The Customs of the Country
By MARY HOLLAND
WHEN you consider that they represent the state at its most unswervingly punitive it is remarkable that we don't resent the Customs more: both the office in theory, and the men themselves in practice. Almost every other officer in the public services has a benevolent side. The police may get you for anything from speeding to murder but at least you know that they are also there to get you out of a jam. The income tax commissioner can give you a rebate, the welfare officer national assistance, the clerk, at the labour exchange a job. Yet we regard all of these with wariness if not downright mistrust. Murray Kempton (Spectator last week) may sympathise with the poor and identify with the policeman but this is an uncommon view. The general public knows that the police are necessary, and usually right, but identifies against them.
Even among 'them' the Customs officer is the complete kill-joy. It is his r6le to take things away, charge you for the pretty toys you have bought abroad, confiscate Henry Miller. And he does it, God help him, in the totalitarian glare of London Airport when you're exhausted, broke at the end of your holiday, and when all that looms ahead is a cheerless house and the same job for another year. The Customs are inevitable; you can't get into the country except at a port or landing appointed by them. There is no limit to the questions they can ask you about your baggage. Their job is to make money for the state, keep out pornography (in a rather hap- hazard fashion, with no rules but just a private black list to guide them) and to do it in an irritating way. Added to this there is the unjust vision of them spending their spare time con- suming vast quantities of rare old brandy, smoking cigars, and reading dirty books, all con- fiscated from the public.
It is an appalling image but the odd thing is that we seem to like them, or at least to tolerate them without the resentment and suspicion we feel for most arms of the law directed against ourselves. In Customs—A Citizen's Guide, an admirable little booklet published by the National Council for Civil Liberties, the thing most mar- velled at is the lack of bad feeling between Customs and Public. Compared with most branches of the public services, there are very few complaints against them. The authors say they found the Customs most anxious to co- operate and to get the public to understand their regulations, and that perhaps this accounts for their 'good relations with an often aggressive public.' It seems unlikely. As far as the public is concerned the regulations are contained on that card which they present poker-faced to every bleary traveller. They are no better than any other public authority about putting the public in the picture about its rights, e.g. that you can call for a solicitor during questioning, can appeal against confiscation of goods within a month and that the burden of proving liability to for- feiture lies with the Customs, can demand to see a JP if they want to search you. They are, presumably, at least as fallible as the police,
searching the wrong people for the wrong reasons. It is true that I have never, seen a Customs Officer be offensively rude. Even when they catch someone they appear to be hunting
him down more in sorrow than in anger, with a look of suffering and anxiety to get the whole thing out of the way as quickly as possible. But this can be as irritating as outright aggression, particularly if you are in the wrong, when, I imagine, it seems as menacing as the soft side of a third-degree griffin.
There must be other reasons for our compara- tive rapport with the Customs-besides their good manners. First, they are a piece of the machinery which most .of us are genuinely glad to see reappear in our lives. We may come up against them when we are tired and frayed, but it is also a time when all we want to be is home and the Customs man is the first tangible sign of England, home and-beauty. Every traveller feels that once he's past the Customs he's as good as finished his journey, even if he still has to travel the length of the country in a crowded train.
Besides this, the Customs round off a holiday, give it a last thrill which means that it doesn't just end in a weary trail home from the Riviera. It could just be that foreign travel wouldn't be the same without them, for they raise souvenirs to the status of contraband and smuggled goods are undeniably 'sweeter. Everyone feels better for getting a bit of-extra perfume, or cigars, or gloves past the Customs even when he could perfectly well afford to pay the duty.
The Customs do their part in this mass playing at Bond beautifully. Commonsense must tell us that they aren't really interested in one person's jar of caviar, or stainless steel bowl, or new hand- bag; yet they play it for real, giving every traveller, however lowly, the impression that he is dealing with an implacable representative of the law and is being recklessly daring in not declaring his cuckoo clock. Obviously they make people pay for the purchases they admit to, but I have only once seen them come down on a traveller who didn't declare a watch. He was one among a plane-load of journalists on a facilities trip from Tangier. The rest of us were loaded to the eyes with loot and went reeling to our coach con- vinced we had outwitted the lynx-eyed officers of the law and that the professional smugglers had better look to their laurels.
I can't remember ever having had my cases looked at abroad. Other countries mean im- migration officers, and they are a different kettle of fish altogether. Even when (as with all Arabs, most Americans,- and Spaniards) your main emotion is an extreme reluctance to enter their country so that if they-would only make up their minds and give you back your passport you'd gladly take the next plane home, immigration officers have an unnerving knack of putting you one down. If you really want to get into a country and are dependent on the bastards they must be very frightening indeed. As a group they are unwelcoming, slow and surly. The Customs officer, may be all of these, but he has one great advantage in his favour. He is, reassuringly, home.
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