CUSTOM HOUSE RED-TAPEISM.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 164, 12 July 1881, Page 3

CUSTOM HOUSE RED-TAPEISM.

To THE EbxTOB^OF THE " EVENING MAIL.' Sir — You have done good service in pointing out some official folly in connection with the railway ; perhaps you will allow me to call attention to the way in which colonists are treated by the Custom House officials. Ou leaving London some foar months ago I found my luggage rather too weighty for the Orient Line allowance, and so sent my books and a few other effects by the Black Watch, which has just arrived. I duly receive 1 froai the agents here (Messrs Cock & Co.) a bill for the freightage, amounting to about two pounds ten shilling.. This paid, I proceeded to secure my goods, or rather to arrange for their .ielivery when the ship unloads. No-.? began my bother. I mus: get sundry forms fiikd up. Well, this I did then I must take them to the Custom House officer At the Port Tbis also I did. He aent me to tde officer in Jtown. Arrived there, I found all sorts of barriers to pro g ess. I had described my goods as " personal € rects.'' Thi3 would not do. I must say What they wire. Well, books," I replied, "principally." 'Whatel3e?" I could hardly say. Some linen, I believe. "Ah ! that is dutiable," at once put in the official. Dutiable ! I replied, one'a personal e_L.c;s ? ' : Yes, if you have baen in the colony before." Now heie i3 red-tap. ism with a Vengeance. When I was in England I received from Wellington a printed form, iu which it was distinctly stated that tte utmost latitude would bo exercised in the matter of intending Bettlers,' personal effects. They would be in all cases passed without trouble to the new arrivals. After publishing this fact in England, I returned here to find myself a victim of an opposite policy. My boxes are to be opened and searched for dutiable articles— my word of honor notwithstanding that nothing dutiable is there After an hour's work cf unscrewing and turning my few household goods over, to their possible loss or damage, the facts of the case will appear just a3 I have stated verbally, and all that will be taken for the trouble wiU be a pleasant consciousness of having gratuitously insulted *a new-comer. This is not only red-tapei-m, but a ruinously -foolish form of it.— l am, &c , Atchur Clayden.