Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/520

 480 MEXICO. in 1825, was a ruined mountain village, Mr. de Rivafinoli, (the Director of the Company established there,) informed me that the Alcavala, (or Excise,) which, on his first arrival, amount- ed only to 250 or 300 dollars per month, had risen to 1,500 and 2,000 dollars ; and that a shop for the sale of European manufactures had been opened there, by the house of Green and Hartley, the monthly receipts of which amounted to six thousand dollars. If we reflect that the money thus brought into circulation is not confined to the Districts, in which I have described its more immediate effects, but extends, more or less, over the whole country, by giving a value to wheat, maize, and barley, hides, tallow. Pita-ropes, coarse sacking, with cattle, sheep, mules and horses, from the great breeding estates in the North, and that all those who are thus enabled to dispose of their own stocks, become instantaneously con- sumers of ours, it will be seen that the investment of capital, by Avhich this change has been promoted, has not only not been injurious to England, but that, in point of fact, a large proportion of the fifteen millions of dollars, at which I have estimated the investments of our Companies, has already returned to us, in the shape of remittances to our manufac- turers at home. As the Mines improve, these remittances will increase : we have, at present, but little more than the proceeds of that capital, by which the regeneration of the mines is to be effect- ed, in conjunction with a produce, not exceeding one-third of the average standard before the Revolution. When the mines begin to pay, the case will be very different; for, in addition to the half, which I suppose to be absorbed by the expenses, one moiety of the remaining half will go to the Mexican proprietor, and consequently remain in the country, until it is exchanged there for the produce of European industry. Upon the amount of that produce consumed, the most important branch of the Revenue depends ; and it is to the