1872-3. The exports to the three chief customers averaged about $27,000,000 for the five years ending 1876.[1] But, though the relative gain was good, the actual increases in both lines were unsatisfactory. Fortunately fibers, coffee, hides and skins, and valuable woods were increasing in importance in the export figures foreshadowing a time when the products saleable abroad would have greater variety.
It is hard for us to realize now the handicaps under which commerce was carried on in Mexico in the pre-Diaz period. Goods could be transported only at great expense. Only those that combined high value with small bulk could stand the cost of carriage for any great distance and the most important of even these were so heavily burdened with transportation costs and internal taxes that production for more than local use was profitable only under the most favorable natural circumstances.
The commercial situation was like that of the pioneers who settled beyond the Alleghanies in the early years of the United States and found that the cheapest way for them to market their corn was to change it into whiskey so that transportation charges might be as low as possible. The conditions were similar except that there existed in Mexico no navigable rivers that might serve as natural highways by which to reach the sea and the outside world. Even after the middle of the century litters carried by mules or men were used for passenger travel between Vera Cruz and interior points and re-
- ↑ Calculated from the import returns reported for the United States, Great Britain, and France.
