Whether the American Locomotive Automobile Company may build machines in this country, using imported parts, and thus escape paying full duty on the value of the machines when ready for sale, is a question that the United States Board of General Appraisers and the United States Collector of this port have under consideration.

The question is of so much importance to the American automobile manufacturers and the Government that an investigation has been started in France by agents of the Government, who are estimating the value of the machine parts made in that country and shipped here.

This phase of the automobile industry has developed within the last six months. Before that time automobiles were imported all set up and 45 per cent. was collected on their price in that condition. Last year the duty on automobiles collected in this city amounted to $1,700,000, and the importations so far this year indicate that twice that sum will be realized. The Collector of the Port recently discovered that certain American manufacturers were having automobile machinery shipped them in parts and were assembling these parts in their workshops in this country.

Classes of machinery made in France and consigned to the American Locomotive Automobile Company have been ehld up by the Appraisers because the Collector considered they were undervalued. One of the cases was invoiced at 1,200f. and the Appraisers marked it up to 2,100f.; another case was said to be worth 2,870f. and was marked up to 3,560f.; still another was marked up from 3,370f. to 6,625f. Against these increases the company appealed to the General Board.

“The plan of shipping parts of foreign machines in this way is a clever one,” a member of the Collector's staff said yesterday. “The various parts of different kinds of machines may be brought in at one time. They could not be valued at the wholesale price of any single make of machine. We do not say that trickery has been attempted, but it is none the less a fact that the material for a foreign type of machine is received here and is sold in the form of an automobile and as this tariff is on what we consider a luxury we believe that the fullest duty should be collected. The duty collected on automobiles last year represented 1½ per cent. of all the duties collected at this port, and this is a big item to be considered.”

It is said to be less expensive to build certain automobiles in France so far as the machinery goes. The tops for them are made in this country. It is expected that this will soon be a record year for the importation of automobiles.