The Press., 1890-10-02
congress finally, in 1874, amended the law as to valuations and abolished the moiety

as to valuations and abolished the moiety system.
 One of the great difficulties in connec- ton with our tariff legislation has been the difficulty of interpreting the law. A con- troversy may arise between the collector and an importer as to the meaning of statute, and decision be given by the secretary of the treasury. If an appeal be taken to a court the jury may render @ de- cision, and that be followt d for few weeks until, i'll similar case, the jury may render different decision. Which decision shall be followed? Again, judge in one district may give a judgment, and shortly different opinion upon the same question may be given by judge in an- other district.
 A question may arise as to the material or quality of an article and cause Q wide difference of opinion. Questions have arisen, such as whether certain articles of iron are liable to the duties of "hoop-iron" or manufactures of iron, and, after @ great deal of expert testimony, no binding decision be reached. The worst feature in connection with recent tariff legislation, and feature which has caused the widest discontent among manufacturers, has been the underwriting, which has increased enormously within recent years. The law
 
 far as to leave the government without the means of punishing fraud even if discover ed. Invoices may now be undervalued with impunity, for if an undervaluation be l discovered the fact must be established as an independent proposition that the act was done with an Intent to defraud, 8 'malum in se," as it is known in the law, or else the act will not be punishable. Un- dervaluation affects the interests of two parties. By means of it the government is cheated out of legal revenue, and the home producers of the same kinds of goods are obliged to compete with those goods on terms less favorable than they would be compelled to meet if the imported goods paid duty on their full value. Those who complain loudest of undervaluation are those who want the benefits of the highest protection. Undervaluation attaches only to ad valorem duties, and those who suffer from it advocate specific duties as reme- dy. Ad valorem duties have never been in favor with protectionists. But there seems to be little doubt that while many of the present highly protective duties are bad, the irregularities and dishonesties practiced under them are much worse. The present duties, no matter how inde- fensible they may be upon principle or in fact, are, nevertheless, the law, and while they are law their intent should not be disregarded and defed.
 The dishonesty which fiourishes under the present tariff laws is painful evidence of the inability of our government to en- force it's decrees. Such devices as making foreign goods of little different width or style from those in the home market, and then consigning them to agents in this country, so as to render their valuation difficult should not be successful. Neither should the device of securing an invoice made out in Timbuctoo or Teheran for goods sold and shipped from London, be any longer permitted. Secretary Manning submitted report in 1886 on the present condition of the tariff, in which he pointed out that undervaluation is the great evil of the present system. The secretary show ed that the object of the different customs laws from the beginning, has been to inn pose upon the importer the obligation to declare the value of his goods. The dis 1 tinction was early made between goods purchased abroad by the importer, and goods sent here by the foreign manufactu- Ter himself. In case of imports by the manufacturer the intention of the law hss been tc require him to declane the ''fair market value" of the goods at the time and place of manufacture, and in the case of purchased goods, to require the shipper to yield an account af the transac- tion by which he obtained them. Great difficulty has been experienced in getting at the ''fair market value," for, though plain rules have been laid down by the courts, foreign manufactures and home i'm porters are willing together to connive at fraudulent invoices. We have already seen that in 1878 the law required that all invoices should be certified by an Ameri- can consular officer ill the country from which the shipment was made. The con- suls have always been permitted to collect fees for this service and in their eagerness for these fees they are apt to give very favorable consideration to shippers, and the habit has obtained among shippers and customs officers to look, or to pretend to look upon these consular signatures as a verifcation of the correctness of the in- voice, which in truth it is not. The in- efficiency of the consular certifcation method IS well known to the treasury de- partment, yet no remedy can be applied except by Congress, since the consular ser vice is wholly amenable to the department of state. Another defect of our present customs regulations and the polar opposite of undervaluation is overvaluation. If for any reason an invoice be rejected or the importer be suspected the only means of ascertaining values is by appraisement. The collector designates such packages or portions for examination as he sees fit, and these are sent to an appraiser.
 The law requires that one of the ten as. sistant appraisers is to certify to the ap- praisement, but the examiners who are ap- pointed under the law of 1866 are in reality the only persons who examine the goods, and therefore the only persons who ap. praise them. These examiners are paid small salaries and are less competent than those who are sent abroad by large jobbing and importing houses to purchase goods. , The tendency of these appraisers is to make the interests of the government theil own and to put the highest possible valu. ation upon the:goods and for this there is now hardly remedy. For more than fifty , years the importer was permitted to appeal from the custom house appraisement, in which case re-appraisement was made by representative of the custom house, and a merchant appointed by the importer, and third associate appointed by these two l Now the appointment of the merchant [ member of such a board is in the hands o the custom house, and he is in each case , appointed from list of merchants furnish ed by the appraiser from whose judgement the appeal has been taken. Further, il 5 there is a disagreement in this board, the collector another custom house officer mus