Consigned Merchandise.

The sending to New York of merchandise by foreign manufacturers and presenting it there for sale, or the taking in this country of orders, on samples, of merchandise to be delivered in New York at duty-paid prices arranged in our currency, is a growing fact which this Government must face in selecting and prescribing rates of duty. Just as manufacturers in other States of our own Union send their merchandise on consignment to their own agents to sell in New York, so do, and so will, European manufacturers. The ledgers of commerce and trade will, more and more, be written and kept, in that city, and laws of taxation, state or national, immediately probable, are not likely to greatly impede or change the current. As buyers in New York do not go to New England to buy her staple manufactures, but find all the elements of buying in New York, so it will naturally be with European productions. If that is to be the case, I do not think our existing ad valorem rates can in the future be honestly, or satisfactorily, worked, under the existing conditions of our invoice law, our appraising law, and the force of consular and appraising officers that we now have. I fear that to begin reform with the enactment of new "Coercive Laws" will be to begin at the wrong end.