checked progress even in the lines Spain wished to encourage.
Since foreign commerce did not grow and could not yield heavily, internal commerce was forced to make payments at internal customs houses, which beyond doubt kept back Mexican economic progress.
Nevertheless it is easy to criticize, but hard to see what other method could have been pursued by Spain. Her hold over the country was after all so far from that which under modern conditions is possible, the transportation system was so poor, and the persons upon whom she could rely for honest appraisements and collections so few, and at best so unfitted to deal with the problems that faced the colony, that while all can see that the taxing methods used were unfortunate, it is harder to state what could have been better adopted under the then existing conditions.
There were four classes of taxes in the Spanish régime.
1. Taxes that were sent back to Spain, such as those on quicksilver and tobacco.
2. Special taxes, the tenths, the ecclesiastical subsidy, and a few others of like nature, which were destined to particular uses and not available as general income.
3. Another class was separate incomes known as ajenos. Such were the Pious Funds of the Californias, the taxes on pawn shops, income from prohibited liquors, and certain levies on mining. These were not resources that were covered into the treasury. Some of them were collected, however, by the administrative officers and spent by the government directly.
