quences of such instability were the repeated frauds against the treasury by the clandestine exportations of precious metals, and the derangement of the mining business.[1]
After the promulgation of the constitution of 1857, which did not confer on the general government power to legislate on mining, only two states, Hidalgo and Durango, framed a special mining code. The others merely adopted isolated measures. Oajaca, in 1873, declared free of taxation all capital exclusively invested in mining, on the mines and reduction-works, metals taken out in any form, upon their transit through the interior, or on their exportation, machinery, quicksilver, iron, blasting-powder, dynamite, and everything else for conducting the industry. Men engaged in mining were likewise exempted from military and municipal service. Puebla, between 1880 and 1882, also enacted liberal laws for the promotion of this branch of business. In most of the states, however, it was heavily burdened. The national constitution being amended in December 1883, the general government obtained power to issue a mining code for the whole republic.[2]
- ↑ It is not easy to ascertain how much revenue was derived from the mines in the present century. During the ten years from 1835 to 1844 it aggregated $1,988,899.
- ↑ It was so done Nov. 22, 1884. Under this law, which went into operation on January 1, 1885, are exempted, for fifty years from its date, from all direct taxation, mines of coal in all its varieties, iron, and quicksilver, as well as the products thereof. The transit through the interior of gold and silver, in bullion or coined, as also that of other metals and of all mining products, is likewise made free from every kind of impost. Quicksilver continues free from import dues, and from all direct taxes. Mines, not of coal, iron, or quicksilver, are required to pay a single impost on the value of the products without deducting expenses, which are not at any time to exceed 2 per cent. This tax is levied for the use of the state within which the property is situated, or for that of the federal treasury if it should be within a federal territory, or in that of Lower Cal. This tax is to be fixed every year by the respective legislature, or by the federal congress, as the case may be. This tax is aside from the coinage duty. Mills and reduction-works pay no higher rates of taxation than other industrial establishments. The federal government receives 25 per cent of the taxes collected by the state under this law. Mex., Diario Ofic., Nov. 26, 1984. Full information on mining laws to Dec. 1883 is given in Ramirez, Riqueza Min. Mex., 723-47. Santiago Ramirez, the author of Riqueza Minera de Mexico, an 8vo of 768 pages, printed in Mexico, is a mining engineer; and for the preparation of this exhaustive treatise, had before him all the data in possession of the Mexican government, and of the Sociedad Minera. He also consulted the most noted authorities upon the subject.
