Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/566

546 the early tariffs is exhibited by the fact that the rates were fixed so as to fall lightly on the rich and heavily on the poor. Nearly two months' wages every year had to go to pay for the cotton cloth worn by the Indian laborer and his family, if indeed they wore cloth; while a half-day's income covered all that the government received from duties on articles consumed by the rich man, or by a convent of friars.

Between 1845 and 1856 several changes occurred, among them the liberal one of 1848, and the famous order of Santa Anna, in 1854, under which he established a prohibitive discrimination against nations having no commercial treaty with Mexico on the basis of reciprocity; it was repealed by the liberal government that deposed him, on the 9th of January, 1856. On the 31st a new tariff was issued, lowering the duties from the standard of that of 1853. The import dues were classified import and additional, the latter being equivalent to about 75 per centum on the amount of the former. In May 1858 the permission was given to import cotton through Vera Cruz by paying one dollar and a half per hundred pounds. On the 17th of March of the same year the governor of Tamaulipas had decreed the zona libre by which, in the towns