The Sun.
London, England, 1852-04-17 00:00:00

BOARD OF CUSTOMS

(From the Times.)
In the midst of the political confusion and turmoil
consequent upon the accession to power of a now Mi-
nistry, our attention has been for a time diverted from
the proceedings of the Select Committee on the Board of
Castoms. The subject, however, is one of so much im-
portance to the commercial classes of the empire, that it
must not be lost sight of even in the presence of ques-
tions which require more immediate decision. Surely
even the doctrines of protection do not involve the ne-
cessity of protecting this abuse. It can matter but little
to Sir Charles linightley or Mr. Buck if the merchants
of Great Britain are liberated from a series of exactions
and annoyances which thwart their best-conceived ope-
rations, without bringing one farthing of profit to the
national Exchequer. Not an additional quarter of corn,
not an extra Belgian bullock, would find its way to Mark-
lanes or Smithfield if the Board of Customs should be com-
pelled to revise their system of administration. What is
lost in consequence of their present arbitrary exercise of
power is lost without advantage to any class interest. In-
deed, we should be inclined to augur well from the cir-
cumstance that a new set of statesmen have succeeded to
power, as far as the solution of this question is con-
cerned. The frivolous and scandalous prosecutions
against the London Dock Company were instituted
under the Administration of Lord John Russell and his
colleagues. It was a Whig Attorney-General who
sanctioned the information. It was from a reluctant
Whig Ministry that the appointment of a. Select Com•
mitwe was extracted. It was a Whig placersan—Mr.
Cornewall Lewis—who was
placed upon the Committee
as the Avocato del Diavolo, when its appointment could
be no longer resisted. It was the Whig Premier who
coldly received the deputation of merchants and sent
them away unsatisfied. Lord Derby and his colleagues
are not pledged to the continuance of at least these
time-honoured abuses. On the contrary, they have now
the opportunity
on all
questions of priteipl
laxity from the classes which may be supposed,
of gaining some small measure of popu-
of power. This result may be obtained by a simple
administrative reform which will not interfere with one
single economic doctrine
0, to b© most hostile to their tenure
doctrine, or give umbrage to the most
ultra zealot of their own supporters.
We need scarcely recapitulate the scandalous events
which led to the appointment of the committee. It is
clear, from the mouths even of the Casters-house wit-
nesses, that the administration of the Board is secret,
irresponsible,
despotic. It is clear that any
merchant
w
ill-advised
enough to complain' lot ttheiroppres-
sie
of procedure enters into a labyrinth from
oppres-
sive o
methodsts
which he cannot hope to escape without grievous lo .s
and annoyance. Ho is tossed back from the Honourable
Board to "my Lords," and from "my r ods" to the
Honourable Board, without any practical power of meet-
ing his accusers face to face. lie can have no reasonable
grounds for reliance except they be upon the justice and
rair-dealing of an irresponsible tribunal, before which
he is not even permitted to plead his own cause. He
is not confronted with his accusers. The Custom-
house officers are examined, but he is not permitted to
appear. The underling of the Board may blush, but
he is not there to mark his agitation, or to take
advantage of the confusion of conscious guilt. The
superintendent becks up the tide-a aiter, and the in-
spector the superintendent, or whatever may be the title
of his immediate superior in the fiscal hint archy. Should
the persecuted merchant whose property is unjustly de-
tained—or " under stop," as the Custom-house slang
rubs—be irritated out of his discretion, no doubt he has
his remedy. To the Barons of the Exchequer lies his
appeal, and to the Barons of the Exchequer be may go.
We are far from wishing to speak lightly or with disre-
spect of these learned personages. Their court presents
possibilityof obtaining justice in such a case.
interests of the country have reason to
Thethe only
commercial
be grateful to Chief Baron Pollock for the manner in
which he presided over the recent trial between the Board
of Customs and the Dock Company. But it must not he
imputed as a fault to the Barons of the Exchequer if
the
opentoparticipate in the administration
of system; It is not their fault if the
eyoaarebo cmalileeedble
Crown " pays no costs; it is not their fault if the
suitor to their court can only obtain the restitution of
his rights at the expense of a grievous loss—possibly of
his own ruin. All they can do is to determine the right
and the wrong of any particular case that may be brought
before them upon the established maxims of English law,
and in open court. This they do. Their decision is
the only one throughout the whole proceeding that is
fairly asked and fairly obtained without mystification,
and injustice. It is the only tribunal before which all
questions between the merchant and the Custom house
ufficial are adjudicated upon otherwise than on ex paste
statements. Is not the inference an obvicus one? Why
is not the judgment of an open court obtained iu the
first, and not in the last instance? It does not require
the practised acuteness and deep learning of these vener-
able magistrates to decide equitably upon such paltry liti-
gation. Let there be an open court at the waterside,
where such questions can be entertained as they
arise, and receive summary adjudication. Let
the doors be thrown open to the public, and the ac-
cuser and the accused be confronted in the face of the
day. It is only necessary to select persons as judges
who shall from their position and character be beyond
the reach of suspicion, and who will without fear or
favour decide equitably between the parties to the suit.
All we ask for is publicity. No judge who sits its open
court throughout the length and breadth of these islands
can give two or three manifestly unrighteous decisions
without being exposed to contempt and ruin.
The labours of the select committee must not be suf-
fered to be entorned in blue- books without bearing fruit
in practice. The testimony of the Custom-house wit-
nesses is quite sufficient to involve the necessity of a
Llitnutagli reform, even 'mote we tu discard the Statements
of the parties aggrieved. It is a very significant fact,
that, despite of all the efforts made by the Government
to pack the committee, the Commissioners could only
stave off a verdict which most have led to their
instant dismissal by a majority of one, the
voices of the committee would have been
equally divided had Mr. Mitchell, the chairman
been allowed to give his vote. From this, however,
he was restrained by the forms which hedge round the
proceedings of a Parliamentary Committee. It must not
be understood that the Commissioners have obtained an
acquittal; they have simply avoided a solemn verdict of
guilty." Nothing more. The practical value of such
a result may best be understood from a simple enumera-
tion of the supporters of Mr. Lewis's amendment. First,
there was Mr. Cornewall Lewis, as a matter of course;
Mr. Mitchell could not vote in favour of his own motion,
but Mr. C. Lewis might vote in favour of his amend-
ment. Then follow three more Bureaucrats—Sir George
Clerk, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Goulburn. Mr. Goulburn's
son being one of the Commissioners. Then we grieve
to find the names of Sir J. Y. Buller and Mr. Moody,
What had this brace of Squires to do in
the galley of Red-Tapists? Finally, comes Alder-
man
Humphery, the latest convert. On the other side,
and in favour of the verdict which would have led to the
dismissal of the Commissioners, we find the following
significant names: —Alderman Thompson, Mr. William
Brown, Mr. Matthew Forster, Mr. Anderson, Mr. J.
aloGregor, Mr. A. Elastic. Mr. Mitchell had proposed
a vote of censure upon tho Commissioners and their
solicitor for their outrageous abase of power, and he
was supported by the gentlemen just named. The pub-
lic will perfectly understand the value and meaning of a
motion so defeated. The Commissioners have every
reason to be grateful to Mr. Cornewall Lewis for having
so dexterously saved their incomes for them, even by
such questionable methods. The system, however, is
doomed. Whatever Administration may be in power,
ono of its earliest acts must be a large and comprehen-
sive measure of reform at the water-side. When a
better state of things shall have been brought about our
only wonder will be that the merchants of the empire
should
have
svoexleotngnlodress
opacpion.quiesced in so intolerable a ass-
tam of vexation

