ther, the government sought to help industry as it did agriculture by creating artificial advantages for local enterprise, not only in a protective tariff but, after 1893, by special exemptions. In that year the executive was empowered to give special privileges to those setting up new industries in the country if their investment amounted to 250,000 pesos. These privileges might include freedom from direct federal taxes and freedom from customs taxes on the machinery and other materials of construction necessary for setting up the establishment.[1] The states adopted a similar policy to attract industry to their own territories.
The textile industry is the best known of Mexican manufacturing developments and the one in which the Mexican population has had its best opportunity to display its abilities. Cotton weaving is naturally its most important branch. The first cotton mill is said to have been set up as early as 1829. The credit for giving the industry its first genuine impulse, however, appears to belong to Esteban Antuñano, who set up his first establishment in Puebla in 1833.
Advance sufficient to justify extensive export has not been made, in fact, there is still, in normal times, an important import trade in textiles. The grades of goods chiefly produced are medium priced cottons, such as meet a wide demand among the common people. Fine cotton goods, however, are woven and in their making the native has shown himself of decided capacity.
In this industry, as in all others established in Mexico,
- ↑ Maurice de Perigny, op. cit., p. 100.
