AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. 295 



of spirits at wholesale pay three per cent ; gross receipts of city rail- 

 roads, four per cent ; public amusements, two per cent upon the amount 

 paid for entrance ; playing-cards, fifty per cent paid in stamps on 

 the retail price ; and manufactured tobacco a variety of taxes, propor- 

 tioned to quality and value. Mercantile drafts are taxed at $10 per 

 $1,000, which means a dollar on every hundred. 



Farms, haciendas, and town estates are required to be taxed at the 

 rate of $3 per each $1,000 of the valuation, but such is the influence of 

 the land-owners that the valuation is almost nominal. Land and build- 

 ings not actually producing income are exempt from taxation, not- 

 withstanding they may be continually enhancing in value.* 



In the towns, this system of infinitesimal taxation is indefinitely 

 repeated ; the towns acting as collectors of revenue for the Federal 

 and State governments, as well as for their own municipal require- 

 ments. All industries pay a monthly fee : as' tanneries, 50 cents ; 

 soap-factories, $1. So also all shops for the sale of goods pay accord- 

 ing to their class, from a few dollars down to a few cents per month. 

 Each beef animal, on leaving a town, pays 50 cents ; each fat pig, 25 

 cents ; each sheep, 12 cents ; each load of corn, fruit, or vegetables, 6 

 cents, and so on ; and, on entering another town, all these exactions are 

 repeated. A miller, in Mexico, it is said, is obliged to pay thirty-two 

 separate taxes on his wheat, before he can get it from the field and 

 offer it, in the form of flour, on the market, for consumption. As a 

 matter of necessity, furthermore, every center of population small 

 and big, city, town, or hamlet swarms with petty officials, who are 

 paid to see that not an item of agricultural produce, of manufactured 

 goods, or an operation of trade or commerce or even a social event, like 

 a fandango, a christening, a marriage, or a funeral, escapes the payment 

 of tribute. 



In fact, trade is so hampered by this system of taxation, that one 

 can readily understand and accept the assertion that has been made, 

 that people with capital in Mexico really dread to enter into business, 

 and prefer to hoard their wealth, or restrict their investments to land 

 (which, as before pointed out, is practically exempt from taxation), 

 rather than subject themselves to the never-ending inquisitions and 

 annoyances which are attendant upon almost every active employment 

 of persons and capital, even were all other conditions favorable. Mexi- 

 co, from the influence of this system of taxation alone, must, therefore, 

 remain poor and undeveloped ; and no evidence or argument to the 

 contrary can in any degree weaken this assertion. Doubtless there are 

 many intelligent people in Mexico who recognize the gravity of the 

 situation, and are most anxious that something should be done in the 

 way of reform. But what can be done? If autocratic powers were 



* This practice of exempting unoccupied realty from taxation also prevails in Portu- 

 gal. The theory there in justification of the practice is, that the use of a thing de- 

 fines its measure of value, and that to tax unused property is a.process of .confiscation^ 



