Polynesian., 1844-08-03

IEOI1 tnc ulIc uCCCSoNy vi sui "'O
under Tariffs established by the government
so absurdly and evtravagantly high, that at
no period, could the prices obtainable in the
Mexican markets, enable them honestly to
pay the prime cost and charges on the goods
they imported, the interest of the money so
invested, and the duties, import and internal,
imposed by those Tariffs, unless by evadlng
a portion of the latter. Even were this ne
cessity not fully admitted by many of the
former ministers of Finance, from whose
g memorials / nave extracted, its existence
stands prominently forward on the very face
of the statement No. 2, before referred to.
Let any merchant either of Europe or Next
CO, or any one who is familiar with the prices
of both markets, take up that statement, and
coolly and impartially calculate, whether on
the average prices obtainable here, for the
general assortment of goods of which cargoes
are composed, and not singing out a few
small articles, it was ever possible, without
g%rievous and irrctricvable loss, to pay the full
duties imposed by the Tariffs that have been,
and are now in force.
Verify, the country is to be pitied whose
statesmen cannot devise u better system,-
whose great financial interests are commit
ted to the care Of servants so faithless; and
foreign merchants are to be pitied where
their success depends not upon what may be
called the science of Commerce, but adroit-
ness in the arts of evasion, or what may be
called fiscal chicane. Can any thing be more
degrading and humiliating, than the spectacle
of Il proud British merchant, on the arrival
OF a cargo, shut up in his counting house,
with one or two of those pcrjured rogues at
his elbow, calculating how to make "a profit,
not from the prices Of the market, which will
not yield it, but from evasions in the rates of
the tariff, which are high enough to afford a
bribe, to pocket which his per ured friend de-
liberately sells his public faith, his worldly
fame, and perhaps his souls salvation /?
True, he may escape from that Purgatory
OF honourable feeling, that position of moral
torture and debasement, and a house former
y existing in Guadalaxara, whose partners
| am proud to call my friends, did escape,
but it was by proudly refusing to enter the
charnel house of honour and good faith, for
which contempt of things as they were, and
preference of things as they ought to be, the
servants of the nation whose laws they dis
dalned to infringe, conspired to mine the
foundation of their establishment, as one
yielding to themselves no fruits; the house
tell, involving its constituents in loss, but it
fell through the moral heroism of it's part
ners, and the reputation they have left, is to
be envied.
In what | have said of the Mexican EN-
ployes, wish not to be understood as inclu-
ing them all in one general ban of prescribed
villains. There is Don Rafael Caiigas.
"vlsitudor" of Mazatlan, a man advanced in
years, with a large family, and poor. but
quite incorruptiblc. There have been, and
there are others, of the same honorable
stamp, but they are "rari nantes in gurciie
rasto', and if they adhered to their prin-
clPies, they have commonly sunk in the
whirlpool, from combinations similar to those
which ruined my friends, the former house
of Guadalaxara.
Having proved that contraband, up to
a late period, has existed enthroned in this
Republic, now proceed to give an approxi-
mated idea of its amount.
In what | have already quoted from Don
Antonio Garay, it will be seen, that he esti-
mated 1t at more than one half of the duties
received. Now it will be seen by note 9 TO
table 8, that the average yearly amount
OF duties received, for II years, was
S6,6l9, 1886, from the maritime custom-houscs
alone. 1t therefore follows, according to
nm, that S6,6l9, 996 was the measure of
yearly contraband, and that the maritime
custom-houses ought really to have produced,
every year, 1913, 1888, 500
Don Jose Mariana Blasco, Min"
lister of Finance, in 1885, in his
"Memoria for that wear, to
table No. g., adds a note, signed
by Don Ygnacio Sierra Rosso,
in which is given a calculation
that of S33 sol ,456 of goods i'm
ported, at least one-third is nv