AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. 293 



Acuities, that the Federal authorities have not yet been able, or, speak- 

 ing more correctly, willing to prevent it.* It is important, however, 

 to note here that, in the draft of the proposed reciprocity treaty be- 

 tween the United States and Mexico, it is provided that imports from 

 the United States into Mexico, admitted free under the treaty, shall 

 not be liable to any Mexican State duties. 



The Mexican tariff system also provides for the taxation of exports, 

 notably on the following products : gold bullion, one fourth of one 

 per cent ; silver bullion, one half of one per cent ; coined gold and sil- 

 ver, having already paid at the mint, exempt ; orchil, $10 per ton ; 

 wood for cabinet-work and construction, $2.50 per 31 *3 American cubic 

 feet. Small export duties are also imposed on coffee and heniquen. 

 A revision of the Mexican tariff, with a view of modifying certain of 

 its exorbitant duties, more especially those levied on the importation 

 of wines and liquors and certain articles of food, has been recently 

 recommended (1885) to the Government by a committee of delegates 

 of prominent men of business from different parts of the republic. 



The existence in a state of the New World of a system of taxation 

 so antagonistic to all modern ideas, and so destructive of all commer- 

 cial freedom, is certainly very curious, and prompts to the following re- 

 flections : First, how great was the wisdom and foresight of the framers 

 of the Constitution of the United States in providing, at the very com- 

 mencement of the Federal Union, that no power to tax in this manner, 

 and for their own use or benefit, should ever be permitted to the States 

 that might compose it (Article I, section 10). Second, how did such 

 a system come to be ingrafted on Mexico, for it is not a modern con- 

 trivance ? All are agreed that it is an old-time practice and a legacy 

 of Spanish domination. But, further than this, may it not be another 

 one of these numerous relics of European medievalism which, having 

 utterly disappeared in the countries of their origin, seem to have be- 

 come embalmed, as it were, in what were the old Spanish provinces of 



* In October, 1883, in response to a call of the President of the Republic, the Govern- 

 ors of the several States of Mexico appointed each two delegates, who assembled in con- 

 vention at the capital, and after some deliberation published a report which exhibited 

 the incompatibilities, disadvantages, and abuses of the system in the most convincing 

 manner ; but acknowledging, at the same time, that as all the State governments were 

 more or less dependent upon it for their revenues, they could not recommend its present 

 abolition. The report also concluded with a recommendation " that Congress should at 

 once legalize a practice which a constitutional prohibition had failed to prevent, and 

 which, under existing circumstances, it would be impolitic to suppress entirely." And, in 

 deference to the suggestions of this conference, the Mexican Congress subsequently passed 

 a law, with a view of modifying and limiting the authority of the State and municipal 

 custom-house officers, so as to lessen in a degree the interruptions and vexations incident 

 to the system. But as the Federal Government and some of the States have since then 

 authorized public improvements to an extent that the state of their finances did not jus- 

 tify, and have in consequence increased taxes in all possible forms throughout the repub- 

 lic, the prospect for the complete suppression, or even of any essential modification, of 

 this oppressive system of taxation is not flattering. 



