Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/354

 314 MEXICO. millions, a consumption of twelve reals, (or one dollar and a half,) for each individual, in the year ; while, according to the calculations of the Veracruz Consulado, the consumption of the produce and manufactures of the country, by each person, in the same time, averaged thirty-two dollars and three reals. It is probable, therefore, that a contraband trade to a very great extent was carried on ; and consequently, that the consumption of the home manufactures was never so nearly equal to that of the European manufactures, as would ap- pear by the registered amount of both. Still, it would be an extraordinary fact, that, in a country so thinly peopled as Mexico, any sort of competition between the rude industry of the natives, and the produce of Euro- pean machinery should have existed, did not the monopoly of Veracruz sufficiently explain the circumstances, under which this competition took place. This port was conveniently situated for the supply of the Capital, and the more central parts of the Table-land; but the distance rendered it nearly inaccessible to the Northern States, there being few residents in Diirango, S6n5ra, New Mexico, or the Eastern Internal Provinces, rich enough to afford a supply of articles, the value of which, in addition to the high duties, and the two hundred per cent, profits of the importer, was enhanced by a land carriage of from three, to five hundred leagues. The great majority of the population was consequently compelled to seek, in its own industry, a substitute for those necessaries, which it was unable to procure from the manu- facturing nations of the Old World ; although there was not, I believe, an article of Mexican manufacture, that might not have been procured from Europe, of a superior quality, and at an infinitely lower price.* been tried at Glasgow, and it has been found that a Serape, or party-
 * Imitations of some of the best of the Mexican manufactures have