Page:A Study of Mexico.djvu/192

182 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