no protection-duty. The only advantage anybody gets by this is that a certain part of the population is employed in a manufacture unsuited to the country, and is thus taken away from work that may be done profitably. The actual amount of money paid in wages to the class of operatives thus forced into existence is much less than the amount which the country forfeits for the sake of making its manta at home. Thus a sum actually amounting to a third of the annual taxation of the country is thrown away upon this one article; and more goes the same way, to encourage similar unprofitable manufactures.
With respect to the silver-mines, it is stated, on competent authority, that the northern States of Mexico are very rich in silver; but there is scarcely any population, and that consisting mostly of Red Indians who will not work. When this district becomes a territory of the United States—as seems almost certain, this silver will, no doubt, be worked.
We may make three periods in the history of Mexican silver-mining. Before the Conquest, the Aztecs worked the silver-ore at Tasco and other places; and were very familiar with silver, though they did not value it much. Under the Spaniards, the working of silver became the prominent industry of the country; and, until the Mexican Independence, the production steadily increased. The Spaniards invented amalgamation by the patio-process, a most, important improvement. Then came above twenty years of confusion, when little was done. But when the Republic had fairly got under way, and the country was in some measure open to foreigners, Europe, especially England, in hot haste to take advantage of the opportunity, sent over engineers and machinery, and great sums of money, much of which was quite wasted, to the hopeless ruin of a great part of the adventurers.
The improvements and the machinery remained, however; and the mines passed into other hands. Of late years the companies have been doing