Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/235

Rh The exports for the year 1918 were valued at 367,305,451, compared to 300,405,552 pesos, the record for 1912-13. Imports totaled 164,470,035 pesos, still much less than in 1910-11, when they totaled 206,000,000 pesos. Detailed returns for 1918 and subsequent years have not been published. The war had greatly emphasized Mexico's dependence on the United States in her foreign trade. Approximately 95 per cent of all exports in 1918 went thither and about 90 per cent of the imports were purchased there.

President Carranza, reviewing the state of the country in his message to the Congress in the autumn of 1919, pointed out that the customs receipts for 1918 were the greatest in history, the total for 1918 being over 37,700,000 pesos, or six million greater than the record of the best years of the old régime. The striking contrasts between the reports as to production in the country on the one hand and the figures of foreign trade and the income derived therefrom on the other, are due, in large degree, to circumstances quite independent of any action taken by the local government. The fact is that the apparent prosperity of Mexican foreign trade in 1918 and 1919 was due not to what the revolutionary government had or had not done but to the abnormal conditions created by the war in Europe.

The export trade of 1918 was announced as of a value of 367,305,451 pesos, as compared to 300,405,522 pesos in 1912-13; while that of 1919 reached 424,462,471 .