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218 commerce, she has been no less parsimonious in indenting the coasts of Mexico with harbors for foreign trade. An official communication to our Government describes her coasts as broad belts of intolerable heat, disease, and aridity. On the whole coast-line there are but two natural harbors available for first-class modern merchant-vessels. But harbors can be made; whether natural or artificial, they do not create commerce. If the farmers of Mexico owned the tillable land; if the burden of taxation were shifted off industry upon land, proportionately to other property; if the tariff were so modified that commerce might freely seek Mexico, — harbors would not be wanting.

It is her mines that have kept up the foreign trade of Mexico in spite of her lack of harbors. The total value of her exports of precious metals annually from 1879 to 1884 averaged about twenty-five million dollars. But her total exports in 1885 have been estimated as high as forty-five million dollars, the increase being due in large measure to the closer relations brought about between our country and the sister republic by the new rail-road lines. It is estimated that we received about fifty-five per cent of the total. The remainder