POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Life is extremely hard in Mexico. The absence of fuel and water places
her industries at a great disadvantage, and to foster her crude
industries she is compelled to put a prohibitory tariff on imports,
which falls heavily upon the consumer. A reciprocity treaty with the
United States would solve the problem, but who ever heard of the
American Congress agreeing upon subjects of great importance. When I
first went to Mexico each state collected its own custom duties
independent of the national government, and custom officials met the
train at every state line. I knew a lady who moved from Kansas to Nueva
Leon, the second state across the border, and on a silver water-pitcher
valued at $35, she paid an _ad valorem_ duty of $17.15. The custom
regulations have changed now, and duty is no longer collected by
individual states, but it is bad enough as it is. American ham in Mexico
costs fifty cents a pound, cheese seventy-five cents, canned salmon one
dollar a can, and mackerel twenty-five cents each.
Through the kindness of D. Appleton & Co., I am permitted to use some
figures below, taken from that very excellent work by David A. Welles,
“A Study of Mexico.”
“In 1885, an American living in the City of Mexico induced the landlady
to order an American cooking-stove. In due time the stove arrived, and
this is a copy of the bill presented and paid upon delivery:
ORIGINAL INVOICE:
1 stove weight 282 pounds
1 box pipe “ 69 “
1 box stove furniture “ 86 “
---
Total 437 pounds or 199.3 kilos.
Cost in St. Louis, U.S. currency $26 50
Exchange at 20 per cent 5 30
------
Total $31 80
Freight from St. Louis to City of Mexico (rail) at
$3 15 per 100 pounds $15 75
Mexican consular fee at El Paso 4 85
Stamps at El Paso 45
------
$52 85
Cartage and labor on boxes examined by customhouse
at El Paso $ 50
Forwarding commission, El Paso 2 00
Exchange 16⅔ per cent. on $7 64 freight advanced by
Mexican Central Railroad 1 25
------
$56 60
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
RESUME:
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 the expense of two-thirds the consular fees--$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 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 expense, 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
-------
$37 90
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
Opening and closing barrel 50
Additional charges in Vera Cruz for stamps and
cartage to railroad station 1 50
Commission in Vera Cruz, 2 per cent. on $70 66 1 41
Exchange on Vera Cruz, 1 per cent. on $39 06 39
Railroad freight from Vera Cruz to City of Mexico,
140 kilos at $54 32 per ton 7 60
Local duties in City of Mexico, 2 per cent. on Federal
duty, $33 12 66
Local expense in City of Mexico, cartage in depot,
expense in custom house, etc. 75
-------
Total $93 19
Therefore, $1 in hams in New York was worth $2.82 in Mexico, or 31 cents
per pound! A similar analysis showed that an invoice of ten kegs of cut
nails, which cost in New York $22.50, when imported into the City of
Mexico cost $141.64, or $1 value in nails in New York was equal to $6.29
in Mexico, and salt that cost $2 a barrel in New York, cost $20.40 in
Mexico. These are simply specimens of tariff duty, but the internal
revenue system is no less remarkable.
Every inhabitant of the republic who sells goods to the value of $20
must give the buyer an invoice of same, and affix and cancel a stamp of
corresponding value. Retail sales are exempt from this law so long as
they are less than $20. Retail sellers in the market, or others whose
capital does not exceed $300, are exempt. Tickets of all descriptions,
railroad, theatre, etc., must have a stamp, also each page of the report
of meetings; each leaf of a merchant’s ledger, cash or day book, and
every cigar sold separately must be delivered to the buyer in a stamped
wrapper. Sales of spirits pay 3 per cent; gross receipts of railroads
(city) 4 per cent; public amusements, 2 per cent of entrance fees;
playing cards 50 per cent, and mercantile drafts pay a dollar on the
hundred. Each beef animal on leaving a town pays 50 cents; each fat pig,
25 cents; each sheep, 12 cents; and everything else you can mention.
A miller in Mexico has to pay thirty-two separate taxes on his wheat,
from the time it leaves his field till he can offer it to his customers
as flour. The country swarms with officials who collect taxes from every
conceivable source, fandangos, christenings, marriages, funerals,
buryings, etc., while you live, and then collect taxes on your grave
after you are dead. It is very much like a case I knew in Texas when a
man was sentenced to prison for life, and the judge found that he had
overlooked one indictment, so he promptly added ten years. I am puzzled
to know if this taxation gave rise to the belief in the transmigration
of souls, or whether the belief in transmigration gave the cue to the
officials to collect from the shades. Perhaps this delinquent tax is
charged to the estate of Purgatory et al. Every man between the ages of
18 and 66 is taxed for the privilege of living, and the only way to
escape this tax is to live in Vera Cruz and die young. Poor old Mexico.
I might devote ten pages to this subject, but what is the use? A country
with such a prohibitive tariff shuts out her only source of revenue on
imports, and exports nothing of importance but money, so how can she
survive except by robbing the people? The country is very poor, the
State of South Carolina producing two and a half times as much as the
entire northern half of Mexico, and if you compare them by proportionate
areas, twenty-five times as much. The interminable system of taxation is
the most despicable system on American soil.
I have at last discovered why so many beggars go naked in Mexico. They
go naked and beg in order to escape the tax gatherer, since a man is
taxed on clothes and material and upon all incomes greater than $150.
History tells of a certain people that brought on a revolution and a
republic, just on account of such harmless pastime as licking stamps.
The time will come in Mexico when the people will lick just one stamp
too many, then they will rise in their might and stamp the industry in
the ground. (Joke not intended).
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