It has never become subject to the Canadian revenue laws as an importation from Japan to Canada, but by force of the treaty or by the courtesy of that government has been treated as subject to the revenue laws of the United States from the time of landing at the Canadian port.  Our Treasury seal has been placed upon it; Canada only gives it passage.  It is no more an importation from Canada than is a train load of wheat that starts from Detroit and is transported through Canada to another port of the United States.  Section 3102 was enacted in 1864, two years before sections 3005 and 3006, and could not have had reference to the later methods of importing merchandise through one country to the other.

The practice to which I have referred not only equalizes the advantages of Canadian seaports with our own in the importation of goods for our domestic consumption, but makes the Canadian ports favored ports of entry.  The detentions under this system at the Canadian ports are less than when the merchandise is landed at a port of the United States to be forwarded in bond to another port therein.  Full effect should be given to section 3102 as to merchandise imported into the United States from Canada, so far as the appropriations enable the Treasury to provide the officers to do the work of closing and sealing.  It will, however, be required that all this kind of work be done, and carefully done, by an officer of the United States, and that the duty shall in no case be delegated to the employees of the transportation companies.  The considerations that it is quite doubtful whether a fraud committed in Canada by one of our agents upon our revenue would be punishable in our courts, and that such a fraud committed by anyone else certainly would not be, and that even if such acts are made penal by our statutes the criminal would be secure against extradition, seem to me to be conclusive against the policy of attempting to maintain such revenue agents in Canadian territory.

I come now to discuss another element of this international traffic, namely, the transportation of merchandise from one “port” in the United States to another “port” therein over the territory of Canada.  This traffic is enormous in its dimensions, and very great interests have grown up in the United States in connection with it.  Section 3006 authorizes this traffic, subject to “such rules, regulations, and conditions as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe;” but the important limitation is from “port” to “port.”  Section 3007 of the Revised Statutes, which exempts sealed cars from certain fees, preserves the terms of the preceding section—­from “port” to “port.”  It seems to me that sections 3006 and 3007 contemplate the delivery of the sealed cars at a “port” of the United States, there to be examined by a revenue officer and their contents verified; but in practice the car, if the seal is found at the border to be intact, is passed to places not “ports” and is opened and