ficulties, that the Federal authorities have not yet been able, or, speaking more correctly, willing to prevent it.[1] It is important, however, to note here that, in the draft of the proposed reciprocity treaty between 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 silver, 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 commercial freedom, is certainly very curious, and prompts to the following reflections: First, how great was the wisdom and foresight of the framers of the Constitution of the United States in providing, at the very commencement 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 contrivance? 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 mediævalism which, having utterly disappeared in the countries of their origin, seem to have become 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 Governors of the several States of Mexico appointed each two delegates, who assembled in convention 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 justify, and have in consequence increased taxes in all possible forms throughout the republic, the prospect for the complete suppression, or even of any essential modification, of this oppressive system of taxation is not flattering.
