The New-Zealander. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1846.

New Zealander, Volume 2, Issue 73, 24 October 1846, Page 2

The New-Zealander. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1846.

Be just and fear not : Let all the ends thou ainis't at, be thy Country's, Tby God's, and Truth's.

CUSTOMS' REGULATIONS.

Last week we briefly alluded to the discussion which had taken place in the Council relative to the true import of the Customs' Ordinance,. and the novel construction put upon it by his Excellency the Governor. We now propose to resume the subject, and enter upon a ca]m and dispassionate enquiry into the merits of the question. In the first place, it may be proper, for the information of those of our readers who are but partially acquainted with the circumstances that originated the discussion of this matter, to state, that the Council appeared to be unanimous in the opinion that some additional enactment was necessary, in order to render the existing Law sufficiently effective to ensure the due payment of the ad valorem duty ; and it was after some observations of Mr. Donnellys upon the 28th clause of the original Customs' Ordinance, that the Governor gave expression to the opinion, that the importer was bound by the Ordinance to pay duty according to the market value of the imported goods at the port of entry. Now, the Customs' Amendment Ordinance, of Session HI, No 6, passed during the administration of Captain Fitzßoy, after repealing so much of the ordinance enacted during Captain Hobson's administration as related to the rate of duties to be levied, and refixing the rate accordzing to which they were to be paid in future, goes on to provide, that "the duties of Custom.* shall be raised, in like manner as if the said duties had been imposed by the said recited Ordinance, Sess. I, No. 3. The question therefore is, in what manner does the ordinance enacted by Governor Hobson direct the duty to be levied? Let the ordinance speak for itself.

XXVIII, '* And be it enacted and ordained, That in all cases where the duties imposed upon the importation of articles into the said Colony are charged, not according to weight, tale, gauge, or measure, but according to the value thereof, such value shall be ascertained by the declaration of the importer of such articles, or his known agent, in manner and form following, that is to say, "I, A. 8., do hereby declare that the articles mentioned in the entry, and contained in the packages (here specifying the several packages, and describing the several marks and numbers, as the case may be), are of the value of » Witness my hand this day of A. B. " The above declation, signed the day of > in the presence of C. D., collector (or other principal officer") ; which declaration shall be wiitten on the bill of entry of such ai tides, and shall be subscribed with the hand of the importer thereof, or his known agent, in the presence of the collector or other principal officer of the Customs, at the port of importation : Provided, that if upon view and examination of such ai tides by the proper officer of the Customs, it shall appear to him that the said articles are not valued according to the true price and value thereof, and according to the true intent and meaning of this Ordinance, then and in such case the impoiter, or his known agent, shall be requiied to declare on oath, before the collector or other principal officer of Customs, what is the invoice price of such articles, and that he verily believes such invoice price is the current value of sucli articles at the place from whence the said articles were imported ; and such invoice price, with the addition of Ten pounds per centum theieon, shall be deemed to be the value of the articles, in lieu of the value so declared by the impoiter or known agent, and upon which the duties thereon | shall be charged and paid. " Now it is evident that by the above recited clause the importer is bound by law to enter his goods at the invoice price ; for it is only in cases where there is just reason to believe that the importer has undervalued the goods, or that he has entered them upon a fictitious invoice, that he is required to make oath to the same. What can be more explicit than this P An invoice of goods must b*e an account of their value at the port of shipment, and cannot, by any sophistry, be taken to mean the price ior which the articles invoiced are selling at the port of entry. As we read the ordinance, the addition of Ten per cent, upon the invoice price is intended to be a penalty,only enforced when an importer has been detected in an attempt to pass his goods below the invoice value ; at all events this is the meaning that any impartial person would put upon the wording of this part of the clause, though it may not be the meaning that its framer intended to convey : and it is only in cases where the goods are proved to have been invoiced il below the real and true value thereof at the place from whence the same were imported" — or when the invoice price cannot be ascertained, that the articles are to be appraised by two competent persons, to be nominated by the Governor, and the duty paid according to the assumed value at the port of entry, Mr. Donnelly asserted, that the meaning of the ordinance was so plain, that he : believed nc two intelligent beings could possibly differ in their opinion respecting it. With all due deference to the honorable member for Windsor Terrace, we beg to assure him, that most of the intel ligent beings whom we have heard speak upon the question, differ entirely from the view which he has adopted. The Attorney General may argue as he pleases, and introduce extraordinary examples in support of his theory, but if common sense and the established meaning of language are to be our guides in reading the contested clause, then it is evident that the importer is bound to declare the value of his goods by the invoice he receives. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, theljother interpretation ; then the ordinance specially provides that suspected importers, — importers who are suspected of undervaluing their goods— shall be required to make oath to the I amount of their invoices, and pay duty accordingly, plus Ten per cent ; while the honest and willing minded importer, who ! is ready at all times to do the bidding of 1 the law, is to p.ay according to the as- i sumed value the goods sustain at the time in the Auckland market. The dilemma is inevitable, and its absurdity is^ransparently palpable. In support of his opinion, that entries j ! should be passed according to the value the imported goods may sustain at the pace of importation, His Excellency laid upon the Council Table the New South Wales Government Gazette for 1843, containing the opinion of the law officers of the Crown, and Sir George Gipps* proclamation to that effect : but His Excellency omitted to state, that these official* opinions and announcements remain, — as far as the present practice in New South Wales is concerned, — mere dead letters. The theory was virtually abandoned almost immediately after its birth : it was found to be impossible in practice. Sir George Gipps, in attempting to carry out this plan, directed an entire cargo of tea to be seized, conceiving the entry to have been passed below the pro-

