GUAGING SPIRITS.

Evening Star, Issue 3780, 6 April 1875, Page 3

GUAGING SPIRITS.

To the Editor. Sni,—Why are the Customhouse lookers not allowed to regauge spirits ? At one time thev did it, and it was a groat convenience to the public. The change to the present system is reprehensible, inasmuch as it causes great inconvenience and direct pecuniary loss to the merchant, and gives no adequate advantage in return. It is true that it is the duty of the Customs authorities to do their best to collect the revenue; but it is equally true that it is their duty to see that in doing so they do not restrict the legitimate operations of trade. According to the present system, one special officer only is allowed to regauge. He has to attend to all the bonded warehouses in the City, besides at the wharfs and railway sheds ; and when he is busy at one particular locality he may be urgently wanted at several others. Imagine your entering a cask for regauge at the Customhouse on Friday at five minutes past twelve noon, and after spending an hour or two in fruitless search for the proper officer to do it, and another hour in the same search on Saturday, and at last find, after a delay of twenty-four hours, that the cask is ready for having the proper entries passed ! This was a 0 >se in which I was engaged myself. No blame can be attached to the gauger; and if it were not for the obliging, gentlemanly demeanor of the individual members of the department, ‘such an absurd regulation would be intolerable. 1 am, &0,, Uequhabt Maopherson. Dunedin, April 6.