The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-12-09
GOVERNMENT AND THE IMPORTERS.


From the ~ Y. Times.
There have been within the last three
years three legal contests of great importance
in this city between the Government AMI inn
porters, the last of which was brought to a
close in the United States District Court on
Saturday, and resulted as each of the others
had, in the failure of the jury to agree upon
verdict AN three of the trials involved the
same question-whether the importers had
fraudulently undervalued their goods on enter
ing them at the Custom House. The first
case concerned the importers of champagne
the second the importers of sherry wines, and
this last the importers of ribbons; the
amounts directly and indirectly involved
being in every case very large. The cases
were all the result of plan which was put
in operation some years ago by the Treasury
Department, viz, the despatching of agents
abroad to gain information in regard to the
business of the importers. They have con-
sequently all had some common features.
The agent, Mr.. Farwell, endeavored to put
himself in communication with the various
merchants in order to learn from them what
their real prices were for their goods. In
some cases he treated with them directly,
under an assumed name, representing him
self as a merchant proposing to deal for some
other market than our own, and in other cases
he wrote letters to them under an assumed
name. In each of these cases he testified
that prices were given him which were claimed
to be higher than the values at which the
goods were invoiced to this country, and on
the strength of his information these suits
were commenced. The evidence which he
furnished was in each case enough to save
the Government from entire defeat, but it
was not strong enough to give it complete
victory.
There are some circumstances about the
cases which go far to account for their result,
or lack of result, rather. In the first place,
the amounts involved have been very large,
and it is not to be expected that iuries of or
dinary human nature would be as ready to
infict such heavy forfeitures as if they were
lighter Jurymen cannot be expected to be
insensible to the fact that the Government
would feel the loss of the expected forfeiture
far less than the merchant would the loss OF
his goods. The sympathies of the jury in a
case of forfeiture are more apt to be with the
owner of the property.
Nor are these sympathies weakened by the
fact that the main testimony in the cases to
sustain the claim of forfeiture comes from
informers, who are to share in the proceeds
of the forfeiture The evidence of informers
is always weak, and it must be still more SO
where it appears that they had assumed false
characters and written under assumed names
With all these elements of weakness in the
Governments case, and with the evidence
which the claimants were able to furnish
tending to show that the values which they
had put upon their goods represented their
actual cost to them, with fair profit, it is
certainly not thing to be wondered at that
some of the twelve men in each case declined
to believe the story of the Governments
witnesses
We are, however, far from thinking that
these proceedings, even with the result
which they have had, have been Improbable
to the Government. If Government would
save itself from constant frauds on the
revenue, it must show itself not only strin-
gent ia the enforcement of the penalties of
the law, but watchful to detect all infringe,
ments of it. Dishonesty is always watching
to discover ways of evading the law. The
officers of the law must bring shrewdness as
well as honesty into exercise in enforcing it.
The effect of such seizures as these coulG
hardly fail to deter dishonest importers from
evasion of the law, for, as it is, the parties
concerned have suffered heavy loss-enougt
to make them careful in future about putting
higher prices upon their goods than they pu
in their invoices. The officers of the Gov
ernment perhaps will see also the importance
of placing themselves, if possible, on frme
ground than one of false names and deco,
| letters.