to be given to a trained financier, thoroughly versed in all the principles of taxation and of economic sciences, and conversant with the results of actual experiences, the problem of making things speedily and radically better in this department of the Mexican state is so difficult that he might well shrink from grappling with it.
In the first place, the great mass of the Mexican people have little or no visible, tangible property which is capable of direct assessment.
Again, in any permanent system of taxation, taxes in every country or community, in common with all the elements of the cost of production and subsistence—wages, profits, interest, depreciation, and materials—must be substantially drawn from each year's product. Now, the annual product of Mexico is comparatively very small. Thus, for example, Mr. Sutton, United States consul-general at Matamoros, as before noticed, has shown that the annual product of the single State of South Carolina is absolutely two and a half times—or, proportionally to area, twenty-five times—as valuable as the annual product of the entire northern half of Mexico; and the Argentine Republic of South America, with only one third of the population of Mexico, has a revenue twenty per cent greater, and double the amount of foreign commerce. Product being small, consumption must of necessity be also small. Ex-Consul Strother (report to State Department, United States, 1885) says: "The average cost of living (food and drink) to a laboring-man in the city of Mexico is about twenty-five cents per day; in the country from twelve and a half to eighteen cents. The average annual cost of a man's dress is probably not over five dollars; that of a woman double that sum, with an undetermined margin for gewgaws and cheap jewelry." Mr. Lambert, United States consul at San Blas, reports under date of May, 1884: "The average laborer and mechanic of this country may be fortunate enough, if luck be not too uncharitable toward him, to get a suit of tanned goat-skin, costing about six dollars, which will last him as many years."
The food of the masses consists mainly of agricultural products—corn (tortillas), beans (frijoles), and fruits, which are for the most part the direct results of the labor of the consumer, and not obtained through any mechanism of purchase or exchange.
Persons conversant with the foreign commerce of Mexico are also of the opinion that not more than five per cent of its population buy at the present time any imported article whatever; or that, for all purposes of trade in American or European manufactures, the population is much in excess of half a million. Revenue in Mexico from any tariff on imports must, therefore, be also limited; and this limitation is rendered much greater than it need be by absurdly high duties; which (as notably is the case of cheap cotton fabrics) enrich the smuggler and a few mill-proprietors, to the great detriment of the national exchequer.
It is clear, therefore, that the basis available to the Government
