The Express.
London, England, 1851-11-26 00:00:00

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LONDON BRIDGE.
Aftenisea. 41.11.
Ataraam 41. Ns.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 26.

LAST night it was announced that the St. Ka-
therine's Dock Company will not after all go to
trial with the Customs on the informations filed
spinet it by. the Arteries-GESERAL. The pre-
lim manner in which the litigation is to be accom-
modated is not perhaps quite arranged yet; but
though the St. Katherine's Docks are not likely to
subject themselves to such an ignominious reproof
as the London Docks received from the Treasury, a
compromise will take place.
This termination of the Dock cases is to ho regretted
rather than wondered at. There is, it is well known, a
large and influential body in the City prepared to sup-1
port the St. Katherine's Dock Company not merely
with their influence, but also with funds; and to
the subscription that was talked of the directors of
the London Dock Company had offered to make a
large penitential contribution. There was not much ,
in the way of evidence against the St. Ka-1
therine's Company to be apprehended after the
disastrous discomfiture of the Customs in their
heaviest case which they had already tried. And in
arranging the matter the company will not have de-
serted its friends, intrigued with its prosecutors, sa-
crificed the interests of trade, or trifled with its own
character.
Rut, on the other hand, the state of isolation
which the surrender of the other company had
reduced it to, augmented its difficulties, by increasing
the unscrupulousness of its opponents; though it
would have been morally and pecuniarily supported
by its City friends, it would have had a desperate and
a still more costly battle to have fought. The Cus-
toms hail evinced a determination to prolong the liti-
gation to the utmost limits that level chicanery
could devise; and from the conduct of the Treasury
the question had assumed a political aspect, which it
was not the duty of a dock company to conduct.
With, no doubt, the very best intentions in the
world, the publications of the Charlotte-row com-
mittee had not, to say the least of them, been
characterised with good taste. They had alienated
many mercantile notabilities by their coarseness and
vulgarity, and had so thrown around the Customs
and the Treasury the protection of gentlemanly man-
ners and courteous feelings; and there is never want-
ing in certain quarters in the city a strong and every
natural desire to protect Lord Jolts ltessEtt from
annoyance. All these considerations, it now ap-
pears, prevailed; it was felt discreet to separate the
general ease of commerce against the customs' laws
and their administration from these particular

charges against the Docks; and though the latter
will be arranged, the former are tube prosecuted in
a more serious and resolute spirit than ever.
After then causing an expenditure of probably
not far short of 30,11001. in these dock caws, all that
the Customs and the Treasury have gained are ad-
missions that, in the management of business to the
annual extent of nearly fifty millions sterling, some
such trifling irregularities may have occurred as
justified the seizure (without involving in the seizure
any mural wring to the revenue) of a few boxes
of diumiged sugar. And how have they gained
these admissions ? Principally by the power
they have of entailing injury, if not ruin,
on any parties they may murk out fur prose-
cution. The crown pays no costs ; and before that
oppressive maxim the duck companies have yielded.
Now, if it be hopeless for two companies having a
capital of some seven or eight millions sterling, and
carrying on a highly profitable business, to resist a
revenue department on such terms, how utterly im-
possible must it be fur any private individual, any
single merchant or importer, to defend his honesty
or his just rights against the Customs. If these
great and wealthy corporations, though supported by
the entire mercantile interest of the empire,
deemed it prudent to retire before the Customs
oppressions, think of the power that department
poissmes over separate mercantile establishments or
single persons! A struggle with the Inquisition at
Madrid in the seventeenth century was as encouraging
a contest as any individual attempting to defend him-
self against a Customs information in the Court of
Exchequer iu the nineteenth. This practice cannot
Me, and that will be one advantage at least of this
oomproniise.
But what is now to be done with the Customs?
Is the result of the compromise to he their restoration'
to power without further inquiry, and the submission
of commerce to revenue oppression and obstruction
without further effort? That depends entirely
on the City itself. The Treasury function-
aries who could condescend to such an in-
trigue as we have lately seen, are not the men, on
their own sense of what is right, to bring forward a
new Customs code ; or when legislation is rendered
inevitable by external pressure, to be intrusted with
its preparation. To lean upon the Customs Board or
the Triunity Board is to rest upon broken reeds.
The ('ity must tell its member, the PREMIER, what
it is that is wanted, and must make him feel the
necessity of listing it done.
Hitherto the revenue laws have been prepared by
the revenue authorities, without any consultation
with classes affected by them ; they have been based
on the principles that all mankind is in a perpetual
conspiracy to cheat the revenue; and that to escape
payment of duty is the highest and most flagrant of
all human offences. Hence everything has been
made to yield to the collection of the revenue—con-
venience, time, cost, opportunity, and simplicity ; and
the what() administration has been confided to a
board composed of worn-out political partisans, and
the least likely of the sons of inveterate placemen.
It is in vain to talk of reforming laws so framed or
boards so constituted. Commerce wants new revenue
laws, in the preparation of which it shall
be consulted ; and a board of administra-
tion on which it shall be represented, or
which shall itself have a member in the House
of Commons. there to be responsible for its acts. The
present revenue laws are alternately a mass of ab-
surdities or a web of oppressions ; and the existing
board is a cover and a mark for the bad execution
of bad laws. The whole service of the Customs is
moreover vicious. A boy procures entrance into it
as the reward for the political services of his father
or Gamily ; his promotion is regulated by no sound
principle ; merit will not carry him up to the high-
est offices, neither will seniority nor gradation ; he
is subject to no proper training, no examination, no
probation ; qualifications go for little or nothing—all
as left to chance and h
And how can it beivrtiard e.when the heads of
the department know little or nothing of the real
working of the system they are appointed to super-
intend and carry oat? Of the eight commissioners
now in office, there is not one who owes his appoint-
ment to special preparation or peculiar fitness. Sir
THOMAS FZEMAJITLI is & pleasant smart man, and
Mr. Dawson is now a person of some experience.
But what can even they brow of the wants of com-
merce; how to devise regulations at once to secure
the revenue, and give it facilities? And the truth
is that the tendency of the system is to grow worse
and worse. Just listen to Mr. Toona's experience
of the board

From your intercourse with commercial men, do you, or
de you not, dud more dissatisfaction of the conduct of the
Customs prevailing now, u to the adatinistratio• of the
Customs law, than you found prevailing in the time of Mr.
Dean sad Mr. Demos Rune ?—As fax as I can judge, most
decidedly so.
Do you consider that it would be to the public interest to
open the door for wormier tamers of Custom becomoug
monatissirmen ?—1 should my milkier could be more ina-
politie than to horses arty °bawls to that. Mr. Richmond,
who was a very eMoieut comuatissiasee, roes tram a subordi-
nate department.
What sort of genial's, would you regain P—Training to
habits of business ; these an potato that rest upon the dia.
ervtion of the partial who have the appointment.
So also Mr. CATrUT on similar points ;

What qualification do yon thiak would be a qualifica-
tion fur a Collllllissimer of 1-1 should say a know-
ledge of business and trade.
You think that such persons would be better commis-
sifters than pang leen who are just cocoa from college t
I think ono. I certainly think they would be letelt, quail•
lid; and I mhos that it was with seise asessiskmat
that, as a merchant of this city, 1 taw that Stitt teatimes
were appointed Cesmissiesers of Colleens WU (Maki'

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