AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. 165 



comparatively few cotton and paper mills, and one or two (calico) 

 print-works accordingly enjoy a degree of protection that nearly or 

 quite amounts to prohibition of all competitive legitimate imports ; 

 though it may be doubted whether the fiscal officers who advised or 

 determined such rates had any knowledge or care for any economic 

 theory, but they may have been, and probably were, influenced in 

 their conclusions by the representations of interested parties. But, 

 be this as it may, the practical working of such a tariff, in such a 

 poor, undeveloped country as Mexico, is well illustrated by a recur- 

 rence to Don Rubio and his cotton-mill. The average fabric produced 

 at this establishment is protected by a duty on similar imports of nine 

 cents per square metre, or about eight cents per square yard, and sells 

 for about fifteen cents per vara, or thirty-three inches. Domestic in- 

 dustry is thereby promoted, and the family of Don Rubio amass great 

 wealth. 



But let us look at the other side of this picture. The number of 

 operatives who obtain opportunities for employment by reason of the 

 existence of cotton manufacturing in Mexico is probably not more than 

 six or eight thousand, certainly not in excess of ten thousand. The pop- 

 ulation of Mexico, to whom cotton-cloth is the chief and essential mate- 

 rial for clothing, may be estimated at ten million. Free from all tariff 

 restrictions, the factories of Fall River, in Massachusetts, could sell in 

 Mexico at a profit a cotton fabric as good as, or better than, that pro- 

 duced and sold by the factory at Queretaro, for five cents a yard, or 

 even less. A population of ten million, poor almost beyond concep- 

 tion, have therefore to pay from two to three hundred per cent more 

 for the staple material of their simple clothing than needs be, in order 

 that some other eight or ten thousand of their fellow-citizens men 

 and women may have the privilege of exhaustively working from 

 fourteen to fifteen hours a day in a factory, for the small pittance of 

 from thirty-five to seventy cents, and defraying the cost of their own 

 subsistence. Nor is this all. Under such excessive duties as now pre- 

 vail, few or no cheap coarse cotton fabrics are legitimately imported 

 into Mexico, and the Government fails to get the revenue it so much 

 needs. The business of smuggling is, however, greatly encouraged, 

 and all along the northern frontiers of Mexico has become so well 

 organized and so profitable as to successfully defy the efforts of the 

 Government to prevent it. On the shelves of the stores of all the 

 Mexican towns and cities, within two hundred and fifty to three hun- 

 dred miles from the northern frontier, American cotton fabrics pre- 

 dominate. Five hundred miles farther " southing," however, seems 

 to constitute an insuperable obstacle to the smuggler, and similar 

 goods of English and French manufacture almost entirely replace at 

 such points the American products. The present loss to the Mexican 

 Government from smuggling along its northern frontier has been re- 

 cently estimated by the "Mexican Financier " at not less than $1,500,000 



