The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-05-25 00:00:00

THE ARBITRARY POWER OF THE GO-
VERNMENT OFFICERS UNDER THE

PASSENGERS' ACT.
WE have remarked, in previous publications, upon
the danger of the increased powers proposed to be
given, by the Passengers' Act at present before
parliament, being exercised with such stringency as
to become intolerable to the respectable parties at
present engaged in this important and increasing
business. Already they are sufficiently uncon-
trolled to allow of serious annoyance being practised
upon individuals, where the officers to whom they
are entrusted, or their subordinates, are men of a
crotchetty or tyrannical disposition. A case, re-
ported in another part of our paper, which recently
occurred in Greenock, bears out most strikingly
the correctness of our opinion.

A commander in the Royal Navy, Captain
MARCUS FREEMAN BROWNRIGG, it appears, is the
emigration officer for the ports of Glasgow and
Greenock ; and, as such, summoned Mr. T. 0.
HUNTER, a merchant and licensed passenger agent
in the latter port, for an alleged breach of the
Passengers Act, first in not having a list of the
names and addresses of the persons holding his
written authority to act as his agents ; and secondly
" in not having transmitted a certified list of such
persons, as aforesaid, to the emigration office
nearest to his place of business." In reply, it was
shown by the defendant that he had, at the time,
no such recognised agents, except his own clerk,
whose case, he contended, the Act of Parliament
did not contemplate ; and it was alleged, upon very
strong grounds, that the emigration officer enter-
tained an animus against the owner of the vessel,
of which Mr. HUNTER was the agent, arising out
of a transaction which had occurred on a previous
voyage. An actual threat was proved that he
would " make an example" of that vessel ; and it
was shown that, the sheriff's substitute having
decided a plaint, brought by a passenger against
the owners of the vessel in question, in their
favour, the officer had encouraged the plaintiff to
carry the case to the Court of Session, by appeal,
such plaintiff suing in forma pauperis—and thus,
whatever might be the decision, entailing certain
expense upon the owners. Other arbitrary and
crotchetty proceedings by the emigration
officer were alleged, for a perusal of which, in
extenso, we refer our readers to the report itself ;
and, as the result, it will he seen that gentleman
was placed in the very undignified position for a
representative of the government, of having to pay
the costs incurred by the party against whom he
had manifested his absurd and tyrannical animosity.
The whole case is worthy of attentive perusal, as
showing bow far annoyance may be practised upon
communities, over whom gentlemen of crooked
tempers, possessed with inflated notions of their
own importance, and confident in the absence of
all efficient control over their actions, may be placed.
At all events it ought to settle the question, now
pending between the emigration trade and the pro-
moters of the bill at present before parliament, as

to the necessity of an appeal being allowed against
some of the proceedings of the emigration officers.
If these parties are to be absolute and irresponsible,
we may look forward to a gradual transfer of the
business of emigration from British to European
ports. It can no longer be carried on here by
respectable men, or persons of independent mind.