Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/229

Rh The enumeration of the chief items of Mexican export is evidence of the degree to which the republic continues to be, so far as its export trade is concerned, a raw product country. In some lines manufactures have been developed to satisfy a large part of the local market, but even in 1912-13 they constituted only 1.1 per cent of the total exports. The chief factors in exports of manufactures were cheap hats and manufactured tobacco.

The changes in the international shares of Mexican trade already noted in connection with imports were even more marked in the export trade. Precious metals shipments in the middle '80s were about evenly taken by Great Britain and the United States, then the latter took the lead and held it steadily thereafter. Its share rose to about three-fourths of the total in the middle '90s and it stood at a little above that point in 1912-13. Since the outbreak of the World War exports to countries other than the United States have been only a negligible percentage of the total.

In the commodity market in general Mexico has never sold to any one on as good terms as to the United States. That country led even before the Diaz régime, its next competitor, Great Britain, even then, taking only about a value one-fourth as great. As early as 1878, 60 per cent of the commodity exports went to the United States. By the '90s over three-fourths of the total took that direction. In 1912-13, 77.2 per cent went to the northern neighbor of Mexico—about the same per cent of the total as in the case of the precious metals exports.

In spite of Mexican distrust and in the face of the failure of the average American to understand the