Immediate Transportation of Dutiable Merchandise

A matter directly affecting all country merchants and dealers in imported goods has been under discussion in the Chamber of Commerce of New York recently.

The tariff regulations, as almost everybody knows, permit imported goods, landed at a seaport, to be transported thence, in bond, to any inland custom house, and to be there entered, inspected and passed, thus making, in many cases, a great saving of time, trouble and expense to country importers.

This resolution, forming part of a long report and series of resolutions, was adopted by the Chamber of Commerce, apparently without sufficient consideration. At the last meeting of the Chamber, last week, a motion to reconsider the resolution was made, on the ground that it stultified the Chamber, and cast unjust reflections on the country, merchants.

Mr. Luther Woodhouse was among those who strongly favored reconsideration. He said the resolution was a direct imputation upon both the inland custom houses and the inland merchants. He knew something about the Chicago custom house, which had been called a model custom house by Secretary McCulloch, and he declared that the great business of undervaluing goods was done in New York, and not in the West or in the country custom houses, such as they would not be likely to secure in the New York custom house.

Another member, Mr. Cornelius M. Voss, sustained this view of the case. There are, he said, more cases of undervaluing in New York every year, than in all the rest of the country, and the resolution as reported contained unjust reflections on the country merchants, who were charged in the report with securing undervaluations of their goods from the local custom houses, such as they would not be able to secure in the New York custom house.