Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/324

 284 MEXICO. ducing the prices of the more necessary articles of consump- tion, will bring them within the reach of a larger body of consumers. I shall have occasion to enter more largely into this subject in the Fifth Section of this book. — Were the im- provements, which have already passed once through the Chamber of Deputies, in Mexico, adopted, I should have little hesitation in stating that the Importation duties alone in New Spain, might, as soon as the mines begin again to produce, be made to cover nearly three-fourths of the whole annual expenditure of the country, including the interest upon the Foreign Loans. The Contingent, soon after its establishment by the law of the 4th of August, 1824, was reduced first to two-thirds, and then to one half, its original amount, or 1,573,756 dollars ; it being found impossible that the States, on the first adop- tion of the Federal system, should pay, at once, the quota assigned to them. Each had to go through a process similar to that which the General Government had itself undergone ; — to assemble their Legislatures ; to ascertain the nature and amount of their revenues ; to simplify, as much as possible, the old system of collecting them ; to establish Mints and Tobacco manufactories, in order to obtain their share of the advantages in which the new order of things allowed them to participate ; and so to regulate their expenditure, as to provide means for meeting their engagements with the Federation. This could only be the work of time ; and to those who are acquainted with the state of Mexico in 1823, it is a matter of surprise to see how much three years have enabled the country to effect. The whole arrears of Contingent, up to January 1827, did not exceed 538,143 dollars, and there was every prospect that, in the course of the present year, a part of this debt would be liquidated. The States of Diirango, Chihuahua, Yucatan, dajaca. La Puebla, San Luis PotosT, Veracruz, and Zacatecas, owed