per value ; and what was the consequence ? Why, the authorities were glad to relinquish their prize, and pay the costs. And we are informed on undoubted authority 4 that in Sydney, entries are no\y invariably passed according to the invoice value of the article imported. But waiving the consideration of the meaning of the Act, let us glance at some of the difficulties which would attend the introduction of such a system as that proposed by His Excellency. In the first place, how is the market price of the various commodities usually imported into the colony to he fixed? We have no extensive periodical sales, such as take place in Sydney and other places, by which the value of goods can be ascertained to a fraction. On the contrary, the Auckland price current is ever fluctuating and uncertain. .Again, we have no exclusive wholesale importers, whose accounts sales might afford some criterion of the market value of goods. Almost every | storekeeper imports more or less on his own account, and a great proportion of the goods imported, especially fancy articles, are never, sold except by retail, and therefore could not possibly be appraised at the wholesale price. Customs' duties, however levied, are indirect taxes, imposed upon the community, in order to defray the necessary expences of Government ; and it is a principle upon which all the writers on political economy with whom we are acquainted are agreed, that the amount of taxation, be it small, or be it great, should be fixed according to known and specific rates. The persons taxed should know, as exactly the amount required from them by law, as j the officer of revenue who collects the impost : but how can this be the case, if we are required to pay an ad valorem duty according to a scale which is ever fluctuating, and which the authorities themselves know not how to fix ? Mr. Kennedy quoted the following maxim from Adam Smith, in support of the principle of a fixed and certain rate of taxation. " The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor and to every other person. When it is otherwise, every person subject to the tax, is put more or less, in the power of the tax-gatherer, who can either aggravate the tax upon any obnoxious contributor, or extort, by the terror of such aggravation, some present or perquisite for himself. The uncertainty of taxation encourages the insolence, and favours the corruption of an order of men who aie naturally unpopular, even when they are neither insolent nor con up t. The certainty of what each individual ought to pay is, in taxation, of so great importance, that a very considerable degree of inequality, it appears, I believe, from the experience of all nations, is not near so great an evil as a very small degree of uncertainty." His Excellency's comments upon the application of this quotation, were not at all calculated to weaken Mr. Kennedy's argument. His Excellency said, that in this Colony, taxes, to any extent, were only levied on certain articles of luxury ; and that every man by the use or disuse of the taxed commodity might regulate the amount of his contributions towards the public revenue. But the fact is, taxation in this Colony extends to the bread we eat, and the clothes we wear ; and if the system of fixing the rate of duty according to the ever varying value of goods be adopted, no person can venture to estimate the amount of taxation that may at times be imposed upon some of (he necessaries of life. The Customs' Ordinance, introduced last week, after distinctly declaring that the former measure contains provisions for "ascertaining the true value of goods entered at value," (and we have already shown what those provisions are,) goes on to enact that it shall be lawful for the Custom House officers to detain any goods that may have been undervalued, and appropriate them to the Crown, paying to the importer the amount at which he entered the value, with Ten per cent, in addition. We have no objection to this clause as affording the Collector power to prevent fictitious entries, but we cannot see why the phrase "place of import" was smuggled into the bill. We are quite certain that there is no disposition on the part of the Auckland merchants and tradesmen to evade the payment of a just ad valorem duty ; and we are equally certain that this clause will not save the Authorities from some awkward scrapes, if any attempt is made to levy the duties in an irksome and oppressive manner. We do not blame the Governor for using every legitimate means to secure the revenue of the Colony. On the contrary, we commend the object, and would support the endeavour ; but, give us by all means a fixed rate by which duty is to be paid. If the true invoice price is not considered sufficient, and it is thought that Ten per cent, should in all cases be added, let such be the specific rule ; but, for the sake i of the revenue itself, for the sake of the continued confidence and good feeling of the public towards His Excellency, and for the sake of the future trade and commerce of the Port, let the idea of imposing a duty according to the fluctuating value of goods in the Auckland market be at once and for ever abandoned,

