Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/117

Rh outside world. The foreign commerce and the federal income had almost trebled in the 12 years preceding July, 1892, but recurring deficits made conservatism in public expenditure wise. "It is, therefore, indispensable" "to summon the determination to make our budgets balance" declared the treasury officials, "making, on the one hand, all the economies compatible with the necessity of preserving the public and on the other increasing the taxes as far as the crisis through which the nation is passing will permit." "The wise and farseeing public policy indicates the necessity of holding in the granting of subventions. . . and waiting for some time until the horizon clears.

But to secure the advantages made possible by the railroads one important change in taxing policy was seen to be needed even with the adoption of this more conservative program, that was the abolition of the internal customs houses at which were collected the alcabalas. "Whatever apology could be made for such taxation in the colonial era it was now thoroughly indefensible. The constitution of 1857 had done away nominally with taxes of this sort but the various ministers of the treasury had not dared to put the rule into effect. In 1892 the federal treasury was still receiving $2,000,000 from the tax, an income which in the Mexican budget of that time was apologized for because it was "of considerable size, established for several centuries, and