LAX LAWS OF CUSTOMS - When North Pole is discovered you will find a Custom House broker doing business there
That there are loopholes in the United States Custom House laws large enough to permit the Government being deprived of revenues to an almost unlimited amount was explained in an after-dinner speech delivered at the annual banquet of the Export Club. The speaker was Harry Robison one of the oldest Custom House brokers in this city. His topic was “The Custom House Proposition.”
He said:
The export business of the United States is a growing business. Make no mistake; this country already possesses all the qualifications for becoming the greatest exporting country on earth. We are even now beginning to dispute the supremacy in the markets of the world with older manufacturing countries, and we have just only begun at that.
We have all the resources, and all we need to take the lead in this respect is the bringing to near upon our export trade of more scientific methods, more actual knowledge of trade conditions and customs laws in other countries. It goes without saying that an organization of this kind is a step in the right direction. But we have a great deal to learn, and the sooner we learn it the better. One thing, for instances, that this club ought to have is a foreign department where its member could find at their fingers ends all available literature on trade conditions of and customs regulations in foreign countries in good plain English.
If it may not seem presumption on my part, I would like to give you a piece of advice.
When you export goods to foreign countries, do not consult the United States Consulates or other officials, no matter what their experience or their ability, if you look for the best results. It will pay you to consult a good Customs House broker, and be sure you get the best available, even if it should cost you 30 cents more. It will pay you to do it, and you will have no difficulty in finding one for the Custom House broker is omnipresent. When the North Pole is discovered you will find a Custom House broker doing business there.
This is no reflection on the United States Consuls abroad. They or at least the majority of them are capable and honest. But they change with the political fortunes and do not get time enough to familiarize themselves with matters it is essential they should know, while the Custom House broker stays.
Now, there is no Custom House broker who cannot beat the law of any land. There is no proposition so tough that he cannot get over it and if he cannot get over it he crawls under it. If I wanted to do crooked business I could make a million dollars a year easily, simply by taking advantage of the loopholes in the law. And there is only one way in which the Government under the present system can get over the defects of the law- that is, by taking the Customs House broker into partnership.
I can make $10,000 or $50,000 or any amount in a day for any of you who will employ me, and I can and will give you an instance. John Doe of Paris ships ten boxes of very fine lace-worth, say. $40,000 to New York in bond for Titusville, Penn. When it gets to New York there is nothing in the law to prevent you, if the goods are shipped to you from substituting the ten boxes of laces for ten boxes of cheap French wine which cost $2 a box. The trick does not imply the connivance of any Customs House official. All that is necessary is that the boxes that are substituted should be marked in the same way as the boxes that you have imported. I could manage it at any time.