Almost all the interest Europe takes in Mexico, politically and commercially, turns upon the exportation of silver. The gold, cochineal, and vanilla are of small account. It is the silver dollars that pay for the Manchester goods, woollens, hardware, and many other things—those ubiquitous boxes of sardines à l’huile, for instance. The Mexicans send to Europe some five millions sterling in silver every year, that is, about twelve shillings apiece for all the population. It is just about what their government spends annually in promoting the maladministration of the country (and, looking at the matter in that point of view, they don’t do their work badly for the money). The income of the Mexican church is not quite so much, but not far off. Baron Humboldt has expressed a hope that, at some future day, the Mexicans will turn their attention to producing articles of real intrinsic value, and not those which are merely a sign to represent it. He tells us, quite feelingly, how the Peace of Amiens stopped the working of the iron-mines that had been opened when they could get no iron from abroad; for, when trade was reopened, people preferred buying in Europe probably a better article at one-third the price. He even hopes an enlightened government will encourage (that is, protect) more useful industries. This was written fifty years ago, though. If an enlightened government will give people some security for life and property, and make reasonable laws, and execute them,—leaving men of business to find out for themselves how it suits them to employ their capital, it seems probable that the balance between articles of real value and articles of imaginary value will adjust itself, perhaps better than an enlightened government could do it. The Mexican government has, unfortunately, followed Humboldt’s advice in some respects. Cotton goods, woollens, and hardware are thus protected. We may sum up the statistics of the Mexican cotton-manufacture in a rough way thus,—taking merely into question the coarse cotton cloth called _manta_, and used principally by the Indians. We may reckon roughly that for this article alone the Mexicans have to pay a million sterling annually more than they could get it for if there were 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.