Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 1.djvu/483

Rh although the capital employed in working them has produced the most beneficial effects upon those branches of Agriculture and Trade, with which they are more immediately connected, yet, it is to the produce of the mines, and not merely to the capital by which that produce is sought, that we must look for permanent improvement.

The sums now expended may increase the supply of necessaries in the Interior, and give to the landed proprietors, in the vicinity of the Mining Districts, the means of obtaining European manufactures, which they could not otherwise afford; but they have no tendency to produce a surplus of those articles in which the most valuable Exports of Mexico are likely hereafter to consist, most of which, (as Sugar, Indigo, and Coffee,) require the employment of a small capital in their cultivation, before they can rise into importance.

This capital the mines must supply; for they alone can remedy the deficiency in the circulating medium of Mexico, which has checked so many useful projects, and retarded, hitherto, the progress, which might otherwise have been made.

In a country where three per cent, per month, has been obtained for money in the capital, (and that, too, on the most undeniable security,) there is but little inducement to capitalists to invest their funds in agricultural speculations. It is not surprising, therefore, that, in the last three years, little should have been done towards turning to account