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Show SMUGGLING ALONG THE BORDER. A Profitable Business Between M.ilno anu Canada Reciprocity Wantetl, A correspondent writes from Vance-borough, Vance-borough, Me., an account of smuggling back and forth across the Canadian border: bor-der: "It has been no secret," he says, "in this part of the country that free trade for all who desire it now exists and has existed for years along the line between Canada and the state of Maine, this line being for the most part in a wilderness and about 400 miles in length. "The boldest operations are carried on in the cities of Eastport and Calais. Across the harbor from the former, distant dis-tant about one mile, is the Canadian island of Campobello. Each hour, weather permitting, a ferryboat leaves Eastport for Campobello and Lubec. At the landing of the first named are several sev-eral liquor stores. Men take the ferry, and buy in Campobello dutiable goods, which they take back to Eastport or Lubec, and no questions are ever asked. Smuggling has been as common in and around Eastport the last two years as boating. "But the places to study the working of free trade pure and simple are in the Yankee town of Calais and the Canadian Cana-dian burg of St. Stephen, half a mile across the St. Croix river. A bridge connects the towns. At the American end is a toll taker and a Yankee custom house man; at the Canadian end a .collection .col-lection of liqnor shops, with now and then a dry goods shop. There is no reason rea-son why these shops should be there save for the patronage that comes through the ancient covered wooden bridge. Old horses have been driven into New Brunswick by well known men, and on the return valuable horseflesh, horse-flesh, dirty and with shabby harness, has been brought back. Everything low in price in Canada and high in the state is smuggled into Calais and no questions But the correspondent found that the smuggling was not at all one way. The American smuggler gets his booty in St. John and Halifax, where English kids, cloths, silks, etc., are in abundance and low in prices, but there are some American Amer-ican goods that he wants to get into Canada by beating the Canadian tariff. "Regularly drummers for wholesale houses in Maine and Boston visit the larger towns near the border and on the Canadian side selling their wares. Even barrels of alcohol are taken across the St. Croix to druggists and liquor dealers, and other merchandise whereon there is a Canadian duty goes over free." All this shows how hard it is to keep people from trading when trading is good for both sides. And trading is so natural that everybody near the border will smuggle without compunction : of conscience. The tariff wall is not looked upon as a thing founded upon justice and as morally binding upon anybody. It is an unnatural and abnormal thing. If people in Canada and in Maine are so anxious to trade, why not let them trade? Why not give them reciprocity of the broadest kind? The Boston Herald Her-ald says of free trade with Canada, "That is reciprocity that means somethingreciprocity some-thingreciprocity that would be felt in the business interests of Boston and of all New England." |
