Cotton.
In consequence of the high price of imported goods, owing to restrictive tariffs as well as to the costliness of transportation a number of intelligent persons began some years ago to establish factories for cottons and woollens. The stimulus of domestic factories it was supposed would naturally increase the culture of the raw materials, and, accordingly, the national industry was aided from the beginning by prohibitions or excessive duties, which either excluded the foreign raw material altogether, or fostered the contraband introduction of cotton twist and woollen thread.
Cotton was among the indigenous products of Mexico at the time of the conquest; and the early adventurers not only found it to constitute the common vesture of the masses of the people, but also that the most delicate and luxurious articles of dress were made of it. The Aztecs possessed the art of spinning it to an extreme degree of fineness and of imparting to it the beautiful and brilliant dyes for which they were celebrated; but both these mysteries were entirely lost in the general destruction of aboriginal arts and records by the Spaniards. Notwithstanding the natural anxiety of Spain to furnish her colonists with her manufactures, she could never prevent the people from weaving and wearing this spontaneous product of their soil. And, although the cultivation of the raw material was neglected or not pursued with the ingenious industry that would have made it a great staple product, it is nevertheless estimated that the annual value of the domestic manufacture in Mexico amounted to about $5,000,000. After the consummation of national independence, foreign nations hastened to seize the trade of Mexico and to fill the markets with an abundant but costly supply of European and American stuffs. The drain of the