NEW CUSTOMS ACT.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14885, 27 January 1914, Page 4

NEW CUSTOMS ACT.

» , DUNEDIN GRIEVANCES. (.SrSCIAL TO "THE TRESS.") DUNEDIN, January 26. The new Customs Act, several of whose features are the result of recommendations made by the Public Service Commissioners, does not, in so no particulars, meet with tho support of importers and Custom House agonts on one or two pointe. Indeed, those disapproving allege an absolute grievance. For example, the ad valorem declaration can bo made urtler the older Act beforo an officer of Customs, a postmaster, a solicitor, or Custom House agent, but in April, when the new Act comes into force, such declaration "will have to be made before either a solicitor 'or an officer of Customs. In practice, so importers say, this confines them to the Custom House officer, and will prove a serious inconvenience to traders, as well as a source of extra work in tho Department itself. And, what about the country importer, the storekeeper in the small township which has neither solicitor nor Custom House officer uor any public official other than a postmaster? "It will do away with tho small importer altogether," was tho pronouncement of one man approached on tho subject, "and concentrato everything with tho big city importers." Thore is another matter, as yet, it is true, merely a request to importers and not mandatory, obedience to which will apparently cause a vast accretion of labour to importers. Instead of an entry form being filled in line after line, it is requested that a ]ine bo left blank between each invoice entry for the purposes of statistical numerals, and in future the country of origin is to be shown against each set of entries. Obviously, obedience involves the uso of double the number of entry forms, a good deal of extra work and, therefore, a bigger charge on the public. Moreover, if the exposition given tho writer be correct, it is, in certain instances, impossible to do what the Department requires without running contrary to another regulation, which ineists that all tho goods contained in one case must appear on the face of one entry. These instances are those where an importer has to deal with "mixed cases," or "sample cases," where there may bo twenty different invoices to every case. Obviously, it would be impossible to get these twenty on to one entry if a line were missed after each invoice, and yet. if the entries were carried on to another form, they wonld not be accepted. Tho thing seems to etnltify itself. A Customs agent put it thus— "The old form left plenty of room for what statistics are necessary. If the goods were foreign, they were marked foreign, and. where a preferential tariff •was payable foreign goods paid it. That is the main object of the Customs, i* it not, to get the correct revenue and with a minimum, not a maximum, amount of trouble and work to the importer."