Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/68

 38 MEXICO. lish measure. The price of the Carga, I have found to vary but Httle ; for, as the consumption of wheaten flour is confined almost entirely to the towns, where the demand can be pretty correctly ascertained, a sufficient supply is raised, in the vicinity of each, to meet that demand, and no more. Thus, there is neither much competition, nor any great fluctuation in the value of the article when brought into the market. The Carga fetches, almost uniformly, from Mexico to Diirango, from thirteen, to sixteen dollars, according to the year ; which, taking the dollar at four shillings, and the Carga (as stated) at five bushels, gives 10s. 4)f c/. or 12s. 9kd- as the price of the bushel, which is now selling here at seven shillings. This is the more remarkable, as it is not the case in any other part of South America. The best Chilian corn, for instance, sells upon the spot for 3^ reales de plata, the fane- ga, or seven reals per carga. The carriage to the coast, (near which it is usually grown,) and freight to Lima, (the great corn-market on the Pacific side,) are estimated at three reals more ; and, at Lima itself, it sells for twenty- four reals, (three dollars,) or about twelve shillings English money ; while in Mexico the average price is nearly five times as much. But in New Spain, the want of roads, and the consequent difficulty of intercourse between the corn- growing States, excludes from competition, in each market, all those who are situated beyond a very circumscribed circle in its immediate vicinity ; and thus maintains a sort of factitious price for an article, the intrinsic value of which ought not to bear any sort of proportion to that which it now possesses, from the abundance in which it is already produced, and the facility with which its cultivation might be carried to almost any extent. Whether the obstacles can be overcome, which have given it this factitious value, and to what extent they will be so, ai-e questions which time, and the good sense of the Mexican