SMUGGLING IN CANADA.

Shannon News, 25 November 1924, Page 4

SMUGGLING IN CANADA.

ONE RESULT OF THE U.S.- SLUSH*.

(“Manchester Guardian’s” correspondent.) OTTAWA, September 3,

An evil whose growing dimensions have compelled the serious attention of the Government and the business community is the revival of smuggling. The slump in American business has caused many forced sales and bankruptcies. Enterprising individuals have purchasedlarge quantities of silks, laces, rubber, and textiles, and have successfully smuggled them into Canada. Landed there, they have been disposed of to trusted merchants, who proceeded to retail them. In most of the large eastern cities there is a certain class of stores thus able to undersell the more reputable houses which* are disinclined to accept smuggled goods, and feminine purchasers are finding their offerings very attractive. The scandal has become notorious, and the merchants’ associations and the manufacturers, who are also suffering, have made strong protest to Ottawa. Recently a deputation of textile manufacturers and jobbers journeyed to Ottawa and demanded a rigid tightening of the Customs supervision at the border. Its members stated that the losses to themselves had been enormous and that the country was losing through smuggling at least 10 million dollars per annum in revenue.

In response to these and other protests the Customs Department has strengthened its forces at" many points and on certain straategic highways across the international boundary large iron gates are being erected to halt smugglers’ motors, which have often dashed through. But a great deal of the smuggling is done by water and all along the shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario there are tales of mysterious lights on the wave, the plash of oars, and motors speeding off in watches of the night. The vast distances make a strict patrol very expensive, but the evil must be coped with.