Partition brought with it customs posts, smuggling and an enormous amount of bureaucracy which made driving across the Border fiendishly complicated, as this editorial pointed out in 1930.
In two articles our Special Correspondent has described the delays and irritations that are caused to traders and tourists by the Customs barrier between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland.
Along the border, from Dundalk to Derry, there are no fewer than 17 Customs posts. Every one of these posts requires a duplicate staff – one of Free State and the other of Northern officials – and the cost of their maintenance must be very large. The Customs barrier was erected when the Free State left the British fiscal system to set up housekeeping on its own account.
Some kind of Customs control was inevitable; but the adoption of protective tariffs by the Free State Government has resulted in a highly complicated condition of affairs, which is doing untold harm to the country. One of the most irritating aspects of the barrier is its effect on motor traffic.
The motorist who wishes to go from the Free State to Northern Ireland, or vice versa, is forced to involve himself in a series of negotiations which deprive his trip in advance of all its pleasure. He must acquire a triptyque, deposit a sum of money with the Automobile Association – if he happens to be a member of that excellent institution – and provide a banker’s guarantee for a further sum. Then he must present himself at the Border during certain specified hours.
If his car has British tyres, he must comply with one set of rules; if they are of foreign origin, he must comply with another. The whole business is so annoying and so wasteful that Ireland is losing a profitable source of income.
Ireland’s artificial division into two States has given rise to many anomalies. Derry is the distributing centre for North Donegal. The Customs frontier is only four miles from the centre of the city, and the inhabitants of Donegal, who continue to buy their goods where they always have bought them, are forced to pay duty on this, that and the other things which they take back to their homes.
This unnatural divorce of Derry from its economic hinterland has encouraged a regular system of smuggling. Large quantities of illicit spirits are smuggled across the frontier from Donegal to Derry, and Free State shoppers in the city adopt every plan to evade the payment of duties on their purchases.
From one end of the border to the other this smuggling is practised. The Customs barrier largely is a farce. Probably it is effective in respect of large consignments of goods from one side of the Border to the other; but the patrolling of the whole frontier would be utterly impossible.
Indeed, we are quite prepared to believe that the amount of duty collected on both sides of the Border is not sufficient to pay for the upkeep of the frontier stations.
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