Customs collector

“ XXIV. And it is hereby further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That every master or person having the charge of any ship or vessel shall, before he departs from any British colony or plantation where he receives his lading, take a certificate under the hands and seals of the collector or other principal officer of the customs there (which certificate such officers are hereby required to grant without fee or reward) that bond hath been given, pursuant to the directions of this or any other act of parliament, as the case shall require ”

“ For the collection of the customs there is a collector in each district, a surveyor in the larger parts, and a general board of appraisers to hear appeals against decisions of the collectors with regard to the dutiability of imported goods. ”

“ Duty of collector thereon.And upon such entry being so made and certified, it shall be the duty of the collector to whom such entry is tendered to cause the said packages to be examined, and to permit the same to be exported, under the inspection of an officer of the customs, in like manner as is provided for the exportation of other goods, wares, and merchandise entitled to drawback: Provided,From what ports such snuff may be exported. ”

“ This the official chalked.
"So this is one of the habits of the English," cried the foreigner, bitterly.
"Not only the habits, Monsieur," observed a bystander, who trembling with apprehension, was waiting his turn; "but the customs. Customs that are out of date with the age. Customs that are contrary to the spirit of the century. Customs that cost more than they yield, and deserve to be cussed!"
"They do," cried the foreigner, excitedly. "May the Customs be—"
"You must not utter that word," interrupted the Revenue Officer, in a tone of peremptory command.
"It is British; why not?" ”

“ But the tradition of unified Customs, now nearly a century old, has immense potency, and unless it is fearlessly scrutinized and challenged, may be able, reinforced by the passions excited by the great controversy over Free Trade and Protection, to defy the warnings writ large upon the page of history. ”

“ Art. 93. Such merchandise as is not subject to an export duty, shipped in a Moorish port to be transported by sea to some other port in the Empire, shall be accompanied by a certificate issued by the customs, under penalty of being subjected to the payment of import duties, and even of being confiscated, if not entered in the manifest. ”

“ Almost every sort of foreign merchandise is subject to the imposition of duties by the government of the country in which it is received. These duties are paid at the Custom-House, to persons appointed by the constituted authorities to collect them. As soon as a vessel from abroad has entered the harbor, it is visited by a custom-house officer, called a Tide-Waiter, whose business it is to see that no part of the cargo is removed, until measures have been taken to secure the customs. ”

“ Customs is a slender, dark-haired expert sitting in a small room in New York appraising the value of a treasure in diamonds. It is a chemist in a laboratory checking the quality of a foreign import—and its dutiable value—and arriving at a decision which may mean life or death for an American business in a highly competitive market. ”

“ With this distinction, the ancient duties of customs were imposed equally upon all sorts of goods, necessaries as well as luxuries, goods exported as well as goods imported. Why should the dealers in one sort of goods, it seems to have been thought, be more favoured than those in another? or why should the merchant exporter be more favoured than the merchant importer? ”

“ British merchants who may have imported merchandise into any of the Open Ports and paid the Duty thereon, if they desire to re-export the same, shall be entitled to make application the Superintendent of Customs, who, in order to prevent fraud on the Revenue, shall cause examination to be made by suitable officers, to see that the Duties paid on such goods, as entered in the Custom House books, correspond with the representation made, and that the goods remain with their original marks unchanged. ”

“ Under the law, any citizen may act as his own agent in clearing his own imports through Customs and no license is required.
* * * * *
One of the ancient devices to aid the importer is known as the “drawback” privilege. “Drawback” is a word which is found in customs language through the centuries, and it is another word for “refund.”
In brief, the drawback works in this fashion: an importer brings262 merchandise into the United States to be used in the manufacture of certain articles. At the time of importation, he pays the normal duty. ”

“ All customs, be they old or new, are no other but the effects and issues of trades and commerce with foreign nations; but all commerce and affairs with foreigners ... are made by the absolute power of the king ”

“ The high duties which have been imposed upon the importation of many different sorts of foreign goods in order to discourage their consumption in Great Britain, have, in many cases, served only to encourage smuggling, and, in all cases, have reduced the revenues of the customs below what more moderate duties would have afforded. ”

“ Two months were then spent in drawing up “Ordinances” which were finally solemnly read to the whole people assembled in the churchyard, and received their unanimous [225] consent. And lastly a month later, on October 12, the organization of the Merchant Guild for the regulation of trade was completed and its officers elected; the newly made Common Seal [424] was inspected; and the community ordered that a record of all their laws and free customs should be written for perpetual remembrance in a roll to be called Domesday. ”

“ When such duties are imposed, not according to the bulk or weight, but according to the supposed value of the goods, they become properly a sort of inland customs or excise, which obstruct very much the most important of all branches of commerce, the interior commerce of the country. ”

“ The Truly Sacred Lord who has established the Divine Dynasty, has also established custom-houses wherever the country is quiet, and by his law all merchants who pass these must pay the regular duties, and your merchant in daring to force his way through and evade the payment of customs, and you in coming here and making a disturbance and squeezing the money back, have behaved in a manner at utter variance with propriety.... ”

“ To constitute an importation so as to attach the right to duties, it is necessary not only that there should be an arrival within the limits of the United States, and of a collection district but also within the limits of some port of entry. ”

“ There are thus only a dozen or so merchants in the world, and their business being supervised by the international council, a simple system of book accounts serves perfectly to regulate their dealings. Customs duties of every sort are of course superfluous. A nation simply does not import what its government does not think requisite for the general interest. Each nation has a bureau of foreign exchange, which manages its trading. ”

