efforts of the Government to prevent it. On the shelves of the stores of all the Mexican towns and cities, within two hundred and fifty to three hundred miles from the northern frontier, American cotton fabrics predominate. Five hundred miles farther "southing," however, seems to constitute an insuperable obstacle to the smuggler, and similar goods of English and French manufacture almost entirely replace at such points the American products. The present loss to the Mexican Government from smuggling along its northern frontier has been recently estimated by the "Mexican Financier" at not less than $1,500,000 per annum—a matter not a little serious in the present condition of Mexican finances; while all intelligent merchants along the frontier are of the opinion that neither the United States nor the Mexican Treasury officials can, by reason of this great illicit traffic, have any accurate knowledge of the amount of international trade between the two countries.
But if the present Mexican tariff on the import of foreign cotton fabrics were to be materially reduced, or abolished, would not, it may be asked, the cotton-factories of Mexico be obliged to suspend operations? Undoubtedly they would; but who, save the manufacturers, would thereby experience any detriment? The Mexican people would continue to have cotton-cloth the same as
