60 CASE OF GREAT BBITAIN. 



Treasury, in a report to the Speaker of the House of Representatives 

 (10th January, 1887), while characterising some colonial con- 



69 duct as actuated by " unworthy and petty spite," fully endorsed 

 the British view as to the reasonableness of colonial customs 



laws. He said (App., p. 372) : 



The head of this department, having the responsibility of enforcing 

 the collection of duties upon such a vast number of imported articles, 

 under circumstances of so long a sea-coast and frontier line to be 

 guarded against the devices of smugglers, should not be inclined to 

 under-estimate the solicitude of the local officers of the Dominion of 

 Canada to protect its own revenue from similar invasion. The laws 

 for the collection of duties on imports in force in the United States 

 and in the Dominion of Canada, respectively, will be found on com- 

 parison to be on many points similar in their objects and methods. 

 They should naturally be similar, for both had, in the beginning, the 

 same common origin. In the United States, Congress has divided 

 the territory of each State by metes and bounds, usually by towns, 

 cities, or counties into collection districts, for the purpose of collect- 

 ing duties on imports, and in each collection district has established 

 a port of entry and ports of delivery. In that manner all our sea- 

 coast frontier is sub-divided for revenue purposes. The object of our 

 law is to place every vessel arriving from a foreign port in the 

 custody of a customs officer immediately upon her arrival, in order 

 that no merchandise may be unladen therefrom without the knowl- 

 edge of the Government, The Canadian law is much the same as our 

 own in that regard, and in comparison with our own does not seem to 

 me [to] be unnecessarily severe in its general provisions. Our own 

 law provides, for example (section 2774 Rev. Stat.) that: 



Within twenty-four hours after the arrival of any vessel from any foreign 

 port, at any port of the United States established by law, at which an officer of 

 the customs resides, or within any harbour, inlet, or creek thereof, if the hours 

 of the business of the office of the chief officer of customs will permit, or as 

 soon thereafter as such hours will permit, the master shall report to such 

 officer, and make report to the chief officer of the arrival of the vessel ; and he 

 shall within forty-eight hours after such arrival make a further report in 

 writing to the collector of the district, which report shall be in the form, and 

 shall contain all the particulars required to be inserted in and verified like the 

 manifest. Every master who shall neglect or omit to make either of such 

 reports or declaration, or to verify any such declaration as required, or shall 

 not fully comply with the true intent and meaning of this section, shall, for 

 each offence, be liable to a penalty of one thousand dollars. 



Condemnation does not, in the opinion of this Department justly 

 rest upon the Dominion of Canada because she has upon her 



70 statute-books and enforces a law similar to the foregoing, but 

 because she refuses to permit American deep sea fishing vessels, 



navigating and using the ocean, to enter her ports for the ordinary 

 purposes of trade and commerce, even though they have never at- 

 tempted to fish within the territorial limits of Canada, and intend 

 obedience to every requirement of the customs laws, and of every 

 other law of the port which such vessel seek to enter. 



