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under his immediate orders.
This explains why the Inspectorate
of Customs also administers the "Marine Department" or
Lights Service; and it also explains why the up-keep of
the Marine Deaprtment costs so little! For it should be
considered that it derives great pecuniary benefits from its
association with the Customs Revenue Department. At most
of the Treaty-ports, for example, there are no Marine
Department officers, and in such places, therefore, Customs
Revenue officers now perform Marine Department work under the
technical advice of the Head of the Marine Department (the Coast Inspector), and their salaries are not a charge on the
Tonnage Dues Account, but are paid from Revenue funds, thus
freeing large sums of money for the provision and maintenance
of aids to navigation. If the Marine Department no longer
remained a branch of the Customs establishment, it would,
of course, be necessary to very materially increase the staff.
It is also to be noted that since all the harbours at the
Treaty-ports, with the exception of Shanghai, Tientsin and
Canton, are at present administered by officers of the
Revenue Department, the salaries concerned are paid from the
Revenue, not the Tonnage Dues, Account, and that even at the
three ports above-mentioned, although the technical staff is
drawn from the Marine Department, the actual control of the
harbours comes under the local Commissioner of Customs:
i.e., he functions as a sort of local Port Authority. It
is evident, therefore, that if the Marine Department were to
become a separate organisation, additional charges on the
Tonnage Dues Account would result.
For many years past, the Board of Communications
have from time to time tentatively raised the question of transferring the control of the Marine Department from the Board of Finance (and the Inspectorate of Customs) to the
Board.
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