unloaded by the consignee, no officer being present.  The bill or manifest accompanying the merchandise and the unbroken seal on the car may furnish prima facie evidence that the amount and kind of merchandise named in the manifest and said to be contained in the car came from a port in the United States, but certainly it was not intended that the merchandise should go to the owner without an official ascertainment of the correspondence between the bill and the actual contents of the car.

I pass at this point any discussion of the question whether as a national policy this traffic should be promoted.  It is enough to say that as the law stands it is authorized between “ports” of the United States, and that the rules, regulations, and conditions to be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury must not, in view of this declaration of the legislative will, be further restrictive of the traffic than may reasonably be necessary to protect the revenues of the United States.  In determining whether further regulations are reasonably necessary to prevent frauds against our revenue it is not conclusive, at least, to say that frauds against the revenue under the existing system have not been discovered.  The question is, Are the regulations such as to provide proper safeguards against fraud, or are they such as to make fraud easy to those who have the disposition to commit it?  If all cars carrying this merchandise are carefully and honestly inspected at the point of lading and are securely closed during the transit, the revenue would be secure, for the proper lading of these cars is not subject to duty.  Frauds can only be perpetrated by introducing products not subject to free entry.  In practice the seals and locks provided by the Treasury Department do not give security that these cars, in the long transit in which they are free from observation by officers of the revenue, may not be opened and dutiable merchandise added.

The duplication of the seals used, composed of wire and lead, is easy, and the opening of locks scarcely less so.  If, however, the cars, when they arrive in the United States, either at the point where our boundary is crossed or at some other port of the United States, were subject to the inspection of a revenue officer before the delivery to the consignee or owner, the manifest could be verified.  The inspection, however, is now limited to an examination of the lock or seal.  The car is not weighed or opened to verify its contents.  I do not think this is an adequate protection against the surreptitious introduction into the cars, while on foreign territory, of dutiable articles.  It will be seen by the letter of the Secretary of the Treasury that grain the product of the United States is now largely transported in American vessels to Canadian lake ports, and after being there placed in elevators is sent east in cars sealed by agents of the Treasury.