Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/312

, is numerically the greatest, and comprises the great producers; and because the great producers, the great consumers and tax-payers—for all taxes ultimately fall upon consumption—and so are the ones most interested in the promotion and maintenance of good government. A tax policy, however, which would compel the land-owners to cut up and sell their immense holdings, especially if they are unwilling to develop them, would be the first step toward the creation of such a middle class. But it is not unlikely that Mexico would have to go through one more revolution, and that the worst one she has yet experienced, before any such result could be accomplished. At present, furthermore, there is no evidence that the mass of the Mexican people, who would be most benefited by any wise scheme for the partition of the great estates and for tax reform, feel any interest whatever in the matter, or would vigorously support any leader of the upper class that might desire to take the initiative in promoting such changes. And herein is the greatest discouragement to every one who wishes well for the country.

The Federal budget, in respect to expenditures for the fiscal year 1886-'87, as reported by President Diaz to the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, was as follows:

The estimates of receipts were uncertain. It was hoped, if business recovered, that they would reach 833,000,000; and the Government promised to try and restrict the national expenditures to this amount.

As for the sources of national revenue, the customs are understood to yield about one half; taxes on sales and stamps, some 85,000,000; post-offices and telegraph lines, 8650,000; lotteries, 8800,000; while the receipts from taxes levied by the States (mainly on sales also) amount to from 88,000,000 to 810,000,000, or about one half the receipts from customs.

In respect to the foreign commerce of Mexico, a report on the "Commercial Relations of the United States," issued by the United States Department of State in 1883, says: "Owing to the system, or, rather, to the lack of system, in regard to the collection and publication of customs returns by the national Government, it is impossible for our consuls in Mexico to supply any trustworthy statistics