Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/78

60 the colonial period as the alcabala. When formally abolished, these were, in later Mexican history, substituted by municipal duties and an increase in the quotas of other state taxes. Some states had poll taxes or taxes on all persons over 14 years of age. They were not an important source of income. Besides these there were a large number of other sources of revenue, few of which gave important yields, many of which were survivals, and some of which were merely curious. How weak the state governments were financially may be illustrated by the fact that for the government of the great area of the State of Chihuahua there was collected even as late as 1907 only $1,307,489 Mexican, an amount that was even less than it appears, for the services performed by the municipalities in many other countries are largely performed by the state in Mexico.

Weak as the state governments were, they were much stronger than those of the municipalities. In fact just as the central government absorbed the functions of the states, these in turn took over municipal services. No feature of Mexican public life shows more clearly the lack of real self-government in the republic than the condition of the cities and towns during the Diaz régime. It is almost axiomatic that where a vigorous local public life is found there is good soil for the growth of self-governing institutions, the foundation