Last week we copied a paragraph from the Daily Papers,
in which a method of evading part of the present heavy duty on corn was pointed o it : it was suggested that a large bakehouse should be established at C dais for the supply of' the London market, as bread ready-made is chargeable with an import duty of only twenty per cent. The following paragraph from the Scotsman proves that a more effectual mode of doing the same thing has already been practised.
"Eight thousand quarters of wheat have been actually sent from Archangel in Russia, to Montreal in Canada, where corn is always dog cheap. This wheat, which if imported here direct from the former place would be taxed at the rate of 33s. per quarter, will, it appears, be subject in Canada only to a trifling duty. When there, it may, at the expense probably of a customhouse oath, be reshipped as Canadian corn, and imported at London under a duty of 5s. ; or it may be consumed at Montreal, and set free at an equal quantity of Canadian wheat for exportation. The transaction is at once curious and instructive."
A correspondent of the Times asserts that this trade has not been confined to the solitary instance quoted by the Edinburgh journal ; and at the same time gives a calculation which demonstrates its profit.
"From the low price of bonded grain at Liverpool, persons there have, during the early part of this season, been carrying through the above operation ; and under existing circumstances you will observe that it may be attended with some advantage—
Russian wheat may be bad in bond at 1 0 0' Freight to Canada and back, about. 0 8 0
Insurance and other charges of loading, discharging, and re-
shipping 0 3 6 Duty 0 5 0
Coqing in.all per quarter Cl 16 6 Or only 2s. 6cl more than the direct duty of 34s."
The price of wheat in London is from 48s. to 50s. per quarter ; so that the profit on the transaction is very handsome. Nothing stands in the way of it except the customhouse regulations; but, what are "swearing clerks " kept for in all respectable mercantile establishments? The above example of the practical operation of the Corn-laws deserves to be set alongside of the exposure which we lately made of similar operations in the Timber-trade ; by which it appeared, that insurances upon cargoes of Baltic timber, shipped from Memel to some port in Canada, and thence again to England, had been actually effected in the City.
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