The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-07
A PLEA FOR LOWER RATES OF DUTY
ON SILK GOODS.
From the N. Y. World.

ON SILK GOODS.
From the NJ Y World
1t is a mistake to suppose there is anything
new in the contrivances by which the re-
Gently discovered Custom House silk frauds
of Wolf, May, and others were perpetrated.
Those same contrivancer have been time and
again resorted to since the era of enormous
rates of protective duties on imports The
trick is this:-Under our system ad valorem
duties are assessed on the foreign, not home
value. This value is determined and re-
ported to the collector by the appraisers,
who bear the same legal relation to the
former that assessors do to Collectors of In
ternal Revenue To provide for such de-
termination and report of value, the import
must, by order of collector, he sent from
importing vessel to the appraisers stores.
The law provides that an entTy must be
made, and lodged with the collector,
by the owner of the merchandise, accom-
panied by the invoice, of which latter
the former is in chief part transcript. To
secure correct entry, the 9th section of
the statute of 1899 Furnishes with confscation
of the goods, if, on examination of the pack
ages, it is found they differ in their contents
from the entry paper; that is, if the merchan-
disc is entered by false denomination. If an
importer in his entry paper calls silk hose
| cotton hose, with intent to save duty thereon,
the law contiscates the package. An importer
enters fifty cases of cotton hose, and desig-
mates them in his entry paper by their vari-
GUS shipping marks, from 1 to so, and de-
cares the foreign value thereof, the rate of
duty chargeable thereon, and the total amount.
| To obviate the necessity of sending each case
to the appraisers, the law has provided that
| at least one case in ten shall be desig-
mated by the collector, on the invoice, to be
sent to the appraisers. and the result in
practice is that till recently the collector has
rarely designated more than one in ten to be
opened and examined. In fact, in this port
it is impracticable to inspect a greater pro-
portion, as a general rule. When the de-
signation is thus made, those packages indi-
| Gated are sent from the vessel to the ap-
praisers, and the remainder go into ware
house, or are taken by the importer, under
his penal bond and a deposit of estimated
duties. Now, right here comes in the trick.
Of the fifty cases, five would, under the
rule, be opened by the appraisers. Suppose,
then, that the fifty packages, instead of
being all cotton hose, paying say thirty-ive
per cent. duty, as entered, are thirty of
them silk hose, chargeable with sixty per
centum, and the ten containing cotton go
to the appraisers. Of course, silk hose are
thereby imported as cotton hose, and the
importer does ''big thing"
In the ordinary course of business the col
lector might, by pure luck, designate thu
|
and half That is possible. But in the pre-
sent assumed frauds the broker swears that
he asked the deputy collector to call for an
appraisers return on certain specified cases,
and sometimes it was done and sometimes
not Gone, and when not done the broker
would take the papers to deliver to the next
official in routine, but instead OF so deliver
ing would destroy them, await or make
another invoice, and then try again till the
| tad fNbara ic mo
pretense or any evidence in the present cases
that the deputy collector was bribed or paid,
| but that the broker by falsely representing
that since there were different grades of cot
ton goods for example, on the invoice, the
indicated packages should be sent to the
appraisers in order to have fair examination
of the whole importation.
Since the first development of this trans
action the collector has, we learn, ordered
his deputies to send all the packages to the
appraisers, whenever the person making
entry indicates which of them he desires to
be opened.
The point of this last exposure is the use.
lessness and immortality OF existing rates OF
duty; uselessness, because frauds, impossi
BILE of prevention, as was misunderstanding
during the Rebellion, made high rates pro.
ductive of less revenue than would be low
rates, which would not offer such temptations
to smugglers and cheats generally; and in
morality, because the present tariff by its
temptations to dishonesty is demoralizne
importers, Custom House officials, manufac
: turers, Congress, and consumers alike.
, The present rate of duty on staple article
like black piece silks is sixty per centum il
gold, and what is the consequence? Ask an!
honest dealer in this city, and he will say tina
he cannot and does not purchase abroad anC
> import, for the reason that he can buy cheape
here. This is universal fact Black piec
silks are salable everywhere. They are as m ar
ketable as gold. Hence, on account of tn
] high rates of duty, they come in illegitimatel!
Y across the Texas border, through the South
f ern ports, over the Canada border, as we'll a
a under the eyes and nose of Collector Grin
nell. There are plenty of men of pecuniar
3 responsibility who will contract to delive
: them on the counter of New York deale
1 for percentage far below the rates of dut