AUSTRIAN
gindhlicsations of
AMBASSADOR.
TheWestmoreland
EarloU of,
remarkable,ypriiemo ueak fionriistdterurorusi during h w a t z e
nshho has made himself chiefly
short diplomatic residence in
friendship for the late
oeanodf for an enthusiastic
music. To the first
pdoeovooliiinornittyo,
ethome cpalapitnivina
difficulty some of them ex tourists attributed an exceeding
the embassy' those ordinary courtesies
in obtaining from
which it is a main duty of courtesies and kind offices
How-
ever, as that curious hasfriendship
oembassies to grant.
sud-
denly severed, perhaps no future been rudely and
arise on that score. The second peculiarity cause of complaint will
and graceful one when not indulgedpeculiarity (an innocent
been referred to as a contributing to excess) has also
some English travellers have cause of neglect which
noble-
man accredited himself from the Court
If a
accredited from the Court of St. of Apollo, and be
time, the interests of one court or theames's at the same
long run, suffer. One thing is certain other must, in the
the Muses are not neglected; in that the affairs of
gtingSecriegl;
w.proof. of which we need
only adduce one circumstance
startle some of the old-school diptenich will doubtless
that the de facto British ambassadriaoatists. We learn
Vienna is about to absent himself at ambassador Prague to the Court of
post, for the purpose of conducting in from his
ca-
thedral of that anciPnt and most musical
person in the
sical city, a mass
specially composed (at his Lordship's
request by one of
his Lordship's proteges) for the repose
01
the soul of
Prince Schwarzenberg of pious memory.
The spectacle of a representative of this great Pro-
testant and free English empire perform
umally undertaken by fiddlers (not to employ thelng anoffice
term
disrespectfully to the regular profession) and performing
it in a Roman Catholic cathedral, as part of rite which
Protestants repudiate; paying, moreover,
of esteem to a deceased Minister whose politicaloleran mark
princi-
ples and political acts the English, as a nation,
abhor, is
not calculated to attract that respect which we covet
from foreigners, or to keep up that dignity which we
pay to our ambassador six thousand
Et
year to support.
—Daily News.

-----
it 4PID VOYAGE.—The beautiful screw-steamer
Fearless, designed by Mr. G. N. Duck, of Bristol, has just
made a rapid voyage to and from the Azores, having accom-
plished the run from London in eight days, taken in cargo,
and returned loaded, notwithstanding head-winds, in nine
days. She has also delivered her cargo in prime condition,
thus showing that the idea that foreign fruit cannot be kept
sufficiently cool in steam-vessels is erroneous.
The
theirfollowing
x
names
3oeTf fit
hEec Agnenf Et
gentlemen
el!
passedAwito.—
the science and practice of medicine, and received certificates
to practise, on Thursday, the 15th of April :—David Jones
Whitty, Britonferry,Glamorganshire ; Thomas William John
Goldsboro, Welshpool, Montgomeryshire; William Webb,
Barton-under-Needwood ; John Long, Leeds; John Charles
Savery, Hastings; Charles Sanders; Robert Cuff, North-
butry, Somerset; John Thomas Muriel, Ely, Cambridge-
shire; Richard Bird Nason, Nuneaton, Warwickshire; Au-
gustin Benoit Pettiau, London ; John hall ; Samuel Wright,
Huntingdon; Henry Charles Warren, Milverton, Somerset-
shire; Henry Osborne, Northampton.
Lord Paumure's funeral is fixed for Tuesday next,
when he will be interred i
_a the family vault in Brechin
clawchArd4