Page:A Study of Mexico.djvu/255

Rh fact that, with unrefined sugar selling in Mexico for a much higher price (from twelve to twenty-four cents retail) than the same article in the United States, there have not yet been sufficient inducements for them to fully supply the domestic demand of the country for sugar from its undoubtedly great natural resources—five and a half dollars’ worth of sugar having been exported from the United States into Mexico, in 1883, for every one dollar's worth imported during the same year from Mexico into the United States; and, secondly in respect to tobacco, by the testimony, based on careful investigation, of some of the best manufacturing authorities in the United States, that, while the best grades of tobacco for cigar purposes can now be raised in the United States at from ten to fifteen cents per pound, the cost of Mexican tobacco of a corresponding quality ranges from twenty-five to fifty cents per pound.