SMUGGLING

The offence of defrauding the revenue by the introduction of articles into consumption without paying the duties chargeable upon them. It maj be committed indifferently either upon the excise or customs revenue. Origin and Prevention of Smuggling. — This crime, which occupies so prominent a place in the criminal legislation of all modern states, is wholly the result ol vicious commercial and financial legislation. It is the fruit either of prohibitions of importation, or of oppre ively high duties. It does not originate in any depravity inherent in man; but in the folly and ignorance ol legislators. A prohibition against importing a commodity does not take away the taste for it; and the imposition of a high duty on any article occasions a universal desire to escape or evade its payment. Hence the rise and occupation of the smuggler. Ihe risk of being detected in the clandestine introduction of commodities under any system of fiscal regulations may always be valued at a certain average rate; and wherever the duties exceecl this rate, smuggling immediately takes place. Now, there are plainly but two ways of checking this practice, — either the temptation to smuggle must be diminished by lowering the duties, or the difficulties in the way of smuggling must be increased. The first is obviously the more natural and efficient method of effecting the object in view; but the second has been most generally resorted to, even in cases where the duties were quite exce ive. Governments have uniformly almost consulted the persons employed in the collection of the revenue with respect to the best mode of rendering taxes effectual; though it is clear that the interests, prejudices, and peculiar habits of such persons, utterly disqualify them from forming a sound opinion on such a subject. They cannot recommend a reduction of duties as a means of repre ing smuggling and increasing revenue, without acknowledging their own incapacity to detect and defeat illicit practices; and the result has been, that instead of ascribing the prevalence of smuggling to its true causes, the oflficers of customs and excise have almost universally ascribed it to some defect in the laws, or in the mode of administering them, and have proposed repre ing it by new regulations, and by increasing the number and severity of the penalties affecting the smuggler. As might have been expected, these attempts have, in the great majority of cases, proved signally un  [s. 1137]