BAD TRADE!
".[To the Edit-or of the SPECTATOR.] Sra,--7We.hear a great deal about, bad trade, but in view of the dilatoriness of..tbc Customs and Excise Authorities at the. G.P.O. is it to be wondered at ? On March 13th a piece of ('hureh silk embroidery arrived in London by, post from South Africa ; it was en route to Ceylon and was only sent, to London to be on view for a few days. On March 14th I received a formal notice of its arrival and a statement that as it was silk and had been insured for 175, the duty to be paid was £25. As a matter of fact all the silk in the piece of embroidery had originally been sent from England, but that would have been difficult to prove and therefore,- in order to expedite matters, within two hours of re-caving the demand; posted a' cheque on a London bank for 125; on the understanding that the money ,wOttld be refofided Ori .the 'goods being reshipped. In spite of my immediate compliance with the request, the parcel was not delivered at my address in London till March 22nd. Having this lost. eight days, the parcel was repacked and posted on March 27th in order to catch that week's mail to Ceylon. It was' not till June 10th- that the £25 was refunded, nearly three months after the goods left the country. An important silk merchant in the City tells me that mine was no exceptional case and that it is the kind of treatment to which they are frequently subjected with no redress. It is not ,a question of whether one individual is, or is not; incon- venienced by being £25'out of pocket for two or three months, but it is the apparent utter want of organization in the Customs Department, first in not delivering the goods, and 'secondly in retaining the money, which is, to my mind, little short of a
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