The Castor,.— H. M. S. Castor, will shortly proceed to Hobart Town,- with the Native convict 3. We understand that she is to get one of the masts of the Anson, an old

74, now used as a hulk at Hobart Town. The beautifully modelled Brig, Childers, which ar- [ rived on Saturday last, from England, via Ho- | bart Town, brought a large quantity of specie for the use of the Commissariat. She shortly proceeds to India via Hong Kong- The English news received by her was not of so late date as that obtained by the Gypsy. Cahters and their Horses. — Not long since it was our melancholy duty to record the death of a fine youth, who was run over in Shortland Street, by a horse and cart, and it is little less than miraculous that we have not been compelled to record another similar accident. Last week a horse took fright, and started off, passing through High Street at a furious rate,— a thoroughfare not only much frequented, but extremely narrow, and swarming with children— and then turning off by the Post Office, galloped along Queen Street, until it was stopped, fortunately, without any accident having occurred, in Shortland Street. The carelessness of some of the carters, or those whom they entrust with the^management of their horses, is reprehensible in the extreme. .An Estimate of the probable expenditure of the Government has been published, which though described as being for the year 1847> we suppose to be for the current financial year, ending March 31st, 1847- The sum total is £40,959 9s. Od. We notice several important variations from the estimate of a preceding year ; and detect many items that would have been better reduced, not discarded altogether. Fire. — On Tuesday evening, the inhabitant* of that portion of the Town which lies between High-street and Queen-street were thrown into a state of alarm, in consequence of a chimney tak ng fire j and, from the quantity of spark* emitted, serious apprehensions were entertained 1 for the surrounding buildings. We have repeatedly alluded to the imminent danger of ageneral conflagiation, owing to the carelessness or neglect of many of the house keepers, and we should esteem it a matter of great public benefit if the Legislature could adopt some precautionary measures. A positive enactment is perhaps impossible, but could not the Government, by a moderate outlay, make some provision to obviate or lessen the danger occasioned by such accident* For instance, there is now in Auckland a good fire-engine, imported by Mr. Smith ; if this were purchased, and kept in constant readiness, and some of the Native Police trained to its use, somereasonable hope might be entertained of checking or extinguishing a h're if it bioke out. At piesent there is no means of resisting the progress of the devouring element; and if a h're was to break out, the greater portion of the town would in all probability be desttoyed. We would urge this suggestion upon the attention of the authorities. Dogs. — The dog nuisance is as great op greater than ever. Hardly a day passes but the streets are the scene of furious contests betweea two or more of these animals, attracting all the idle and dissipated loungers in the Town, much to the annoyance and di-gust of the public generally. And at night, the slumbers of the inhabitants are broken by the continual barking of these biutes, who frequently attack those who are obliged by duty or necessity lo be out after datk. We do'sincerely hope, that one of the Members of the Council will bring this matter forward before the present session is closed. Dinner.— A Public Dinner, was given on Saturday last, to A. Kennedy, Esq.. M. C, at the " Caledonia Hotel," Fort Street. It was, we believe, a mark of respect and esteem on the part of his numerous friends, towards Mr. Kennedy. The evening was passed in the utmost harmony. The dinner was in 'Mr. Mac Donald's best style, and the wines excellent, T. HBartley, Esq., barrister-at-law, occupied the chair, and It. A. PitzGerald, Esq., acted as vice-chairman.