Packages examined by each depart.

ment.

The total number of packages transhipped in London alone, which was 250,000 in 1855 and 392,000 in 1856, last year reached 417,800.

4. Some measure of the commercial transactions superintended by the officers of this revenue may be afforded by the following tabular statement of the number of packages examined in the port of London by the Waterside and Water-guard officers respectively.

The comparison of the work of the Landing or Waterside department is as follows :—

The Water-guard passed of free and low duty goods in

Employment of
Cheques in
Payment of
Duties.

The extent to which traders' cheques and Customs notes are still employed by merchants in payment of the Crown dues is shown by the following table. It will be seen that the proportion has not materially varied from that of previous years.

PORT OF LONDON.

34 13 6

109 0 0

32 19 0

101 8 4

C

Mutual Guarantee Association.

One of the greatest internal improvements effected in this department during the year has been the establishment of a "Mutual Guarantee Association" among the officers of Customs. It has been the practice, as your Lordships are well aware, to require a considerable number of these officers, whose positions involve pecuniary liability, to give security to the Crown for the faithful discharge of their duties. This security might be provided in any one of three ways; either they might assign over to the Crown a sufficient amount of stock held by them in the public funds; or they might resort to a public Guarantee Society, which, in consideration of heavy annual premiums became security for them; or they might find two sureties who became bound for them in penal sums varying according to the estimated amount of their responsibility. The first plan few were in a position to adopt; the second was onerously expensive; and in consequence, the third was the system usually resorted to. It was, however, in many respects felt to be objectionable and inconvenient. It is at all times unpleasant to ask friends to become sureties, and usually painful to those friends either to accede to the request or to refuse it. If the sureties named by the officers consented to enter into bond, their sufficiency had in the first instance to be inquired into, and, further, their property and estates were hampered by the Crown judgment which the bond entailed, and could not be exonerated without much trouble and expense. In one instance it cost an officer upwards of 70l. to procure the exoneration of a portion of the estates of his surety, in order to enable that friend to make a clear title to purchasers.*

There were other objections to the surety system, which it is not necessary to specify, and the desirableness of establishing some easy and inexpensive mode by which the officers of Customs could give the required security to the Crown had long been generally felt. Accordingly, early in last year, Mr. Hamel, the Solicitor to this department, at the request of the various employés, devised a scheme for the purpose which was satisfactory to them, and having been sanctioned by this Board and

*This process was, however, materially simplified by the Customs Consolidation Act of 1853.

by your Lordships, was at once brought into operation, and has given universal satisfaction. By this plan the officers are each others' sureties and guarantees. Each contributes one per cent. on the amount of security required from him to a common fund, which is invested by the directors for the benefit of the subscribers. On receipt of this contribution a policy is issued, signed by the officer and the directors, guaranteeing the Crown, without dispute, to the extent of the penalty required. On retirement from the service without having trenched by misconduct on the fund, the officer receives back his contribution, with such interest as may have accrued thereon, subject only to a pro ratâ deduction in respect of current expenses and defalcations made good; whilst in the case of public guarantee societies the whole of the annual premiums, which are payable during the whole period of service, are entirely sacrificed. The directors of the "Customs' Benevolent Fund" have undertaken the management of this new fund gratuitously, whereby the cost of a paid directory and a separate establishment is saved. With regard to those officers who avail themselves of this mode of guarantee, the security of the Crown is complete. It is, however, entirely optional with them either to adopt this plan or to adhere to the old one; but so advantageous has the new system been found that it already (January 1858) numbers 449 subscribers, whose united guarantees amount to 227,700l., out of a total exacted by the Crown from this department of 700,000l.

tion deduc

Parliament was pleased in the course of last session Superannuato remit the deductions on account of superannuation tions, and Inallowances which had for many years been exacted surance Fund. from the civil servants of the Crown. It is well known how welcome this generous liberality was to the officers of this department, and how gratefully it was received. It cannot fail to be gratifying to your Lordships and to Parliament to learn that it has not been misused, but, on the contrary, has been applied precisely in the mode which all will feel to be the most fitting and desirable. A clear indication and example of this is afforded by the sudden and large increase in the insurances effected in the Customs' Fund, immediately consequent upon the remission of the superannuation deductions, as will

be seen in the table we annex. Not only did the number of insurances effected in 1857 equal those of 1855 and 1856 united, and the capital sum insured considerably more than equal that of those two years (being 31,300l. against 26,6501.), but the principal increase began immediately on the abolition of the onerous tax in question, viz., in July; and in the last quarter of the year the aggregate sum insured exceeded in a four-fold ratio that of the corresponding quarter in either of the preceding years. We have reason to believe that the Customs' Fund is by no means the only Insurance Society which can show similar results.