Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/305

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AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO.
291
Import Duties:
1 box, 128 kilos (stove), iron, without brass or copper ornaments, at 19 cents per kilo $24 42
1 box, 31·3 kilos, iron pipe, at 24 cents per kilo 7 51
1 box iron pots, with brass handles, at 24 cents per kilo 9 48
$41 41
Add 4 per cent as per tariff 1 65
$43 06
Package duty, 50 cents per 100 kilos 1 00
$44 06
Add 5 per cent as per tariff 2 20
$46 26
Add 2 per cent municipal duty 93
$47 19
Add 5 per cent consumption duty 2 36
$49 55
Dispatch of goods at Buena Vista station, city of Mexico 38
Stamps for permit 50
$50 43
$107 03
Cartage in city of Mexico 75
Total $107 78


Résumé:
Original cost of stove, with exchange $31 80
Freight, consular fees, and forwarding 24 80
Import duties 50 43
Cartage 75
Total $107 78

[Note.—This stove was shipped from El Paso in a lot of goods for Messrs.——& Co., the largest importing house in Mexico, thereby saving an expense of two thirds the consular fee—$14.56—which, if paid on the invoice alone, would have added $9.71 to charges, and raised the total to $117.49.]

In 1878 Hon. John W. Foster, then United States minister to Mexico, in a communication to the Manufacturers' Association of the Northwest (Chicago), thus analyzed the items of the cost, in the city of Mexico, of a tierce, weighing gross 328 pounds, containing 300 pounds (net) of sugar-cured hams:

New York cost, 300 pounds at 11 cents $33 00
New York expenses, such as cartage, consular invoice ($4 gold), manifest, etc., average 5 per cent on large shipments 1 65
Freight from New York to Vera Cruz at 1 cent per pound, payable in New York 3 25
Exchange on New York, $37.90 at 18 per cent 6 82
Import duties in Vera Cruz, 138 kilos at 24 cents per kilo 33 12
Municipal duties in Vera Cruz, $1.03 for every 400 pounds 84
Lighterage and handling from steamer to warehouse ($1 to $1.50 per every 200 pounds) 1 63
Maritime brokerage, 2 per cent on freight ($3.25) 07