“ Because it deals with commerce and travel, the operations of Customs touch every man, woman and child and every item of merchandise entering this country—from the tourist returning from Zamboanga to the aardvark headed for a zoo.
Customs has been damned as a nuisance and a bumble-headed bureaucracy. It has been praised as one of the most efficient and necessary units in the Federal government. Despite its long history, few Americans know anything about Customs beyond the fact that they must submit to an irritating baggage examination by an inspector upon arriving home from abroad. ”

“ There is a special system for the collection of import duties, by naming many places along the coast to be used as "ports of entry," where custom houses in charge of collectors have been established. "Each custom house has a collector and the government has employed a large force of officers and special agents to overtake any dishonesty—attempting to smuggle goods through without paying duty." ”

“ The real increase of duty will not be accurately known for a year, until we have full returns of the imports and duties actually levied under the new law under the decisions of the Board of General Appraisers and the new Customs Court. ”

“ Collectors of the customs throughout the United States, by the tenth section, are empowered to take into custody specie, or any articles of domestic growth or manufacture, under these circumstances, when deposited in unusual places, in unusual quantities, in places where there is reason to believe they are intended for exportation in vessels, sleighs, or other carriages, or in any manner apparently on their way towards the territories of foreign nations, or a place whence such articles are intended to be exported. ”

“ The King’s Customehouses, ought to be so many locks and Keys to the Kingdome, to let what is warrantable and lawful to come in, and to keep out what is forbidden its entrance, and to prevent the great abuses that are so frequently complained of, both in the Exportation of our Prohibited goods, and the Importation of Forreign goods forbidden by Law ”

“ All Goods and Merchandize whose Importation into His Majesty's said Territories in America, shall not be entirely prohibited, may freely, for the purposes of Commerce, be carried into the same in the manner aforesaid, by the Citizens of the United States, and such Goods and Merchandize shall be subject to no higher or other Duties than would be payable by His Majesty's Subjects on the Importation of the same from Europe into the said Territories. ”

“ THOUGHTS ARISING OUT OF A GREAT CONTROVERSY DURING recent years a considerable share of the thoughts of men has been devoted to the consideration of one part of our fiscal policy,—that part which is concerned with Customs duties. In public and in private, on hundreds of platforms and in thousands of homes, the ancient issue has been debated between those who hold that Customs duties should be imposed for revenue purposes only and those who contend that Customs duties may be used as instruments with which to direct wisely the agricultural, industrial and commercial development of a nation. ”

“ Customs laws with a general ad valorem duty of 10% on imports similar to those in force in Kenya were introduced before the World War ended, and, in 1921, British weights and measures. Revenue was derived chiefly from the customs dues, trade taxes and licences, and hut and poll taxes, each able-bodied male native paying not fewer than three florins a year. ”

“ The growth of customs dues in the last years of the seventeenth century, and so onward, in a vicious progression until the opening years of the nineteenth, was not in any way owing to consideration for home traders, or to a desire for the protection of British industries. They grew exactly in proportion as the needs of the Government for revenue increased ”

“ The Measures of Customs outwards may be such, as after reasonable profit to the Exporter will leave such of our own Commodities as are necessary to Forreigners somewhat cheaper unto them then they can be had from elsewhere. ”

“ If to leavy the payment of these Duties could be most exactly performed, Princes might strangely practice one upon another; wherefore since they cannot, the people pay no more then they cannot with greater safety upon the whole matter save, nor observe any more of these Laws, then they cannot elude.
11. The Inconveniences of the way of Customs, are, viz.
1. That Duties are laid upon things not yet ripe for use, upon Commodities in fieri, and but in the way of their full improvements, which seems the same ill-husbandry, as to make fuel of young Saplings, instead of Dotards and Pollards. ”

“ The Customs or Duties upon the few Commodities of the growth of England exchanged with Forreigners, make too small a part of the whole Expence of the people of this Kingdom, which (perhaps is not less then fifty millions of pounds per annum) out of which to bear the common Charges thereof, so as some other way of Leavy must be practised together with it; whereas by some one way, if the best, the whole work may be absolved: wherefore 'tis an inconvenience in the way of Customs, that it necessitates other wayes then it self. ”

“ Customs have sprung from the necessities and the convenience of business and prevailed in duration and extent until they acquired the force of law. This mass of our jurisprudence has thus grown, and will continue to grow, by successive accretions. ”

“ For what, Sir, can be more glaringly absurd than to hear a merchant clamouring for the enforcement of the prohibitive laws, and the exclusion of foreign trade, at the very door of a shop filled with English goods, clandestinely imported? ”

“ Those who study the statistics of our export trade will recognize that if we lost the custom of our colonies—and this we should be likely to do if we lost the colonies themselves—the consequences to our commerce would be very serious. ”

“ It is just, both to the government and the importer, because it is founded on truth; and it will be a great convenience to all persons who have any transactions in which the value of foreign money is in any way involved. ”

“ There was no hardship in the case, because the law was notice equally to the collector and importer, and was a rule to guide their conduct, in case differences should arise in relation to the laws for the imposition of duties. ”

“ The duties of customs are much more ancient than those of excise. They seem to have been called customs, as denoting customary payments, which had been in use for time immemorial. They appear to have been originally considered as taxes upon the profits of merchants. During the barbarous times of feudal anarchy, merchants, like all the other inhabitants of burghs, were considered as little better than emancipated bondmen, whose persons were despised, and whose gains were envied. ”