandings of
all reasonable men, " my lords" had no moral escape
from the obligation of censuring the credulity and
precipitancy of the customs in instituting the prose-
cutions, and, withdrawing them, of expressing regret
to the company.. But it would have been treachery
to functionary-ism to have admitted and confessed
that the customs can do any wrong; and, hence, an
intrigue was first sanctioned, and its terms when
concluded were then violated, that the reputation of
the board might be spared, and a parliamentary in-
vestigation be arrested or parried.
In what they did, however, both Customs and
Treasury had a motive: a bad one, we know; but a
strong one, we must confess. But, what could have
induced the Dock Company to yield and give way
when it had repelled the accusations made against
it ? when it had assumed the poet of champion of
trade and commerce? when it had besought and re-
ceived public sympathy and support? when it
was acting in accord with the St. Katherine's
company ; when its chairman had pledged and re-
pledged himself, in language remarkable for the
' strength, if not the refinement of its expression, not
I, to compromise the great public questions involved in
the prosecution by a surrender of them to the Cus-
p toms ? It could not be the interests of the proprie-
tary, for they, at their very last meeting, had unani-
mously, nay, enthusiastioally,engaged to support the
directors to the utmost extent in their contest with

the Customs, and were prepared, in defending the
honour of their corporation, to make pecuniary
sacrifices. Curiosity can really discover no adequate
inducement for the directors of the London Docks
thus to have clandestinely and discreditably violated
the word of honour of their chairman, betrayed their
own and tho public cause, set duty and moral obliga-
tion at defiance, and, caring only for themselves,
left the rest of the City of London in the
lurch to take care of itself—except, indeed, a men-
tal and moral obliquity which, ever snatching at
some great personal prize, finds in its selfishness
and greediness that it has grasped only at Sts
shadow.

Thus treated by the London Docks, it is for the
City now to consider what shall be done; whether it
will tamely and submissively allow the St. Kathe-
rine's Docks to be swamped by the weight of Cus-
toms oppression and Treasury influence, or whether
the mercantile interest will unite to aid and assist
that company in resisting, single-handed, the battle
of trade and commerce.

The parliamentary committee, over which Mr.
MITCHELL so ably. presided, will yet accomplish
much ; but the period of its re-assembling is at pre-
sent distant, and what is wanted is to show the Cus-
toms and the Treasury that, despite the mean and
pitiful surrender of the London Docks. British
merchants have the spirit and determination to resist
Customs oppression in a righteous cause.

DEATH OF GENERAL LORD DE BLACICIERE.—This
nobleman, who wm a general officer, died on the 12th
instant, aged 73 years. Hie lordship wan the second ass of
the first peer, and obtained • consmissio• la the army in
1791, became • lieutenant in 1793, • captai• is the mem
year, a major in 1798, a Ueuteriant-colosel in 1801, • colonel
in 1810, • major-general in 1813, a liestenant-general in
1825, and a general in 1841. la 1844, Oeesral de Blaguiere
succeeded his brother in the Irish peerage. This family is
descended from Joh* de Sisciniere, a native of France, who
settled in London on the revocation of the edict of Naatee
in 1685. The late Lord de Blaquiere is succeeded is the
title by his son, • captain on the half-pay unattached.
THE SENTENCE OF THE COURT MARTIAL reported
in the Express of Tuesday last, on a sergeant and some
privates of the Royal Artillery, who were tried at the Main
Guard House at Ibrtsmouth, on the preceding Friday and
Saturday, has been confirmed by the Commander-in-Chief,
and promulgated- The charge was for drunkenness while
on guard at King William's Gate, Portsmouth, and the
sergeant has been sentenced to be reduced to the ranks, and
the privates to terms of imprisonment, ' from two to
six months each, acceding to their previous cLataeten.