It will be seen that the law permits merchandise arriving at the ports of New York, Boston, Portland in Maine, and at other ports specially designated by the Secretary of the Treasury, for places in the adjacent British Provinces, to be entered at the custom-house of the port where it is landed and conveyed through the territory of the United States without the payment of duty, under regulations to be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury.  As these goods come immediately and fully under the inspection of our customs officers at the principal ports, are entered there and remain until they cross our border into Canada fully under our supervision, there is little or no danger involved to our revenue.  The regulations prescribed by the Treasury for conducting this traffic seem to me to be adequate.

As to merchandise imported into the United States from a contiguous foreign country, it is provided by section 3102 that the inspection at the first port of arrival in the United States may be avoided if the vehicle in which the same arrives has been sealed or closed by some officer of the United States duly authorized at some point in the contiguous country.  When the act of closing or sealing conformably to the regulations of the Treasury has been effected, the car or other vehicle may proceed without unnecessary delay to the port of its destination, as named in the manifest of its cargo, freight, or contents, and be there inspected.  This privilege, however, is subject to such examination at the point of entry to the United States as may be necessary to prevent fraud.  It is important to be noticed that the merchandise to which this section refers is described in section 3100 as merchandise, etc., “imported into the United States from any contiguous foreign country.”

A practice has grown up, and a traffic of considerable dimensions under it, of allowing merchandise from China and Japan, purchased and imported from those countries by our own citizens and landed at ports in the Dominion of Canada, to be there loaded into cars, which, being sealed by an officer of the United States or some one supposed to represent him, are forwarded through the territory of Canada, across the entire continent, and allowed to cross our frontier without other inspection than an examination of the seals.  The real fact is that the American consul can not and does not either compare the manifest with the contents of the cars or attach the seals.  The agents of the transportation companies are furnished by the consul with the seals and place them upon the cars.  The practice of sealing such merchandise, notwithstanding it has been allowed by the Treasury for some years, I think is unauthorized.  Such merchandise is not imported from a “contiguous country,” but from China and Japan.